Most reviews in the media for some reason affect only discrete graphics accelerators for personal computers. Many professionals only occasionally mention two chips that the manufacturer created for different platforms. It’s time to correct the situation, because many buyers in the segment of mobile devices also have a desire to play resource-intensive toys that demonstrate realistic images.
The focus of this article is a laptop video adapter that supports the full functionality of all demanding dynamic toys on the market, AMD Radeon HD 7600M series. The characteristics of the device and an overview of the functionality will help a potential buyer decide on a laptop.
Interesting position of the manufacturer
Starting with the 7000th series of video cards, AMD has made some changes to the technical process, which allowed us to separate the segment of mobile devices from the production of discrete video adapters. Comparisons of chips created for laptops and PCs are no longer relevant. For example, the AMD Radeon HD 7600M series graphics accelerator is able to outperform its computer counterpart in some tests.
The video adapter participating in the review is positioned in the highest gaming class in the mobile solutions market and, in most cases, is installed in laptops in CrossFire mode (with an integrated chip). A discrete representative of the personal computer market is located in the lower gaming segment and is often purchased with goods from a budget class.
The claimed specifications of the mobile device
Any potential buyer who is looking for a laptop for games is simply obliged to understand video cards. Since it is the graphics accelerator that is responsible for launching the game in decent quality. The video card AMD Radeon HD 7600M series features clearly hint at the gaming qualities of the device:
- 40-nanometer chipset production technology is involved, which stands out on the market for its low power consumption;
- uses modern GDDR5 memory working on a 128-bit bus;
- on one graphic chip, the manufacturer placed 480 stream processors, 24 texture units and 32 units for rasterization.
Definitely such characteristics for the AMD Radeon HD 7600M chip are able to demonstrate not only high performance in games, but also display a realistic image. Confuses only the frequency of the graphics core - only 600 MHz. As many users note, overclocking is indispensable. But the manufacturer has its own vision of operating a mobile video adapter - CrossFire mode solves all problems.
Graphics Accelerator Technologies and Features
Equally important for the AMD Radeon HD 7600M series mobile video adapter are the performance characteristics that are achieved by implementing modern technologies for the graphics accelerator. Mobile video card is fully compatible with DirectX 11 and OpenGL 4.2 libraries. Only these indicators are enough to understand that the laptop is designed for games.
The manufacturer did not stop there and installed on the chip: a hardware tessellation unit, a multithreading accelerator, a texture archiver (HDR), various smoothing modes (TXAA, MLAA) and 16-fold anisotropic filtering. The video card not only supports viewing and decoding Bly Ray and HD streams, but also supports working with 3D images.
Oddities of CrossFire Game Mode
Professionals recommend that potential buyers in the mobile market do not save on a cheap integrated adapter (often the manufacturer installs a second card with less potential). As many owners note in their reviews, the problem manifests itself when the laptop starts in CrossFire mode (when two video cards are paired). The discrete graphics card AMD Radeon HD 7600M series has a capacity of 1024 MB, and the integrated video adapter is limited to 512 megabytes. When two graphic accelerators are launched, the devices are guided by the least characteristics of each other. Accordingly, instead of 1 GB of working memory, the user receives only half.
About software
Potential buyers have no other options when choosing a laptop operating system if they decide to opt for the AMD Radeon HD 7600M series gaming video adapter. The performance characteristics of the device directly depend on the installed driver, but compatibility is provided only with Microsoft Windows products. It is not forbidden to install other systems on the laptop, but you should not expect high performance in games.
Windows owners need to monitor the operation of the update service, since after installing the operating system and drivers from the disk it will be found that the advertised DirectX 11 support does not work. The developers of the operating system chose to control the installation of the corresponding libraries on their own. Therefore, the installation of conventional drivers for full-featured operation is not enough for the Radeon HD 7600M mobile chips.
Real performance in games
It is immediately worth noting that the video adapter participating in the review is not the flagship on the market, which means it is not intended to run modern gaming applications in the maximum settings (Ultra). However, many games can still be run in perfect quality, but they are not able to overcome the psychological barrier of 20 frames per second. This includes the following resource-intensive dynamic toys running on laptops with an AMD Radeon HD 7600M video adapter: Alan Wake, Anno 2070, Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Crysis 2, and similar applications.
Things are very different with high settings. These games are able to demonstrate from 30 to 50 frames per second. And when switching the application to medium quality mode, resource-intensive games freely overcome the barrier of 100 FPS. True, there are several applications for which the performance of the Radeon HD 7600M adapter is not enough. For example, in Metro 2033 you can play with convenience only at low settings.
Mobile platform requirements
Many users who choose a gaming laptop with the Radeon HD 7600M series graphics accelerator lose sight of the other hardware features of the mobile device. A game video adapter without a powerful central processor is unlikely to allow the owner to enjoy his favorite toy. It is better to give preference to devices that have Intel Core I5 or I7 crystals on board. With mobile solutions from AMD processors in recent years, the situation has not changed - they have nothing to offer.
You need to pay attention to RAM, but its volume depends more on the installed operating system. If the user prefers to use the 64-bit platform, the memory should be at least 8 GB. In other cases, four gigabytes is enough. Do not forget about the hard drive. The system must have a solid state SSD drive installed.
Finally
The review conducted on the AMD Radeon HD 7600M series mobile video adapter once again proves that laptop owners can also afford resource-intensive dynamic games. Indeed, in fact, a discrete video adapter for a desktop PC is no different from the mobile version. The same technical process, the same technology and innovation. Naturally, the same result, only in conditions of complete autonomy and mobility.
Do not forget about using a laptop for business purposes. Complex mathematical calculations, working with 3D objects, video encoding, graphics processing - all this is supported at the hardware level by a game video adapter created for mobile platforms. There are no restrictions.