Great laptop deal on Amazon, is it Dolphin-worthy?

[AwesomeArceus277]

This HP Pavilion is going for $630 on Amazon right now. Quad-core Skylake i7, 8 GB RAM, 1080p IPS display, 1 TB hard drive, and so much more basically confirms that this is a steal. $1k+ specs for <$650. One question remains in my mind, though. How badly can this crush CPU-intensive games compared to other laptops?

[admin89]

It will run Dolphin well as long as it doesn't overheat and cpu starts throttling back
I don't think it would be worth $1k+ but rather $800 , the pavillion series are all multi-media notebooks which will likely overheat at full load
Repaste aftermarket thermal paste is recommended (either IC diamond 7 or Arctic MX-4)

[AwesomeArceus277]

(01-18-2016, 10:51 AM)admin89 Wrote: It will run Dolphin well as long as it doesn't overheat and cpu starts throttling back
I don't think it would be worth  $1k+ but rather $800 , the pavillion series are all multi-media notebooks which will likely overheat at full load
Repaste aftermarket thermal paste is recommended (either IC diamond 7 or Arctic MX-4)

I have a barely used unit of IC Diamond 7 so I'll be fine. Thanks for telling me that, I wouldn't have known.

[leolam]

Keep in mind that there's no dedicated GPU so you probably won't be able to use graphical settings higher than 2x IR with anti-aliasing…

[AwesomeArceus277]

(01-19-2016, 03:56 AM)leolam Wrote: Keep in mind that there's no dedicated GPU so you probably won't be able to use graphical settings higher than 2x IR with anti-aliasing…

Sorry for the horribly late reply, but I'm not really interested in making the games look great, just running them great is fine.

[admin89]

This is a better deal though it might be too late
Pro : Latest Gaming laptop class with 3 heatsinks which mean it will run cooler than that HP notebook , IPS panel , 256GB SSD, GTX 960M , i5 6300HQ for a very cheap price

[leolam]

Then integrated graphics should be enough for your use case (1x IR with no improvements). Although is that really what you want? Anything below 1.5x IR on a HD screen will look horrible if you make the window larger than the internal resolution or full screen. But maybe you just don't care

@admin89: that looks like a much better laptop for gaming and Dolphin. But the price is also much higher...

[mbc07]

(01-18-2016, 10:51 AM)admin89 Wrote: Repaste aftermarket thermal paste is recommended (either IC diamond 7 or Arctic MX-4)

It's not a recommendation, it's a must for any HP Laptop! Replace your TIM as soon as you get it if you're buying an HP, the laptops they sell are like toasters with the stock TIM. (BTW, I'm using Prolimatech PK3 on mine and it's running well, still a little hot, but not overheating anymore).

And about the IGP, well, although I use the dedicated GT 635M most of time, the four years old Intel HD 4000 IGP I currently have can handle 1.5X IR in Dolphin just fine, pretty sure current Intel IGPs can handle at least 2X IR (maybe even more if it's a lightweight game)...

[AwesomeArceus277]

Again, sorry for being late, but yeah I had checked out the i7559 and it's just too much for me. I wouldn't mind the 1-2x IR though, I'm one to run something like BioShock 1 at like 800x600 low just to get a good framerate (true story on current laptop, cheapy Ivy Bridge Sattelite).