Toshiba X305-Q725: Quad-Core Gaming Notebook
by Jarred Walton on March 11, 2009 1:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Notebook Overview
The X305 is a 17" chassis, like most DTR offerings. We were a bit surprised to see Toshiba stick with a maximum native resolution of 1680x1050 instead of 1920x1200, but not everyone likes the small text on WUXGA displays. We'd prefer to have a choice, but Toshiba goes the route of having numerous SKUs based off the same core design instead of allowing custom ordering a la Dell. The X305 design has been around for a while now, sporting support for Penryn CPUs, dual NVIDIA GPUs, and dual hard drives. The X305-Q725 may be one of the most recent versions, but it's not the fastest - for gaming or other purposes. We'll have more on that in a moment; first, here's a quick look at the base specifications.
| Toshiba X305-725 Specifications | |
| Processor | Core 2 Quad Q9000 (Quad-Core 2.00GHz, 2x3MB Shared L2, 1066FSB) |
| Chipset | Intel PM45 + ICH9M |
| Memory | 2x2048MB DDR3-1066 |
| Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTX 1024MB |
| Display | 17.0" WSXGA+ (1680x1050) Glossy |
| Hard Drive | 1 x 64GB SSD 1 x 320GB 7200RPM 8MB |
| Optical Drive | 8x DVDR SuperMulti |
| Networking | Realtek Gigabit Ethernet (RTL8168/8111C) Intel WiFi Link 5100 Bluetooth v2.0 Wireless USB |
| Audio | 2-Channel Realtek ALC272 HD Audio (4.0 Speakers) |
| Battery | 6-Cell 54Whr |
| Front Side | WiFi On/Off Switch Optical Drive (DVDRW) |
| Left Side | 1 x eSATA/USB 2.0 1 x USB 2.0 ExpressCard/54 |
| Right Side | Volume Dial Headphone/SPDIF Out and Microphone Jacks 2 x USB 2.0 Modem Flash Reader (MS (Pro), MMC, SD, xD) |
| Back Side | Kensington Lock 1 x Mini Firewire Power Connector HDMI VGA Gigabit Ethernet |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit |
| Dimensions | 16.2" x 12.0" x 1.7"-2.5" (WxDxH) |
| Weight | 9 lbs (with battery) |
| Extras | 1.3MP Webcam 104-Key Keyboard |
| Warranty | 1-Year Toshiba Warranty; Extended warranties available from various retailers |
| Price | Starting at ~$2700 online |
As stated, this is a gaming laptop, which is obvious with one glance at the 9800M GTX graphics chip. While this was the fastest single-GPU mobile solution from NVIDIA when we received the laptop, NVIDIA just launched several updated mobile solutions. NVIDIA hasn't launched a new top-end mobile GPU for almost a year, and the current 9800M is just a minor revision of the previous 8800M. Long story short, the 9800M GTX is slightly slower than the desktop 8800 GT 512MB that launched in late 2007. With the new GPUs, that makes this laptop last year's technology, right? Well, not necessarily.
Similar to the renaming of the 9800M GTX+, the new GT 100M/200M are rebadged versions of the older GPUs. NVIDIA states that they use "a highly-refined 55nm variant of the G92 graphics core", but it's still essentially the same G92 core at heart. NVIDIA's own documentation suggests that the GTX 280M will be on average 22% faster than the 9800M GTX utilized in the Toshiba X305, so it's not a dramatic difference in performance. However, if you are looking for maximum performance, clearly you would now want the GTX 280M - preferably in SLI. Of course, there are plenty of other X305 models available, with or without SLI, and we suspect that Toshiba will soon have an updated model utilizing the latest GPUs. As it stands, even without the newly launched mobile GPUs, a single 9800M GTX is going to end up being slower than dual 9800M GTS SLI solutions, though it will also use less power.
Looking at the chassis, we are immediately struck by the sheer size of the X305. It feels about as large as the Clevo D901C DTR, the difference being in the choice of processor technology. The D901C uses desktop CPUs whereas the X305 is designed for mobile GPUs. While that may reduce power requirements for Toshiba yielding better battery life, as we've already outlined battery life isn't really a concern. Frankly, we'd be more inclined to purchase a full-blown desktop replacement and live with the extra few pounds - plus up to 50% faster CPU performance and twice the GPU power (give or take).
Besides being very large, the chassis feels somewhat cheap because of the plastic materials used for construction. It's no worse than most other laptops, but pick up a notebook with a nice aluminum - or even partial aluminum - exterior and you'll immediately notice the difference. When you're spending this much money on a notebook, it would be nice to feel like you're getting the absolute best in materials and workmanship, and we honestly can't say we feel that way. What we'd really like is something that looks and feels more like a larger, more powerful MacBook Pro.
It's not all bad news for the Toshiba, though. Some people will like the bling and styling of the chassis, and we certainly will agree that the chassis is striking. The chassis also comes with four speakers that manage to produce what is arguably the best sound we've encountered in a laptop. That's not saying a whole lot, of course, when many laptops come with tiny, tinny speakers that are barely sufficient for watching YouTube videos. The large chassis also manages to deal with hot components quite well, and temperatures for the exterior of the chassis were typically cooler than many other laptops - even those that may not target the gaming sector.
