Gateway P-7808u: to Quad or Not to Quad?
by Jarred Walton on April 13, 2009 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Test Setup
Below is the test configuration for the Gateway P-7808u FX. We will compare its performance with other recently tested notebooks. We have not included results from every single notebook we have tested in our graphs, but most of the recently tested laptops are present. If you're looking for results from other laptops, please refer to our mobile section.
| Gateway P-7808u FX Test System | |
| Processor | Core 2 Quad Q9000 (2.0GHz 1066FSB 2x3MB L2) |
| Memory | 2x2048MB Elpida PC3-8500 @ DDR3-1066 7-7-7-20 (Elpida EBJ21UE8BAU0-AE-E) |
| Graphics | NVIDIA GeForce 9800M GTS 1GB Driver version 179.24 GPU/Shader/RAM Clocks: 600/1500/1600 MHz (256-bit) |
| Display | 17.0" Glossy WXGA+ (1440x900) AU Optronics B170PW06 V2 (links to B170PW03) |
| Hard Drive | Western Digital Scorpio Blue 500GB 5400RPM 8MB (WD5000BEVT-22ZAT0) |
| Optical Drive | 8x DVDR (LG GSA-T50F) |
| Battery | 9-cell 86.5Whr |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Hope Premium SP1 64-bit |
| Price | Starting at $1700 online |
Test configurations for the other laptops are available at the following pages:
Acer 6920G
Alienware m15x
ASUS G50V
ASUS U6V
AVADirect FL-92
Clevo D901C
Dell Studio XPS 16
Gateway M-152XL
Gateway P-171XL FX
Gateway P-6831 FX
Gateway P-7811 FX
HP dv5t
Toshiba X305-Q725
We run all of the standard application tests at the native LCD resolution - 1440x900 for the Gateway P-7808u. For the gaming tests, we will compare the P-7808u to other notebooks using a standard resolution of 1680x1050. We will also include results at 1440x900 and 1920x1080 to show how the laptop and GPU scale to lower and higher settings. This will allow us to provide an apples-to-apples comparison with other laptops while also showing the performance range you can expect by lowering or increasing the resolution.
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andrezunido - Monday, April 13, 2009 - link
Battery/Technology isn't there yet for "affordable" pc gaming on the move. Is it possible that these lower quality screens have substancial power savings when compared to screens like the Dell's XPS 16, or are they just to save on the moneys?It's nice to see the Apple laptops in the battery charts but since these are almost "consoles" (OS and hardware fine tunned for each other - I think Apple compiles the OS with special optimizations for its hand picked hardware), can they really be compared?
crimson117 - Monday, April 13, 2009 - link
Sure they can be compared... hardware manufacturers are allowed to work with MS for driver and OS optimization to make their parts work well with Windows, if they want to.andrezunido - Monday, April 13, 2009 - link
...they should have to! Buggy drivers are responsible for lots of power leaks in idle hardware (low power consumption modes in some drivers are non existent). One of the main reasons for this lack of optimization is the big market for PC's and competition between hardware manufacturers to get the hardware out without proper testing, or drivers that don't support proper power saving optimizations. Of course some of this can be blamed on the "generic" nature of the OS (running on various permutations of hardware), making the testing of hardware/software difficult.The Mac OS has the drivers for its limited hardware configurations partially written by the OS maker allowing the fine-tune of the OS for each computer hardware installation.
Like Anand said in a article, its a model/year thing just like a car. The optimization and integration of hardware and software is a well thought thing in a Mac.
In a generic PC the only way that i know of accomplishing this battery efficiency is by building your own Linux installation (i.e. using Gentoo) and tinker with the kernel, drivers and settings to achieve a power efficient installation (see: http://www.lesswatts.org/)">http://www.lesswatts.org/).
Wrapping it up: It can be compared, but... one has to be mindful of what is what.
andrezunido - Monday, April 13, 2009 - link
Sorry for the bad link, if anyone is interested in getting a bit more power efficient on Linux, http://www.lesswatts.org/">http://www.lesswatts.org/ has some nice software and information.Anyway, the P-7808u seems like a very capable machine for its price. Too bad about the screen quality, being the first thing I consider on a Laptop (Second is Battery), I find it too bad that it was "downgraded" when everything else seemed to be bumped up (even the price unfortunately).
I guess the battery would have to be a expensive monster to feed this kind of performance machine with a decent autonomy. But the screen would have added a lot a value with "potentially" less investment from the manufacturer.
djc208 - Monday, April 13, 2009 - link
I had figured one of these would be top contender for my next laptop but I'm not impressed with this "update". The worst part is that there really isn't a lot of competition for this notebook, even at smaller chassis sizes.I'll just have to hope Gateway or some other company will fill this niche properly by the time I'm ready to buy later this summer.
Thanks for the honest review, hopefully someone at Gateway is listening.
djc208 - Monday, April 13, 2009 - link
I had figured one of these would be top contender for my next laptop but I'm not impressed with this "update". The worst part is that there really isn't a lot of competition for this notebook, even at smaller chassis sizes.I'll just have to hope Gateway or some other company will fill this niche properly by the time I'm ready to buy later this summer.
Thanks for the honest review, hopefully someone at Gateway is listening.