Gateway P-7811 FX: We've Got Upgrades
by Jarred Walton on August 15, 2008 5:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
200m Gaming Medley
Arguably the more interesting performance results are going to be in games, so we will start here. We have dropped testing for most of the older titles, as discussing Battlefield 2 or FEAR performance doesn't mean a whole lot when we're looking at modern hardware. We've tried for a more varied selection of games this time around, with selections from most major genres.
For the FPS group, we have Crysis, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, and Unreal Tournament 3. Real-time strategy gaming is represented by Company of Heroes. Assassin's Creed and Devil May Cry 4 take care of the action-adventure genre, and GRID covers driving simulations - and all three of these also represent recent console ports/cross-platform releases. Finally, we have results from Oblivion and Mass Effect for the RPG lovers like me.
We use built-in performance tests on Company of Heroes, Crysis, Devil May Cry 4, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, and Unreal Tournament 3. For Assassin's Creed, GRID, Mass Effect, and Oblivion we benchmark a specific scene using FRAPS. In all tests, we run each benchmark at least four times, discard the top result, and report the highest score of the remaining results.
We will use resolution scaling graphs to compare the different laptop configurations, as that will allow us to examine how the GPU and CPU affect performance. At lower resolutions we should become more CPU limited, while the higher resolutions and detail settings should put more of a bottleneck on the GPU.
Gaming performance is at least equal to the P-6831 in every test, and in several instances the P-7811 is substantially faster. The games where performance is tied are somewhat surprising, as most are considered GPU limited. Crysis is a virtual tie between all three models, indicating that the bottleneck is GPU memory bandwidth rather than GPU shader performance; Quake Wars is also GPU bandwidth limited. In the remaining games, we see everything from a tie at 1280x800 in Assassin's Creed to as much as an 80% lead in the Devil May Cry 4 benchmark at lower resolutions.
The average performance lead of the 7811 over the 171XL in non-bandwidth limited situations does appear to be around 20%, matching the GPU core speed increase, so the 9800M GTS is definitely an improvement. Shader clocks are apparently 1250MHz on all the 8800M/9800M parts, so we would categorize any differences of more than 20% as coming from the drivers and/or 64-bit OS (or perhaps some other hardware difference).
The significantly slower CPU in the 6831 does limit performance at lower resolutions, and it's important to remember that the 6831 ships with a 1440x900 LCD - the other resolutions were tested using an external display just to show how performance scales at higher resolutions. The 171XL has a faster CPU than the 7811, so the performance leads of the 7811 would actually be somewhat higher if the CPUs were equal. Any way you slice it, though, the performance of the 7811 is very impressive for the price. The 9800M GTS does tend to be slightly slower than the 8800M GTX, but only by about 10%. Considering laptops with the 8800M GTX typically cost $2200 or more, the P-7811 is a great follow-up to the P-6831.
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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.