As you would expect, Toshiba offers plenty of expansion ports on the X305. Users get three USB ports, plus one more that can function as either a USB or an eSATA port. FireWire, gigabit Ethernet, ExpressCard/54, and audio ports are present. A small cover on the right side at the integrated flash reader (xD, SD, or MS), along with a modem. HDMI and VGA ports provide the external video connectivity; we feel all notebook manufacturers could improve the video options, as we would like to see two digital video ports (HDMI and DVI) - VGA support could be provided via a DVI dongle. Considering the size of the notebook, we also have to mention that there seems to be plenty of space where Toshiba could have added a couple more USB ports. This isn't a critical problem, as we don't expect most users will need more than four USB devices on a laptop, but it certainly wouldn't hurt.
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Morelian - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
I've had 2 of the Gateway FX series of notebooks, the first one was the 3mb Vista 32 version with a slower dual core, but it seemed to run games "ok"-WoW, TF2, AoC. Sadly the monitor got stepped on, so now this one is beside the TV functioning as the home media server and does a fine job of that. The first Gateway cost around 1300, then last one was 1050 but they are going for 1150 in Bestbuy now. The newer Gateway has the 2.6 mhz cpu, 4 gb ddr3 and a nicer screen and I find it handles whatever games I throw at it reasonably well. Battery life is about 2 hours, and the large keyboard lets you get work done efficiently.I think I'll wait until Gateway comes out with their quadcore system, both of mine have been really stable, offer nice performance, and aside from the size and weight of the 17 form factor I can't really knock them.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
The Gateway FX P-7808u is now shipping, though the price is higher than the last FX "mainstream" model at around $1700 right now. You can http://www.jr.com/gateway/pe/GTW_P7808U/">buy it here if you're interested, or wait another week or two for my review. Short summary looking at the specs is that they've upgraded the CPU substantially (Q9000), but the LCD is back to the 1440x900 of the P-6831. That does make gaming at the native resolution more viable with the single 9800M GTS, though.Pessimism - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
I stopped reading as soon as I read NVIDIA. Three years of defective GPUs that disintegrate under heat and a manufacturer chooses them for a high performance (high temperature) premium gaming notebook.Exar3342 - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
The instability of the machine seems a very big issue to me. I definitely wouldn't spend $2000+ on a machine that hard boots when you try playing a number of different games! Considering that is what this designed for (mobile gaming) that is a serious issue for me and would definitely make this a "non-buy".jabber - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
Cant help but think what $2000 of desktop PC components would give me rather then this....thing?I've known several folks that have bought such monster laptops and all have regretted it later.
Filed under "Seemed like a good idea at the time!"
Dakkota - Sunday, March 15, 2009 - link
These type of computers are made for people like me, I travel the world for work and have been a gamer since the 70's and pong. I don't own this particular one, I have a Clevo M571TU, ( can be bought as SagerNotebook.com and some others) but I was looking to see what the competition has, if you go to the Clevo site, you'll see what awesome machines these are. Yes, the brick and all the that stuff travel around with me, and I play games like Crysis, Far Cry, Fear 2, WOW, all sorts, these machines are great. This is my second Clevo I'm on now, after 3 years with the old one, I wanted to update the technology, people in my family were clamoring to get the old one, these are very stought machines, yes, costly, especially completely decked out like I get them, but worth every penny for the gaming road warrior, and believe me, I've met quite a few.Nfarce - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
Uhm, yeah, that would be me. My $1,800 Dell E1705 Inspiron went from being a pretty decent portable DX8/9 gaming system and DVD movie player in 2006 to basically a websurfer today that sits in the living room next to the remote for when I want to surf and watch TV simultaneously. Damn if only I could have that money back - playing HL2 and other games while traveling for work (that I already played at home on a real gaming bo anyway). It just wasn't worth it in the long run. But I was happy in the beginning - sounds like all my former relationships too, LOL.GaryJohnson - Wednesday, March 11, 2009 - link
I think a lot of people who want portable gaming PCs would be better served with SFF desktops.crimson117 - Friday, March 13, 2009 - link
And little portable LCD monitors?JarredWalton - Friday, March 13, 2009 - link
I guess I look at it this way. For a gaming notebook you need to take the following if you want to play games on the road:1) Notebook
2) Power brick
3) Mouse
For an SFF, you need:
1) Main SFF box (plus cords)
2) LCD display (plus cords)
3) Mouse
4) Keyboard
5) Headphones
Now, I won't dispute that an SFF (well, uATX system - SFFs have their own set of problems) is a more cost-effective solution for gaming, offers better performance, and is expandable. However, it is a far cry from being transportable like a DTR setup. Throw in the fact that many proprietary SFFs are not particularly cheap (Shuttle) and quality control on those same SFFs is poor in my experience, and I'd say if you really want to game on the road the DTR market is worth a serious look. You still might go with an SFF, but only if you don't actually travel+game all that much.