MSI Launches AMD Richland A10 APU Gaming Notebooks
Two new MSI gaming notebooks feature AMD's new Richland APU.
MSI Computer Corp. said on Tuesday that its GX70 and GX60 will be the world's first gaming notebooks to sport AMD's "Richland" A10-5750M APU. The new chip promises an increase in visual performance by up to 40 percent over previous generations, increased battery life and CPU performance. The resulting combination means longer gaming sessions with crisper, brighter and a more realistic visual experience.
"The GX70 and GX60 deliver the ultimate sensory experience for both professional and amateur gamers," said Andy Tung, vice president of sales for MSI US. "MSI is committed to the gaming community and we understand that cutting-edge components results in exceptional performance."
The GX70 3BE-007US has a starting price of $1,399.99 and features a 17.3-inch Full HD anti-reflective display, the AMD A10-5750M APU with AMD Radeon HD 8970M graphics (2 GB GDDR5), a full programmable backlit keyboard, a 750 GB HDD and 8 GB of DDR3 RAM (1600 MHz). Other features include Killer E2200 networking, a Blu-ray disc reader, USB 3.0 ports, AMD's Eyefinity 3D technology and more.
Then there's the GX60 3AE-216US with a starting price of $1,299.99. It sports a 15.6-inch Full HD anti-reflective display, an AMD A10-5750M APU with Radeon HD 7970M graphics (2 GB GDDR5), a 750 GB HDD, and 8 GB of DDR3 RAM (1600 MHz). Additional features include Killer E2200 networking, a Blu-ray disc reader, USB 3.0 ports, AMD's Eyefinity 3D technology and more.
"'Richland' brings increases in both CPU and graphics along with improvements in battery life," AMD said during CES back in January. "'Richland' APUs are expected to come bundled with a wealth of elite software experiences which include gesture- and facial-recognition, wireless connectivity directly to TVs and monitors, and prioritization of system resources when streaming video."
Of course, these are just the latest two in the company's current lineup of twenty-four gaming laptops spanning Intel and AMD processors, and Windows 7 and Windows 8 operating systems. The most expensive yet is the 17.3-inch GT70 0NE-609US with a starting price of $2,899.99, an Intel Core i7-3630QM processor and a GeForce GTX 680M GPU (4GB GDDR5). The cheapest is the 15.6-inch GE60 0NC-498US with a starting price of $999.99, an Intel Core i5-3230M processor and a GeForce GT 650M GPU (2 GB GDDR5).
For more information about the two latest notebooks, check out the GX70 here and the GX60 model here.
Integrated graphics serves the purpose of reducing power consumption when you are not gaming, by letting the discrete graphics shutdown to save power. if a gaming laptop doesn't have any integrated graphics, that high end GPU will be on all the time, though downclocked and at a low voltage.
So the benefit is power savings. I'm not sure of the benefit of the increased GPU performance of the APU, perhaps the discrete GPU doesn't have to kick in, in so many situations, the APU can handle heavier duty graphics tasks before needing to fire up the big GPU. Also it's in the Richland APU design so there is no choice in the power of the GPU of the APU if you want AMD's fastest mobile CPU and some sort of integrated graphics as well without having a separate 3rd party integrated graphics chip taking up space on the motherboard.
I do wish AMD would make 45W mobile APUs so the clocks go up more.
How is it evident for this laptops? Where is performance you're speaking of? And what ratio did you think about?
You've obviously never used one of these. The AMD APU are incredibly good at what they do. I have one with an older A10-4600. It's rare that the CPU holds me back. When it does no mobile CPU will do the job adequately, I use a desktop system to get the job done. On the other hand it lasts for hours and plays games surprisingly well, not something I can easily say of Intel systems at this point.