HP Elitebook 840 G1 - how capable is it for simple gaming?

Question

I recently bought a HP Elitebook 840 G1 in the secondhand online market.

It has the following specs:

• CPU: Intel Core i5-4200U (Haswell)
• RAM: 4GB DDR3
• Disk: HDD 1TB
• GPU: Intel HD Graphics Family + AMD Radeon 8750M
• Display: 1366 * 768 resolution

To solve the slow loading speed of the HDD, I'm going to replace the HDD to a 120GB Samsung SSD and clean install Windows 10. For the insufficient RAM capacity, I'm planning to buy another 4GB RAM to increase the total amount to 8GB.

If I do the following upgrade, will it quite be capable of running simple 3D games? I usually play these games:

• Wii Emulator (Dolphin emulator)
• Nintendo 3DS Emulator (Citra)
• Euro Truck Simulator 2

Any suggestions will be truly appreciated.

Solution

Yes, it is sufficient for your needs.

For example, the AMD Radeon 8750M is 5 to 10 times more powerful in games than the high end settings card recommended for Euro Truck Simulator 2.

Adding an SSD for the OS and some more RAM will certainly make sure you can run much more powerful games than the ones in your list.

Definitely you should not keep the intel 540 graphics for games.

Comments

[Tetsujin]

There's not much you can do to that machine that will make is any better for gaming. Your chosen path of SSD & more RAM is probably the best you can achieve, but it won't work miracles.

[Felix Lee]

So, how capable do you think those games will run? Will they run quite okay?

[Felix Lee]

Wait.. is the AMD Radeon 8750M really better than Intel Iris 540 Graphics? I always used to play ETS2 and Citra with Iris 540..

[Overmind]

Of course it is.

[Felix Lee]

But.. How about the CPU.. I guess i5-4200U MAY NOT be sufficient..

[Overmind]

Unless you run complex strategy games with thousands of moving around units, the CPU is quite sufficient.

[Felix Lee]

Then, how can you explain about this website? It says that the Iris 540 has higher benchmark results than the 8750M. (the scores are higher!!) technical.city/en/video/Iris-Graphics-540-vs-Radeon-HD-8750M

[Felix Lee]

How can I actually turn off Intel graphics and only use AMD graphics? I don't want the game to be run via Intel graphics.

[Overmind]

The Radeon has double memory performance, 384 vs 48 shaders (x8), 14.9 GTexel/s vs. 2.4 GTexel/s (x6) and 5 GPixel/s vs 0.6 (x8).

[Overmind]

The card should activate automatically whenever you start a game. There is no need to turn off anything.

[Felix Lee]

I usually play Nintendo 3DS emulation with the program 'Citra'. Can you actually do some research for me that this laptop will run the game quite smoothly after upgrading SSD and RAM amount?