With the latest round of HP Pavilion laptops, you now have even more choices to make when buying your PC. So, when you’re looking at buying a new dv4, dv6 or dv7 – you’re getting 3rd generation Intel Core CPUs and the option to amp up your graphics with either a GeForce GT 630M or GeForce GT 650M. (The later falls just below the GTX-enthusiast class line in terms of performance.) What does this mean to you? You’re getting some pretty solid gaming performance-to-go with the 650M without breaking the bank.
In the past, we’ve already broken down in decent detail what the new 3rd generation Intel Core processors can do, but let’s take a look at the next link in the performance chain – discrete graphics. In this case, let’s take a quick look at what’s offered up on the Nvidia chips themselves…
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Architecture |
Kepler |
Fermi |
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Processor Cores |
Up to 384 |
Up to 96 |
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Features |
Optimus, PhysX, Verde Drivers, CUDA, 3DTV Play |
Optimus, PhysX, Verde Drivers, CUDA, 3DTV Play |
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Processor Clock |
Up to 850 MHz |
Up to 800MHz |
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Memory Clock |
Up to 2000 MHz |
Up to 2000 MHz |
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Memory Interface |
Up to 2GB DDR3 or |
Up to 2GB DDR3 |
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Memory Width |
Up to 128-bit |
Up to 128-bit |
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DirectX version |
DX11 |
DX11 |
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Memory Bandwidth |
Up to 64.0 |
Up to 32.0 |
That, however, is just the graphics. We should probably check out the rest of the machine – in this case, the new Pavilion dv7. This beastly machine that I swiped from the labs has some slick, tapered lines and plenty under the hood. It accommodates the Beats audio speaker bar sitting below the crisp 17-inch screen. And under the hood of the unit I grabbed: 8GB RAM, a 3rd Gen Intel Core i7 CPU and….a 2GB GeForce 650M GPU. Yep. Before I give this thing a giant thumbs up for gaming, though, I am planning to throw a giant round of benchmark tests at this thing to see how well it performs.
Since you asked, here’s the deal:
I don’t know whether to fully attribute this to the new 3rd Gen Core processors, the on-board GPU or, more likely, a combo of the two – but I was getting some respectable numbers in my benchmark tests at Max settings. I should note that because of the card and native resolutions of the display, I performed the “Max” tests at 1920 by 1080 resolution with everything cranked up to 11; The “Medium” tests ran at 1280 by 1024 with all medium settings – and special features such as PhysX turned off. As for which games I’m using for testing – and why I’m using them – I have a story here that goes into all the benchmarking hijinks.
In graphical form:
What all this means is that you could play games fully maxed out with performance in the 30 frames-per-second range on average. If you tinker with adjusting the settings (anti-aliasing and the like) a little lower, you’ll obviously get a speed bump. So if you do get this machine, I’d recommend playing around with the settings to find your visual nirvana. As I get more time to tinker with the latest dv7, I’ll pepper in some more suggestions on the blog to help you get the most out of it.
Sometimes, though, you don’t need full-blown power – you want to eke more life out of your batteries. In the past, I’ve talked a bunch about the AMD heat we pack in some of our laptops and their ability to toggle between the on-board graphics and the discrete card to conserve battery power. Nvidia has their own solution – Optimus technology. It works behind the scenes – looking for apps / games that make DirectX calls (or, quite frankly, anything that benefit from a discrete graphics card) and then optimizes your computing experience – and battery life. What? That’s not enough of an explanation? You can go deep into the weeds on the Nvidia site to learn more about Optimus. Y’know, if you feel like curling up with a white paper before bedtime.
So there’s a quick head’s up for you guys as you start looking for a new laptop to buy, you now have a couple more interesting options – and choices to make. The Pavilion dv4, dv6 and dv7 will start at $549.99, $579.99 and $799.99 respectively and will be available in the US on June 20th.
You got questions? I got answers! Hit me in the comments.
