Laptop question

[Mr.Paradox]

I have a Lenovo G505s, I use it for medical school mostly or when on long trips in the train, it's somewhat okay for daily driver non-gaming usage, but I'd like to be able to game on it from time to time especially when on the road.

It features a AMD A8-4500M 32nm Trinity APU, with an AMD Radeon 7640G HD iGPU and 4 Gigs of RAM @806MHz in Single Channel. Will it be viable to somewhat refurbish this laptop, by putting in 8 Gigs in Dual Channel and perhaps a new SSD or faster HDD since it's rocking a 512GB 2,5 WD 5400RPM Internal HDD to squeeze more juice out of it, or should I try to sell it and buy another laptop instead? I don't use it that often, but I would like to be able to play some decent games on it when I do use it when travelling. For the amount I use it I don't want to put alot of money into it so the low cost of refurbishing would be ideal vs buying a complete new laptop. Any ideas on this would be helpful.

[HoiDaniel]

You're not going to properly game on your laptop (FPS and graphical more intense games) without a good dedicated GPU. These you can not replace.

 

More RAM doesn't equal better computer performance. The only thing it does is allowing to run more programs simultaneously.

 

Replacing the HDD for an SSD is always a solid choice, for every build. Your laptop will be much more faster, but it won't result in better raw performance. Games won't run better, they will only load faster. 

[Mr.Paradox]

4 minutes ago, HoiDaniel said:

You're not going to properly game on your laptop (FPS and graphical more intense games) without a good dedicated GPU. These you can not replace.

 

More RAM doesn't equal better computer performance. The only thing it does is allowing to run more programs simultaneously.

 

Replacing the HDD for an SSD is always a solid choice, for every build. Your laptop will be much more faster, but it won't result in better raw performance. Games won't run better, they will only load faster. 

When I bought it games like CS:GO ran pretty good on it, but now I'm lucky if I hit 30FPS while graphical wise nothing really changed about CS except for the revamped maps, which I don't play to begin with so it stands to reason something else is reducing the performance, because Dust2 for example is still the same as it was 2 years ago with the only changed being wood doors replaced for steel ones. Ofcourse I could be wrong.

[HoiDaniel]

Just now, Mr.Paradox said:

When I bought it games like CS:GO ran pretty good on it, but now I'm lucky if I hit 30FPS while graphical wise nothing really changed about CS except for the revamped maps, which I don't play to begin with so it stands to reason something else is reducing the performance, because Dust2 for example is still the same as it was 2 years ago with the only changed being wood doors replaced for steel ones. Ofcourse I could be wrong.

As a CS veteran, yes performance degrades over time. But this is because they change certain things with patches and what not, so it's the game in his whole that changes.

But if you want to play CSGO at 60+ FPS, you'll need a laptop with a good modern dual core from intel (about $600) or a workstation quadcore (expensive). AMD laptop cpu's are close to being garbage if it comes to performance (in any task).

[Mr.Paradox]

2 minutes ago, HoiDaniel said:

As a CS veteran, yes performance degrades over time. But this is because they change certain things with patches and what not, so it's the game in his whole that changes.

But if you want to play CSGO at 60+ FPS, you'll need a laptop with a good modern dual core from intel (about $600) or a workstation quadcore (expensive). AMD laptop cpu's are close to being garbage if it comes to performance (in any task).

Begrijp me niet verkeerd, het is niet bedoeld als dagelijkse gaming laptop oid. Ik heb een gewoon een rig met een i7-5820K, 32GB DDR4, en een 980Ti, maar dit is echt iets voor onderweg gezien het redelijk vaak voorkomt dat ik 3,5 moet reizen met de trein en er een beetje op gamen onderweg zou leuk zijn, dus een refurbish is ideaal gezien het minder kost dan een compleet nieuwe laptop.

[Dackzy]

11 hours ago, Mr.Paradox said:

Begrijp me niet verkeerd, het is niet bedoeld als dagelijkse gaming laptop oid. Ik heb een gewoon een rig met een i7-5820K, 32GB DDR4, en een 980Ti, maar dit is echt iets voor onderweg gezien het redelijk vaak voorkomt dat ik 3,5 moet reizen met de trein en er een beetje op gamen onderweg zou leuk zijn, dus een refurbish is ideaal gezien het minder kost dan een compleet nieuwe laptop.

Hmm I hear what you say... if I could read that, but you have a desktop with a 5820k and 32gb ram with a 980ti right?

[Hamako]

He's trying to say that he'd rather choose the cheaper path of upgrading his laptop, instead of buying a new one, since he already has a gaming rig for proper gaming.

 

However, I would also recommend an entirely different machine. Even for casual gaming you will need better specs than what your laptop currently has, especially if it's supposed to last for a while. To save money, I would recommend selling your current laptop and investing it in a used machine.

 

I wouldn't necessarily recommend used gaming laptops, but old workstations, despite having CAD-oriented GPU's, will still offer decent gaming performance, without sacrificing aspects like build quality. Might be worth looking into.

[Mr.Paradox]

16 hours ago, Dackzy said:

Hmm I hear what you say... if I could read that, but you have a desktop with a 5820k and 32gb ram with a 980ti right?

Yes what I was saying to my fellow dutchman is  that I want to use that laptop for gaming while on the road. I make 7 hour commutes (3,5 to 3,5 back) 3 times a week, so it would be nice to be able to game on it while on the road, my current one is suiting me perfectly for non-gaming workloads like the things I have to do for medical school, browsing the web, watching movies etc, but it's lacking quite a bit in the gaming department, CS:GO for instance 35 FPS IF I'm lucky on the lowest possible settings, and that's not even close to demanding compared to other games I play on a regular basis. 

[Mr.Paradox]

13 hours ago, Hamako said:

He's trying to say that he'd rather choose the cheaper path of upgrading his laptop, instead of buying a new one, since he already has a gaming rig for proper gaming.

 

However, I would also recommend an entirely different machine. Even for casual gaming you will need better specs than what your laptop currently has, especially if it's supposed to last for a while. To save money, I would recommend selling your current laptop and investing it in a used machine.

 

I wouldn't necessarily recommend used gaming laptops, but old workstations, despite having CAD-oriented GPU's, will still offer decent gaming performance, without sacrificing aspects like build quality. Might be worth looking into.

Indeed. Only if it's worth while though, but I don't use it enough to warrent putting alot of money into it. So upgradability OR second hand would be my best bet compared to putting down 600 on a new machine. 

[HoiDaniel]

On 4/13/2016 at 3:51 AM, Mr.Paradox said:

Indeed. Only if it's worth while though, but I don't use it enough to warrent putting alot of money into it. So upgradability OR second hand would be my best bet compared to putting down 600 on a new machine. 

I'll type english if you don't mind, fellow dutchie 

 

Any upgrades to your laptop will be good and make your laptop perform better, of course. But all I was trying to explain is that your gaming performance won't improve. However, your laptop will be much faster, especially if you upgrade your HDD to a proper SSD. On bol.com you can buy a 250GB 750 evo for 68 euro's right now, only today. You might want to look into that. I would recommend it A LOT.

 

Also, you might want to look into less demanding games like dota or league. Okay, the games are maybe not your style but those games run literally on 80% of the laptops with 60 fps.