Reply to this thread
Solved Forum question
Started by pemanor | | 6 answers
I'm looking to buy a new laptop for my 12yo son who is big into Minecraft (hosting a server), Portal 2, and similar games. Of course I'm on a budget like most people, and I'm looking at the new Acer Aspire V5-552-8404 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DDFEXWA/ref=ox_sc_a...). I see it's got AMD Radeon HD 8550G Graphics, 2.1GHz processor, 4G ram. Is this enough to last him a couple years? If not out of the box, can i easily expand it to meet our needs? Thanks
Anonymous
November 21, 2013 3:45:33 AM
Here are some comments from Amazon that might help:
'It runs Minecraft quite well for my son at full settings. It ran even better with the addition of 4GB of RAM. For me mass Exports in Lightroom of RAW files with parameter changes goes much quicker than with my Lenovo X1 Carbon with i5.'
'It runs tf2 magnificently, runs minecraft just as well, and I have been playing through batman arkham asylum with majority of settings at max and it has had only a couple of slowdowns in certain areas of the game (and this is without downgrading to windows 7!)'
'UPDATE: I just downgraded the OS to Windows 7 and my goodness, the performance went through the roof! It now runs The Witcher on high setting almost perfectly (with anti-aliasing turned off, since that was the biggest performance killer), and runs Skyrim with little to no trouble, though I've yet to mod it, so it runs as well as it did on release. I can now safely say that this is a good gaming laptop. Not the greatest, but I'm impressed.'
Despite the low-ish clock speed, and what Ryan has said, the Aspire V5-552-8404 has proven itself to be a decent gaming laptop from multiple sources.
The main benefit versus other laptops in it's class is the design factor and portability.
'It runs Minecraft quite well for my son at full settings. It ran even better with the addition of 4GB of RAM. For me mass Exports in Lightroom of RAW files with parameter changes goes much quicker than with my Lenovo X1 Carbon with i5.'
'It runs tf2 magnificently, runs minecraft just as well, and I have been playing through batman arkham asylum with majority of settings at max and it has had only a couple of slowdowns in certain areas of the game (and this is without downgrading to windows 7!)'
'UPDATE: I just downgraded the OS to Windows 7 and my goodness, the performance went through the roof! It now runs The Witcher on high setting almost perfectly (with anti-aliasing turned off, since that was the biggest performance killer), and runs Skyrim with little to no trouble, though I've yet to mod it, so it runs as well as it did on release. I can now safely say that this is a good gaming laptop. Not the greatest, but I'm impressed.'
Despite the low-ish clock speed, and what Ryan has said, the Aspire V5-552-8404 has proven itself to be a decent gaming laptop from multiple sources.
The main benefit versus other laptops in it's class is the design factor and portability.
pemanor said:
ryan27968 said:
Honestly, I think that 6GB should be enough for now. The A8-5550M runs at 2.1 and can boost to 3.1 as far as i can see. Here is what i would set the configuration to if I were you, taking into consideration what you want to do.these are all the things i would upgrade, while leaving the others alone:
get the better graphics card
get the external dvd drive
get the backlit keyboard.
get the bluetooth if it is in the budget
I am currently using a 1366x768 15.6 inch screen and most of the time, unless you are really trying to see the pixels, you don't really notice. However a 1080p screen will look a bit better so if it is important to your son, then go ahead. If you have the budget for it, also upgrade the cpu, although the standard one will also be fine.
Thanks so much!
No problem. My pleasure.
pemanor
August 7, 2013 6:24:45 AM
ryan27968 said:
Honestly, I think that 6GB should be enough for now. The A8-5550M runs at 2.1 and can boost to 3.1 as far as i can see. Here is what i would set the configuration to if I were you, taking into consideration what you want to do.these are all the things i would upgrade, while leaving the others alone:
get the better graphics card
get the external dvd drive
get the backlit keyboard.
get the bluetooth if it is in the budget
I am currently using a 1366x768 15.6 inch screen and most of the time, unless you are really trying to see the pixels, you don't really notice. However a 1080p screen will look a bit better so if it is important to your son, then go ahead. If you have the budget for it, also upgrade the cpu, although the standard one will also be fine.
Thanks so much!
Best solution chosen by pemanor
Honestly, I think that 6GB should be enough for now. The A8-5550M runs at 2.1 and can boost to 3.1 as far as i can see. Here is what i would set the configuration to if I were you, taking into consideration what you want to do.
these are all the things i would upgrade, while leaving the others alone:
get the better graphics card
get the external dvd drive
get the backlit keyboard.
get the bluetooth if it is in the budget
I am currently using a 1366x768 15.6 inch screen and most of the time, unless you are really trying to see the pixels, you don't really notice. However a 1080p screen will look a bit better so if it is important to your son, then go ahead. If you have the budget for it, also upgrade the cpu, although the standard one will also be fine.
these are all the things i would upgrade, while leaving the others alone:
get the better graphics card
get the external dvd drive
get the backlit keyboard.
get the bluetooth if it is in the budget
I am currently using a 1366x768 15.6 inch screen and most of the time, unless you are really trying to see the pixels, you don't really notice. However a 1080p screen will look a bit better so if it is important to your son, then go ahead. If you have the budget for it, also upgrade the cpu, although the standard one will also be fine.
pemanor
August 7, 2013 6:02:12 AM
ryan27968 said:
The two priorities when buying a laptop are these: A good CPU and a good GPU. The reason for this is because everything else can be upgraded at a later stage. You can upgrade RAM, Hard Drive and screen at a later stage on most laptops. However, with almost all laptops, you cannot upgrade the CPU or GPU at a later stage so when buying a laptop, keep in mind that the CPU and GPU you get, you keep. In my opinion, the CPU on this looks a bit weak. Opt for at least a 2.67 GHZ if you can. Also, DO NOT buy a laptop with Intel HD graphics as the primary GPU. It works fine for flash games but that is it. Look for an nVidia or AMD with at least 1GB of video RAM. Even if the rest of the system sucks, get these two things and you are good to go. I wouldn't buy this laptop if I were you. However, if he is just going to be running Minecraft, this laptop should serve you well. However, the Portal 2 performance will suffer and he will have to use it with low graphics settings.Thank you for your reply and the information you provided. I appreciate it very much since I don't want to buy something just because it's cheap if it won't work well. SO I am now looking at the hp 15-z j000 as a lower cost but workable laptop based on recommendations in this and other gaming forums. I will be upgrading the graphics card and the display, but I can't find the GHz specs on the AMD Quad-Core A8-5550M Accelerated Processor. Also wondering if you think it's worth it to spend the $20 now and update the system memory from 6GB to 8GB? Thanks again!
The two priorities when buying a laptop are these: A good CPU and a good GPU. The reason for this is because everything else can be upgraded at a later stage. You can upgrade RAM, Hard Drive and screen at a later stage on most laptops. However, with almost all laptops, you cannot upgrade the CPU or GPU at a later stage so when buying a laptop, keep in mind that the CPU and GPU you get, you keep. In my opinion, the CPU on this looks a bit weak. Opt for at least a 2.67 GHZ if you can. Also, DO NOT buy a laptop with Intel HD graphics as the primary GPU. It works fine for flash games but that is it. Look for an nVidia or AMD with at least 1GB of video RAM. Even if the rest of the system sucks, get these two things and you are good to go. I wouldn't buy this laptop if I were you. However, if he is just going to be running Minecraft, this laptop should serve you well. However, the Portal 2 performance will suffer and he will have to use it with low graphics settings.
See all answers