HP Pavilion 17-g054ng Notebook Review

Compared to the last-year model (Pavilion 17-f), HP slightly changed the layout of the ports slightly, but the manufacturer did not add any new ports. Users still have to live with three USB ports and just two support the fast USB 3.0 standard. External monitors can only be attached via HDMI (probably HDMI 1.4a, up to 3840x2160 pixels @30 Hz). You also still get an ancient Fast-Ethernet port (up to 100 Mbps), the mandatory 3.5 mm headset port as well as the hardly accessible SD-card reader. The latter also supports very big SDXC cards, but cannot use the full potential of the tested Toshiba Exceria Pro (UHS-II, up to 260 MB/s according to the manufacturer) at around 80 MB/s.

Due to the lack of a maintenance hatch, we used our tools to open the device and removed all visible screws at the bottom. Unfortunately, this not have the desired success – both parts of the base-unit stayed together firmly. As it turned out in the review of the Pavilion 17-g013ng, the top of the base unit has to be carefully removed with a sharp object, which we did not want to try with our review unit. HP could have solved this much better; even a simple switch of the hard drive or memory is basically impossible for inexperienced users.

Warranty

Just like many similarly priced rivals, the Pavilion only comes with a standard warranty of one year. Additional service packages to extend the service period, HP calls them "Care Pack," were not available at the time of the review – the review unit might still be too "young."

The viewing-angle stability is usually one of the biggest issues of the TN technology; but there are sometimes big differences between different models, so general statements do not apply for every model. The Samsung panel of the Pavilion is certainly one of the great representatives of its kind and allows generous viewing angles both horizontally and vertically. The results are actually so good that we start to wonder if (contrary to the specs of the manufacturer) this isn’t an IPS display – the quality can at least easily compete with several IPS rivals.

The actual highlight of the Pavilion 17 is without a doubt the new hardware platform based on the AMD Carrizo architecture. The used A10-8700P, a 1.8 up to 3.2 GHz fast quad-core processor, sits directly between its siblings A8-8600P (1.6-3.0 GHz) and FX-8800P (2.1-3.4 GHz). Compared to Intel, the APU is primarily a rival for the Core i3-series, which is also represented by the current pricing. Noteworthy: AMD does not set a specific consumption value for Carrizo and only specifies a TDP range (12-35 Watts) that the notebook manufacturer can use. The majority of OEMs will probably conform with Intel’s TDP classes in the future (to use identical cooling solutions) – the TDP in this case was probably configured to the common 15 Watts.

Besides the integrated CPU graphics Radeon R6 (384 shaders @720 MHz), the Pavilion 17 is also equipped with a dedicated Radeon R7 M360 (384 shaders @1,125 MHz, 2 GB DDR3 @900 MHz, 64-bit interface). Contrary to other Optimus devices, both GPUs not only work individually, but they can also handle 3D calculations together. AMD calls this resulting dual-graphics system Radeon R8 M365DX and implicates a noticeable performance gain, which we will have a closer look at later in this review.

HP, fortunately, equipped the notebook with two DDR3L-1600 modules, so that the integrated graphics unit works in a fast dual-channel mode. There seems to be a BIOS bug that, unfortunately, slows down the clock rate to just 667 MHz (DDR3-1333) – we hope that a future software update will solve this problem. The resulting performance hit should only be between 0% (use of the Radeon R7 M360) and up to 10% (use of the Radeon R6) anyway. The storage solution is a 1,000 GB hard drive from Seagate.

Despite the comparatively low TDP configuration, the A10-8700P can utilize its possible clock range surprisingly well. Single-thread applications are executed by the APU at a steady 3.1 GHz both on mains and battery power, and we can still see 2.3 GHz during multithreading. We already mentioned that the resulting performance is pretty similar to current Broadwell ULV models like the Core i3-5005U (2.0 GHz) or the i3-5010U (2.1 GHz). We also want to mention that the core frequency of the A10-8700P – probably because of a slightly exceeded TDP – drops by 100-200 MHz after around 2 minutes, whereas the lower clocking i3 CPUs never reach their nominal TDP limit of 15 Watts.

All in all, we can say that AMD’s Carrizo is a big step in the right direction. The A10-8700P (15 Watts incl. chipset) can sometimes even compete with the old FX-7600P (35 Watts plus chipset), and previous ULV models like the FX-7500 (19 Watts incl. chipset) fall behind very clearly in all benchmarks.

Quantity before quality: Instead of an SSD or SSHD, HP uses a conventional 2.5-inch hard drive with a generous capacity of 1,000 GB. You should not, however, expect new performance records from the Seagate Momentus SpinPoint M8: A sequential transfer rate of around 85 MB/s and an access time of 17.4 milliseconds are average for such a drive. It is unfortunate that the manufacturer (especially when you consider the bad maintainability of the notebook, see Maintenance section) does not even offer other optional storage solutions.

Thanks to the parallel use of the integrated and dedicated GPU, AMD’s dual-graphics technology promises an optimal utilization of the available hardware resources, whereas switching solutions like Optmius (Nvidia) or Enduro (AMD) only use one of the graphics processors. Although it sounds promising in theory, the results are not that great in practice: While the GPU score in 3DMark Fire Strike is noticeably increased by 64% compared to a single Radeon R7 M360, 3DMark 11 does not show any improvements at all. This means the Radeon R7 M360 is similar to a GeForce 920M, the Carrizo GPU Radeon R6 falls behind by around 10%.

Even though a high graphics performance is certainly a good thing, there are other important aspects for a multimedia notebook – just like video acceleration: According to AMD, Carrizo is the first x86 chip with full HEVC/H.265 support. The AMD solution consumed a similar amount of power compared to Intel’s hybrid decoder (Broadwell also uses GPU shaders besides Fixed-Function hardware), but it can also handle 4K videos at 60 fps without problems in return. You do, however, require a corresponding player (Windows 8.1: Power DVD), and the video must not work with 10-bit color channels (no support for HEVC Main10).

Our gaming tests confirm the evaluation that the dual-graphics does not bring any advantages for the user right now. Except for a few titles like Crysis 3 or Tomb Raider, the Radeon R8 M365DX is not faster than a single Radeon R7 M360; the majority of titles show the same or even lower frame rates. You also get very uneven frame times or micro stutters, respectively, because of the asymmetrical Crossfire, so we recommend the manual deactivation of Dual Graphics in the Catalyst Control Center and that you only use the dedicated GPU instead. Still, the Pavilion 17 only manages current titles with low or medium details and 1024x768 or 1366x768 pixels.