Gateway P-7811 FX: We've Got Upgrades
by Jarred Walton on August 15, 2008 5:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Individual All-Around Application Competition
Wrapping things up with our performance testing, we have results from the Futuremark PCMark testing suites as well as some of our own application benchmarking. Since the P-7811 is more of a gaming laptop than a general use laptop, results on the previous two pages take precedence over application performance. That said, when it comes to running your office, multimedia, and Internet tasks, the P-7811 is certainly more than capable.
The results for the application testing are hardly surprising: faster CPUs result in better performance. PCMark is the only suite where HDD performance also plays a significant role, so the P-171XL gets a double bonus over the other laptops with its RAID 0 HDDs. The result is that the 171XL sweeps the application benchmarks.
The other interesting thing to note is that CINEBENCH and PCMark Vantage both support 64-bit operation as well as 32-bit operation. We did run the 64-bit executables and found that performance improved on the P-7811 in both tests. PCMark Vantage shows a 5% advantage for the 64-bit OS, though when we drill down to the individual scores we find that the 64-bit system leads by 5-13% in the TV and Movies, Gaming, Communications, and Productivity suites while the 32-bit version leads by 11% in the Music suite; the HDD and Memories suites are essentially tied. In CINEBENCH, the difference is around 12-13% whether running in single-core or multi-core mode.
We'd really love to see more native 64-bit applications where the user could experience a consistent 5-10% performance increase. We've seen a few specific instances where 64-bit helps out. Hopefully with more OEMs beginning to ship Vista 64-bit (like Gateway with the P-7811 and some of their desktop systems), that day is fast approaching. 4GB memory configurations are also becoming common, and it's pretty pointless to ship with anything more than 3GB without a 64-bit OS.
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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.