Acer Aspire AS5740G-6979: Budget Priced but Great Gaming
by Dustin Sklavos on April 2, 2010 7:39 PM ESTAMD's Mobility Radeon HD 5650 may be the slowest of its mainstream mobile graphics, but as you'll see in the moment it's still quite a demon for a mobile chip. Based off of the desktop Redwood chip that powers the Radeon HD 5570 and 5670, it sports a 128-bit bus, 400 stream processors, 20 texturing units, and 8 ROPs. The stream processors alone are ten times the number found in AMD's integrated graphics parts. The 1GB of GDDR3 Acer chose to pair with the 5650 does seem almost superfluous, though: at the Aspire's native resolution, half that amount would've been plenty. It's only when (if) connected to a much higher resolution screen that we might start to see a benefit to the extra memory. On the other hand, Windows 7 is able to better leverage GPU memory for windowing tasks, so as long as the price isn't negatively impacted we're happy to get more than enough dedicated GPU memory.
The 3DMark results should be interesting if for no other reason than to watch how a substantially more powerful GPU than mainstream notebooks typically see can compare to the more common – and more anemic – offerings. Try to remember this performance is in a $749 machine.
Despite the Inspiron 15's faster processor, it can't hold a candle to the Aspire's Radeon HD 5650. We expect the 5650 to deliver the same kind of performance in our gaming tests. The more interesting comparison for gamers is going to be the Alienware M11x, and here the HD 5650 shows its muster and beats the M11x by 10% to 30% in 03/05/06… but interestingly enough the M11x ends up being 20% faster in Vantage. Similarly, the 5740G beats the N61Jv by 20-30% in the older 3DMark suites, but the gap shrinks to 10% in Vantage. So which result should we trust? How about neither: we'll let actual gaming performance do the talking!
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Fastidious - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
You'd think they'd put a bigger battery in it at least. I never understand laptops that have shitty battery life since the whole point of them is to be mobile. Two hours is terrible for a new laptop.Alurian - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
Agreed. What point is there in having a lighter laptop to carry around if it doesn't have the battery life for you to actually use it?Miggleness - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
That's where customers needs to balance things out. There's not gaming laptop under a grand that has decent battery life. Being mobile can mean you can easily lug the laptop anywhere, just be sure to plug it in. Can be a convenience to quite a number of people I know who game.vol7ron - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
Mobile devices don't always mean being able to use it at the beach, or use it on a train, w/o needing to plug it in. Instead, what's it's come to mean is that you have the luxury of TAKING IT PLACES with the opportunity of plugging it in; whereas lugging a desktop (and monitor) around with you is more of an inconvenience.I do agree that battery life should be better, since it seems like it takes 2 hours to wade through spam and check mail, but that is why they make multiple batteries of various capacities. There are also different uses for laptops; gaming is one of the most power hungry things you can do on a laptop, if you're using a kickass video card with a decent performing screen and expect high quality response, then you're going to need more juice. Such a laptop would be expected to be plugged in. Having such a system in a laptop case enables you to play at school, or on vacation, as well as at home.
Hrel - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
Seriously, I WANT to give them more money for a 1600x900 screen. And preferably a 7200rpm hard drive and a higher capacity battery wouldn't hurt but it's not really necessary.chrnochime - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
Well Considering that envy 15 is known to be hot as heck and with equally low battery life(the former being much more unavoidable), I think users would prefer either going with optimus or cooler (pun intended) designs.chicagotechjunkie - Monday, April 5, 2010 - link
The gen 1 envy had some heat issues, but the newest generation doesn't get very hot at all. after a full suite of benchmarks, the GPU never broke 72C (that's with an overclock). The palm rest and underside got a little warm, but nothing that was abnormal imo.blackshard - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
Why there are no AMD laptops in comparison? I mean, the only one is the gateway NV-52 with the old Athlon QL-64 and integrated graphics. Why there are no Turion II, for example? It would be nice to know the difference with higher priced notebooks.jasperjones - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
Anandtech delivers the best laptop reviews imo.However, I am getting more and more disappointed that virtually every laptop reviewed here features dedicated graphics. Why limit yourself to serving laptop gamers and people needing mobile business graphics cards? I can't be the only reader that prefers integrated graphics on a laptop (I assume there might be fewer readers that prefer integrated graphics on a desktop).
mtoma - Saturday, April 3, 2010 - link
Hello!There is something that really bothers me about Anandtech (otherwise my favorite tech site): why on Earth the laptop reviews ignore the long term reliability of the products? I am the co-owner of a computer repair-shop in Romania (in Europe, if you don't know where that country is).
And I can tell you first hand that 95% from all the laptops we repair are ACER!!!!! The motherboard often fails, there are serious flaws in the assembly quality, and in the medium and long run, these laptops suck!!!
When asked, the customers say that these laptops are cheap (they are the cheapest on the market, really) and they are confident on the reliability of a new product (which is, of course, a bad assumption). Here in Romania we have only one year warranty on the ACER machines, and of course, this tells us a lot about the quality of ACER laptops.
I believe, and I strongly suggest, that this respected site (and others who sell/buy those products) should care more about the medium and long term reliability of any tech product, because, often, the cheapest product is usually the worst buy decision. And, the cheapest laptop with a particular technical specification, has really NOT the best bang for the buck!
Suggestion: this site is very carreful about the realiability of the SSD drives, and in this regard his laptop reviews must be more aware.