AMD A6-5200 user review

[NTMBK]

Ok i just want to chime in on the A4 5000 and A6 5200- disappointing. They don't even compete with the i3 3217/3317U or whatever variant. AMD's are known for good multi-tasking CPU's but not these ones.

The prices of these A4 & A6 equipped laptops are a tad high, they should be priced closer to the E-series laptop prices. I managed to get one for under $350 CAD and it streams videos well (Netflix, YouTube, Google movies, Twitch.tv, etc) so luckily the laptop is HDCP compliant. But you can forget about using Office and lightweight gaming and even services (Plex and VNC chokes).

PS- which Catalyst driver works? Auto detect can't find the GPU.

Install drivers correctly, THEN review laptop.

 

[Vesku]

Are you really asserting that the quad kabinis can't run Office well enough? Are you sure you aren't just getting an overall choppy experience due to use of generic VGA driver?

 

[TeknoBug]

Wait, you don't even have GPU properly detected and proper driver installed and you talk about lightweight gaming? Okay.

It's installed, just that \i want to see if there's any updated version of CCC.

 

[TeknoBug]

Nevermind, seems the beta 13.11 is the one, looks like a modified 12.1 is installed.

guess I will have to wait for 8.1 to go official next week.

 

[Vesku]

So are you still saying that A4-5000 can't handle Office? Because that wasn't my experience with a demo model.

 

[Shivansps]

Check that the IGP drivers are properly installed, Windows 8 "Basic Adapter" has a full DX9 software implementation, so games and apps that uses DX9 (that includes Metro and W8 UI) will run on Win8 even if no IGP drivers are installed, but all on CPU.

 

[monstercameron]

dont worry, if it can "run" crysis 2, office applications shouldnt be a problem...

 

[TeknoBug]

So are you still saying that A4-5000 can't handle Office? Because that wasn't my experience with a demo model.

It can but it was a little laggy when I used it.

 

[TeknoBug]

Check that the IGP drivers are properly installed, Windows 8 "Basic Adapter" has a full DX9 software implementation, so games and apps that uses DX9 (that includes Metro and W8 UI) will run on Win8 even if no IGP drivers are installed, but all on CPU.

There is an ATI CCC installed and it says 12.1 but a modified version (RTM version probably), it has no problems playing videos even at 1080p but that's about it.

 

[Vesku]

Which brand? I believe the one that felt pretty snappy to me was an Acer. No frills 15.6 inch but at least it had 4GB of RAM nothing too silly on the penny-pinching.

 

[monstercameron]

the guy is either ignorant of what his pc is doing, doing something wrong or at at the very worst, willfully poopooing amd kabini.

just got the chance to do a few more tests and this little bandwidth starved apu did fine.

 

[Abwx]

Actualy he did post a screen of his pc with windows infos
but for some reason he removed it.....

 

[TeknoBug]

Which brand? I believe the one that felt pretty snappy to me was an Acer. No frills 15.6 inch but at least it had 4GB of RAM nothing too silly on the penny-pinching.

It's an Acer, E1 522-5603, 6GB RAM.

 

[TeknoBug]

the guy is either ignorant of what his pc is doing, doing something wrong or at at the very worst, willfully poopooing amd kabini.

just got the chance to do a few more tests and this little bandwidth starved apu did fine.

Gee thanks, I've been a long time AMD user since the mid 90's, I picked up a low end laptop to use it as an HTPC mainly. I know you've had your hands on multiple A4 and A6's but have you actually used the A4 5000? I actually should take my laptop back and get an A6 5200 however that's another $180+ where I live, these processors aren't really worth spending more than $500 for because you can get i3 3120M or 3217U's for less than that which gives better bang for buck.

 

[monstercameron]

sorry for the condescending tone of my comment, maybe there is something running in the background...the unit I was playing around with always has 30% cpu zapped away be background processes...maybe an antivirus program or some other costly program is running in the background...also try and update to the latest stable or beta drivers and see it that helps. Another thing to try would be manually forcing 1.5GHz by using high performance battery profile.

as for perf...the a4-5000 is only a little ways off from the a6-5200, so i wouldnt think that the performance gap would be that great.

 

[monstercameron]

here are some more game tests I did, this apu is pretty decent...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsKrUVnKLwk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJiArfpXn_I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHkyVTqUUg8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F37sMoukr4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gver5xxGdfs

 

[monstercameron]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7417/sony-vaio-pro-13-exceptionally-portable/3

why not compare it tothe a6-5200? the gpu/gaming results would look so much better...

 

[rainy]

TeknoBug, personally I would prefer to have A6-5200 with 4 GB of RAM rather than A4-5000 with 6 GB.

Could you check speed of RAM in your laptop?
Future Shop shows it as DDR3 1066 MHz - if it's true, you should expect lower performance of CPU and even to higher degree of iGPU.

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/prod...d-6gb-ram-windows-8-e1-522-5603/10254569.aspx

Btw, here you have four laptops with A6-5200 from Best Buy (lowest price):

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....c=abcat0500000

 

[TeknoBug]

TeknoBug, personally I would prefer to have A6-5200 with 4 GB of RAM rather than A4-5000 with 6 GB.

Could you check speed of RAM in your laptop?
Future Shop shows it as DDR3 1066 MHz - if it's true, you should expect lower performance of CPU and even to higher degree of iGPU.

http://www.futureshop.ca/en-CA/prod...d-6gb-ram-windows-8-e1-522-5603/10254569.aspx

CPU-z says 800 (DDR3 1600), probably a typo over at FS. Best Buy Canada has those A6 5200 for $500 or more, those prices in the US Best Buy are actually decent.

I removed McAfee, Norton Online backup, a handful of Acer bloatware and unwanted apps and it seems to run a little smoother but not quite there yet. Tiworker.exe sure likes to run an awful lot, and that's because it wasn't able to download any updates (sat at 0% for a couple days) and I fixed that.

 

[Chiropteran]

It can but it was a little laggy when I used it.

If your Acer is anything like the G505 I bought, it's probably the incredibly slow 5400RPM laptop hard drive that is causing the seemingly sluggish performance.

 

[sm625]

Yes I would also like to see a League of Legends test, maybe an ARAM on max settings. That, with a youtube playing in the background would be a nice real world test.

 

[TeknoBug]

If your Acer is anything like the G505 I bought, it's probably the incredibly slow 5400RPM laptop hard drive that is causing the seemingly sluggish performance.

I plan on putting my Intel SSD I have laying around into it, but it's a 40GB SSD, it's already taking up 35GB on the HDD.

I installed F1 2012 and had to tone down some of the gfx settings and it plays just fine (25-27fps).

 

[SlowSpyder]

I plan on putting my Intel SSD I have laying around into it, but it's a 40GB SSD, it's already taking up 35GB on the HDD.

I installed F1 2012 and had to tone down some of the gfx settings and it plays just fine (25-27fps).

I have a Llano APU based laptop. It isn't a powerhouse by any means, but once I installed a fresh version of Windows and put a decent SSD in, that little APU really feels like it punches above it's weight.

 

[monstercameron]

Yes I would also like to see a League of Legends test, maybe an ARAM on max settings. That, with a youtube playing in the background would be a nice real world test.

i dont have yt in the background but here is aram on playable settings http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsT-8UUUAAc

 

[Shivansps]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7417/sony-vaio-pro-13-exceptionally-portable/3

why not compare it tothe a6-5200? the gpu/gaming results would look so much better...

Take a closer look, the I5-4200U is getting its ass kicked in games by the Aspire R7-571-6858, with a I5-3337U! There is just NO way that a HD4000 ULV to be better than a HD4400 ULV, something odd is going on there.