Gateway P-7811 FX: We've Got Upgrades
by Jarred Walton on August 15, 2008 5:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
4x200m Gaming Relay
We also ran several of the games at higher detail settings to put more of a load on the graphics cards. Not surprisingly, performance often becomes unacceptable at higher resolutions and detail settings with these laptops, depending on the game. The GeForce 9800M GTS may be one of the fastest mobile graphics chips currently available, but it's still slower than a single desktop 9600 GT 512MB because of the more stringent power requirements and lower clock speeds.
As anyone who plays PC games can tell you, there are plenty of titles on the market that will require more than a single graphics chip in order to provide acceptable performance at 1920x1200 - or you'll need an HD 4870 or GTX 280. We'll also include 3DMark results here for reference; we put a lot more stock in gaming performance than in 3DMark results, but at least 3DMark results are easily generated and easily compared.
The patterns on the previous page are continued for the most part, although we now see that Assassin's Creed DX10 also appears to be GPU bandwidth limited. Company of Heroes tends to be too sluggish at higher resolution with DX10, and Crysis is clearly too demanding at High settings. If you want a laptop that can handle all of these games and provide reasonable performance, you'll have to consider the multi-GPU offerings. A more practical approach would probably be to turn down detail settings until you get acceptable performance. For example, Crysis at Medium detail looks very good, and turning down a few of the settings can easily net you performance of over 50 FPS.
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JarredWalton - Tuesday, August 19, 2008 - link
Gateway doesn't offer the option to custom configure laptops; what they do offer is about 8 notebooks that use the same base design, with different options and prices. Right now, the P-7811 is the only model using DDR3 and 9800M GTS, but there will likely be other models in the future.http://www.gateway.com/systems/series/529598056.ph...">P-series Reference Page
okron1k - Thursday, August 21, 2008 - link
thank you, i have been to that page already but i am going to look it over again. i am most likely going to be buying this laptop in the next few weeks. i just don't know of any other place where i can get something similarly spec'd for even close to the same price.Engage - Monday, August 18, 2008 - link
Any word on when/if and to what degree Gateway might be going to upgrade the P-173XL FX Edition?JarredWalton - Monday, August 18, 2008 - link
Well, the P-173XL is already pretty well equipped. It has 2x200GB HDD, WUXGA (non-glossy I think?), 4GB RAM, and a T8300, plus 4GB DDR2. So it should be a bit slower on the CPU than the T-7811, and the 8800M GTS GPU is a bit slower as well, but you get more HDD space and performance. You also don't get an early PM45 chipset and BIOS. Still, I would assume in the near future Gateway will migrate most of their P-series FX parts to the PM45 with 9800 GTS platform.strikeback03 - Monday, August 18, 2008 - link
Adobe is very likely to release the next generation of their applications (CS4?) this fall, which will probably be 64-bit as LightRoom 2 is.Jarred has mentioned before that he is editor for other articles, does someone else edit his work, or is he using (Ed.) to insert comments into his own article?
JarredWalton - Monday, August 18, 2008 - link
I "ed" myself. So do some of the other editors at times (Gary). It's more of an "insert personal comment that isn't necessarily a direct part of the review" thing - or for humor at times. Don't take away my artistic license, dammit! :-)Hrel - Sunday, August 17, 2008 - link
Since I never run anything over 1440x900 I don't want to be forced to pay for a screen that costs more money when I see no benefit from that high of a resolution; not to mention it would make everything too small. Gateway needs more user customization on their website; like HP. Also, you can't say with a straight face that anyone needs a gaming laptop? What wrong with you? If you expect to be able to play current games on a laptop you bought 4 years ago you need a gaming laptop; even though you'll be playing those new games on min settings. Who doesn't need a gaming laptop? Who doesn't play games when they're away from the house if they have the ability?strikeback03 - Monday, August 18, 2008 - link
I think the point was that with the possible exception of some people who work in the gaming industry, not many people NEED to be able to play games.I'm with Jarred on wanting the highest resolution LCD available, so we both agree that they need more customization options.
spuddyt - Saturday, August 16, 2008 - link
I want one A LOT!!!! but i'm in the UK, so i'm effectively screwed and am just going to end up getting some crappy dell POS....MamiyaOtaru - Saturday, August 16, 2008 - link
I would never buy a laptop with a glossy screen. I'd rather look at what I'm working on (or playing with) than a reflection. Glossy screens are idiotic bling for idiots. Unfortunately mot people are idiots, as glossy screens sell better from stores than matte (it's shiny!).