Acer Aspire 5740G Owners Lounge

Originally mk1freak suggested that I started Owners Lounge for this model.
I've been a bit hesitant (read: lazy) but now I see there are at least several threads concerning graphics, Bluetooth, performance, BIOS updates etc and it's getting difficult to follow them all. Additionally good information is scattered in different threads, so I finally decided to start this thread.

So as not to leave the first post with "hello" only I prepared some screens of tests and benchmarks. This thread is going to be updated by me and hopefully other owners (mk1freak is kinda forced to help as it's been his idea in the first place)
If you got any requests for benchmarks or questions go ahead.
I will answer those if I can- I don't own all the games in the world so demos with benchmarks are preferred

First of all my config:
Acer Aspire 5740G-434G50Mn
434G50Mn means:
43 stands for Core i5 430 2.27GHz 3MB cache
4G stands for 4GB DDR3 1066MHz (mine made by Samsung)
50 stands for 500GB 5400 rpm drive (Hitachi in my case)
M stands for Multi drive- meaning DVD-R/RW/RAM (TSST TS-L633C)
n stands for Draft N Wi-Fi card (whereas "i" stands for 802.11g)

The rest of relevant specs:
Mobility Radeon HD5650 1GB DDR3 (core 550MHz, memory 750MHz)
15,6" 16:9 LED backlit, 1366x768 LCD (mine is AU Optronics AUO22EC)
6 cell Li-ion battery, 4400mAh
Wi-Fi Card Atheros AR5B93 (two antennas but capable of 300mbit/s)
LAN card 10/100/1000 Broadcom NetLink BCM57780
Realtek HD Audio ALC272

That is all running on Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

GPU overclocking
Mobility Radeon HD5650 is the same exact card as HD5730- the only difference is that 5730 is factory overclocked. As this card has very low TDP and 5740G has good cooling system overclocking is something you must do if you play games.
AMD GPU clock Tools is used for that (from version 0.9.26 onwards)
How much can you overclock depends on your particular unit but all 5740Gs so far had no problems with achieving stock clocks of 5730 meaning 650MHz core and 800MHz memory.
Some people have better memory chips and can achieve memory freqs of up to 1100MHz. Mine runs fine at 900MHz but gives artifacts at 950MHz.
As for core mine is perfectly stable at 670MHz in gaming as well as in stress tests.
All tests provided below have been performed with GPU set at 670MHz core and 900MHz memory. I will not test with default clocks- it's waste of time and GPU potential.

BENCHMARKS
All tests performed with Catalyst 10.3 Beta with default settings under Win 7 Home Premium 64bit and 670/900 GPU clocks
3DMark06
1280x768, default settings

Crysis
1280x720, all details set to HIGH, 64bit, DX10, 30fps

Call Of Pripyat Benchmark
Tessellation is OFF by default also in DX11 test. I kept it off so you can compare this score with other benchmarks. For the same reason I provided benchmark score for 1280x768. As for tessellation it subtracts 2fps from every score (day, night etc) so you can kinda calculate it on your own, right?

1280x768

1366x768

GTA IV
Custom settings
1366x768,
Texture quality: HIGH
Reflection resolution: MEDIUM
Water quality: HIGH
Shadow quality: OFF
Texture filter quality: LOW
View distance: 24, Detail distance:36, Vehicle density:22
Shadow density:0 (dynamic shadows are disabled- only static are on- just like in console versions)
Definition: ON, Vsync: ON

Game banchmark: 38fps
In reality framerate measured with FRAPS is similar (a bit higher though).
No slowdowns during car chases and such. You can probably improve on my settings and still achieve smooth playback- it's not really finetuned.
I decided to switch off dynamic shadows because I don't really pay attention to them during car chases. Similar thing with view distance and detail distance- you can't really see that far in the city so there is no point in keeping these values too high.

Resident Evil 5 benchmark
Default high settings, 1366x768, Average 61 fps

Call of Juarez DX10 benchmark

1280x720, Default high settings (that includes 4xAA) Average 27 fps

1280x720, Custom high settings (that is high settings but without 4xAA) Average 33 fps

Batman Arkham Asylum
Benchmarked by ZStriker with default clocks.

Heaven Benchmark 2.0
Heaven Benchmark 2.0 (DX11) (OCed 670/900)

Mafia II & Lost Planet 2 benchmarks
Benchmarked by me OCed 670/900

CPU and GPU temperature and stress tests

If you are afraid that OC may damage your card or that this laptop has poor cooling system- here is the proof to the contrary.

FurMark test 670MHz core and 900MHz memory
max temperature 71*C

Prime95 stress test temperatures

When CPU reaches 80*C fan kicks in at "panic" speed so there is no way it gets any hotter.
Interesting matter is that Turbo Boost doesn't work like it should in this laptop. It actually works better
If I'm not mistaken Turbo Boost should work only when one core of the CPU is under load, so when there are four separate threads in Priime95 and CPU is maxed out on all cores and threads CPU should run @2.27GHz.
For some reason mine run at 2.46GHz most of the time. Not that I'm complaining...

HDD Benchmark
HD Tune 4.01
Average speed: 63,3MB/s
Good speed especially for a 5400rpm drive.

Battery test

Real life
Tests performed eith power saving profile and LCD at the lowest brightness (it's still enough though)
Notebook lasted some 3h 30min while browsing via Wi-Fi.
Nothing really intensive just the usuall morning routine- websites, forum, e-mail and so on. Something got downloaded, something else got updated but no hard tasks, no flash videos etc.

Battery Eater Readers Tests
Same settings as above, WiFi on.
4h 8 min

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Acer Aspire 5740G Owners Lounge