Toshiba Satellite P755D: Nearing the End of the Road for Llano
by Dustin Sklavos on April 11, 2012 12:00 AM ESTApplication and Futuremark Performance
Despite being AMD's fastest 35W mobile chip, the A8-3520M in the Toshiba Satellite P755D is nonetheless a good generation behind Sandy Bridge in CPU performance. Worse, Toshiba is going to be crippled in these comparisons by its slow 5,400-RPM mechanical hard drive, but please try to remember that this is also a sub-$700 notebook. It's not supposed to blow anything away; it's just supposed to get the job done.
PCMark has a tendency to skew decently towards the storage subsystem, and that probably accounts for why AMD's reference Llano platform with its slightly slower CPU continues to outperform the Satellite P755D. At the same time, this is the kind of difference in scores that unfortunately will manifest itself in day to day use; the slow hard drive in the P755D will result in a computing experience that's going to feel slower and less fluid.
Bounce over to our CPU-isolated tests and the clock boost on the P755D manifests itself in a modest but measurable performance boost over the reference A8-3500M. Llano's poor single-threaded performance continues to dog it, though, and it's only when it's presented with multi-threaded situations that it can even nip at the heels of a 17W Sandy Bridge CPU. Trinity can't come soon enough, and hopefully it can at least reduce the performance gap on the CPU side.
Where Llano has always been able to stretch its legs has been on the GPU half, and that's true again here. The A8-3520M's clock speed bump over the A8-3500M doesn't account for much if anything, but Llano continues to blow away Sandy Bridge's HD 3000 and even AMD's own entry-level mobile graphics. Once again, however, Trinity is needed to really make a compelling argument for AMD given the current pricing of Sandy Bridge CPU + NVIDIA GPU offerings—even Toshiba's own L755-S5173 (basically an Intel variant of the P755D with slightly different aesthetics and no Blu-ray drive) sells for the same price, and based on the components that notebook should deliver at least 15% more GPU performance with substantially better CPU performance.
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jrocks84 - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
I was hoping you would consider including testing of the wifi speed in future laptop reviews.jjrudey - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
I have the Intel version with i7 2670QM. Pretty sure it's that. But anyway. They're really great for someone who doesn't want to spend over $1000.Bull Dog - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
I appreciate your rant about DRM on Batman AA. As a paying consumer, It really sucks when the pirated product is better than the legit one.teiglin - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
Always makes me think of one of my favorite comics: http://xkcd.com/488/Of course, Randall doesn't include the path the vendors hope you'll take: instead of attempting to recovery your DRM-locked files, they hope you'll simply buy the stuff again. I mean, why expect to be able to use your legitimately-purchased products indefinitely? Obviously you should be paying for the same thing every few years.
When I was a kid, I read 20- or 25-year-old copies of Dune and even older copies of The Hobbit and the trilogy. If Amazon's DRM weren't so easy to strip, I'd never buy anything electronically from them, because as much as I love my Kindle, I can't really see passing the exact device down to my son the way my parents introduced me to their old books.
duploxxx - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
toshiba satellite garbage, yet another example why you shouldn't be buying these entry level OEM HW platforms. Selling material is all they care about, not optimizing or finetuning anything at all. in the long run this is negative impression towards Toshiba users and as already mentioned in the review, typical on AMD system as if they don't care....cknobman - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
Exactly. Most of what toshiba pushes nowadays (especially the satellite series) is garbage exceeding the level of crapiness that even Dell stoops too on its budget consumer grade products.Scannall - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
I've had an entry level Toshiba for several years now, with the AMD P320 + 4250. And it has been a solid and reliable computer. With the switch to Trinity soon, maybe after those are out these will be at fire sale prices on their Toshiba Direct site on eBay. Might be time for an upgrade.lazymangaka - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
I would've loved to see what a decent overclock would've done for performance. K10STAT for the win, my friends.frozentundra123456 - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
I really dont see the point of blu ray on such a low end product with a lousy screen. I am sure the only way to use the blu ray capabillity would be to put it out to a big screen TV. I guess you can do that, but if I had a good entertainment system like that, I would have either an HTPC or a dedicated blu ray player.Also, I would have been interested in seeing results with the memory upgraded to faster dual channel mode, and/or overclocking as some else already mentioned.
Overall, to me who is not really interested in blu ray, too expensive for what you get.
frozentundra123456 - Wednesday, April 11, 2012 - link
Also, I agree with the article that Llano is close, but still not quite there overall. Worse CPU performance than intel, and still very borderline for gaming with modern titles.If trinity lives up to the claims made for it, it might offer gaming that is good enough for decent resolutions and quality settings.