Gateway P-7811 FX: We've Got Upgrades
by Jarred Walton on August 15, 2008 5:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Going for the Gold
For our first look at benchmarks of the P-7811, we thought it would be best to focus on comparisons to Gateway's other FX series laptops. We have earlier results from the P-6831, but since it has such a slow processor we also added results from the upgraded P-171XL. The P-171XL is no longer in production, but it provides a better indication of graphics performance when the CPU is not a bottleneck, as it has a Core 2 Duo X7900 (2.8GHz, 4MB cache) processor. It also ships with two 200GB hard drives in RAID 0, 4GB of RAM (but a 32-bit OS, so only 3GB is visible), and a WUXGA display. It had an initial launch price of $3000, which quickly dropped to $2500, and now it has been replaced by the $2000 MSRP ($1630 at TigerDirect) P-173XL - the primary difference being the inclusion of a T8300 processor instead of the X7900. Here are the three test configurations for this first look at the P-7811.
| Gateway P-6831 FX Test System | |
| Processor | Core 2 Duo T5450 (1.67GHz 2MB 667FSB) |
| Memory | 1x1024MB + 1x2048MB Samsung DDR2-667 5-5-5-15 |
| Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTS 512MB GPU/Shader/RAM Clocks: 500/1250/799 NVIDIA drivers: 167.46 |
| Display | 17" WXGA+ (1440x900) UltraBright (Samsung LTN170X2-L02) |
| Hard Drive | 250GB 5400RPM Western Digital (Scorpio WD2500BEVS-22UST0) |
| Optical Drive | Optiarc AD-7563A SuperMulti DVD+/-RW |
| Battery | 9-Cell 86WHr |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit |
| Gateway P-171XL FX Test System | |
| Processor | Core 2 Extreme X7900 (2.80GHz 4MB 667FSB) |
| Memory | 2x2048MB Samsung DDR2-667 5-5-5-15 |
| Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTS 512MB GPU/Shader/RAM Clocks: 500/1250/799 NVIDIA drivers: 175.95 (Hacked from LaptopVideo2Go.com) |
| Display | 17" WUXGA (1920x1200) Matte (Samsung LTN170WU-L02) |
| Hard Drive | 2x200GB Seagate Momentus 7200.2 in RAID 0 |
| Optical Drive | Toshiba DVDR/HD-DVD TS-L802A |
| Battery | 9-Cell 86WHr |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit |
| Gateway P-7811 FX Test System | |
| Processor | Core 2 Duo P8400 (2.26GHz 3MB 1066FSB) |
| Memory | 2x2048MB Samsung DDR3-1066 7-7-7-20 |
| Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS 512MB GPU/Shader/RAM Clocks: 600/1250/799 NVIDIA drivers: 176.02 (beta from Gateway) |
| Display | 17" WUXGA (1920x1200) Glossy (AU Optronics AUO 1088) |
| Hard Drive | 200GB Seagate Momentus 7200.2 |
| Optical Drive | 8X SuperMulti DVD+/-RW |
| Battery | 9-Cell 86WHr |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit |
Note that we won't have all benchmarks on all three laptops; in particular, we no longer have the P-6831 for testing and so we were unable to run some of our latest benchmarks. We were able to run all of our tests on both the P-171XL and the P-7811. We do expect the P-7811 to perform faster in all of the gaming benchmarks, since the 9800M GTS offers more graphics horsepower because of the increased GPU core clocks. Similarly, we expect the P-171XL to outperform the other two configurations in application benchmarks that depend more on CPU and hard drive performance.
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solgae1784 - Friday, August 15, 2008 - link
If you look at the magazines, Gateway's track record hasn't been that impressive, scoring pretty low on many aspects. So I'd be a little more wary when you're considering them. Your experience may be different from what the responses were after all.Adamantine - Friday, August 15, 2008 - link
http://geek-news.net/2008/07/nvidia-geforce-9700m-...All of the press releases, like the one I referenced above, concerning how many shaders are in the new 9800M chips states that the GTS is 64 shaders, GT 96 shaders, GTX 112 shaders.
Adamantine - Friday, August 15, 2008 - link
http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_9800m_gts.htm...">http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_9800m_gts.htm... 64 SP'shttp://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_9800m_gt.html">http://www.nvidia.com/object/geforce_9800m_gt.html 96 SP's
Confirming that the press release is accurate, at least on the SP count.
BTW, Gateway has never used a GTX in any of their gaming notebooks.
Way too many mistakes in this review.
JarredWalton - Friday, August 15, 2008 - link
Lack of details from NVIDIA is partly to blame. Wrapping things up at 2AM is another issue. While there were admittedly some errors on the number of SPs (caused by NVIDIA's crazy naming decisions), the vast majority of the text is correct. I have also added the clock speeds, now that I was able to access both laptops again. (I was out of town on family matters, so I was wrapping things up without access to the hardware.)Initially, I thought the GPU in the 7811 was more SPs but with a lower core/shader clock relative to 8800M GTS, but it turns out it's the same number of shaders as the 8800M GTS but with a 20% higher core clock (600MHz compared to 500MHz). Also worth noting is that I had all of the SP counts correct in my http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.aspx?i=335...">mobile buyer's guide, so this was just a slip caused by the confusing names.
Adamantine - Friday, August 15, 2008 - link
"One alternative was to simply shop online and purchase a similarly configured notebook from Gateway, and although the price was a few hundred dollars more you also got some upgrades. TigerDirect.com also carries many Gateway notebooks, including the P-173X FX for $1350, which bumps the processor up to a T7500."This isn't entirely accurate. The Best Buy version has always had a identical Gateway Direct version, 6831 = P-171, 6860 = P-172. The P-173X has no Best Buy equivalent and could be bought direct from Gateway around the first/second week of May. The P-173X became available through online retailers when Gateway ceased their direct sales operation.
On the specs page, the 7811 FX is listed as having a 8900M GTS, which should be 9800M GTS.
djc208 - Friday, August 15, 2008 - link
I think there are quite a few situations where you might need a gaming laptop (not like you "need" food of course but you know what I mean).I've been reading with interest because I have to go on travel for 6-8 months next year. I'll want something to play my games on but don't want to ship my desktop system out with me. This could be worth the investment and a huge upgrade from my current notebook.
sephiroth135 - Friday, August 15, 2008 - link
Page 2, 3rd tableNVIDIA GeForce 8900M GTS 512MB
should be
9800M
homerdog - Friday, August 15, 2008 - link
Same mistake on page 3.fabarati - Friday, August 15, 2008 - link
The 9800m GT is just a rebranded 8800m GTX. So it is a faster card than the 9800m GTS.fabarati - Friday, August 15, 2008 - link
Ohterwise, good review.