Gateway P-6831 FX: Best Midrange Gaming Notebook Ever
by Jarred Walton on March 28, 2008 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
1440x900 Gaming Performance
For most users, the native resolution of 1440x900 on this midrange notebook is going to be the critical factor. Given that this is a somewhat low resolution, especially on some of the older titles we are going to run into situations where we are CPU limited. Even with a relatively slow T5450, however, the P-6831 frequently manages to outperform older offerings like the Dell XPS M1710. Many of the titles are still GPU limited even at 1440x900.
We've been tempted to drop some of the older titles from our testing, but we figure some users might still be playing certain titles (i.e. Battlefield 2) and it's nice to provide at least some idea of how modern notebooks compare to last generation notebooks. Since we obviously didn't benchmark some of the most recent games on older hardware, we continue to provide results from older titles. Note also that some of the older hardware is not capable of running DirectX 10 graphics, which can of course make a difference on the latest games.
Looking at the results, we can't help but be impressed with the value that the Gateway P-6831 offers. It's never going to beat the XPS M1730 in a head-to-head match, but that's not the point. The point is that you can get extremely good performance at the native LCD resolution for what amounts to a very reasonable price. Typical entry-level notebooks already cost around $1000; that you can pay a couple hundred dollars more and actually end up with very good gaming performance makes this the first truly viable midrange gaming notebook.
If you doubt that last statement, look at the results from previous "midrange" notebooks in the above charts. The ASUS A8Js and G2P both launched at prices close to $2000, and though they became more affordable over time, they were never great gaming notebooks even when they were brand-new. The Toshiba X205 isn't much better; that should make it very clear why we say there is very little reason to consider purchasing a GeForce 8700M GT notebook these days. Even with a slower CPU, the P-6831 is frequently up to twice as fast as the X205... a laptop that still sports a higher price tag!
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ap90033 - Sunday, March 30, 2008 - link
Yes it comes with a Vista Home Premium DVD....win32asmguy - Friday, March 28, 2008 - link
I bought one of these yesterday at Best Buy after they put it on sale for $1249 again.It does indeed have a real Vista re-install cd. The CD also includes none of the extra bundled applications or such. However, you can also make a "restore" DVD from an included program that will recreate its 10GB recovery partition and return it to a factory fresh installation. Its nice to see Gateway let people go either way with this.
The P-6831fx is also actually due for an update soon. Its supposed to be called the P-6860fx and will have a T5550 (1.83ghz, 667fsb, 2mb) and a 320GB hdd instead of the 250GB. My P-6831fx actually already has a T5550 in it, as gateway's ODM has appeared to already run out of the T5450's as of the last shipment. The slower processor is definitely a setback, but I will eventually upgrade to a T9300 to close the gap in performance even closer to the laptops with the GTX.
Oh, and CPU-Z does report that it runs in dual channel mode, however it also takes a small performance hit due to not being both 2GB sticks. Other users report their Vista memory experience index from jumping from 4.6 to 4.8 when upgrading to 4GB.
iclicku - Friday, March 28, 2008 - link
The laptop comes with a Vista DVD. However, you'll have to burn a back-up DVD for drivers and applications. It should be the first thing you do before performing a format.The laptop should be fine for Folding @ Home. If not, a simple CPU upgrade should do wonders.
As for the 3GB of ram, it is in fact running in dual channel mode so no worries there. It's definately useful since Vista needs as much memory it can get it's grubby little hands on.
strikeback03 - Friday, March 28, 2008 - link
[quote] Imagine being able to buy a very nice sports car that could compete with the Dodge Viper at one third the cost, and that's what Gateway has released on the market. [/quote]In other words it is the Evo/STI of the gaming laptop world. Maybe one of the ones with the bigger screens qualifies as a base Corvette.
Corland - Friday, March 28, 2008 - link
It would be nice to see things like the MacBook Pro with LED backlight (or a regular MacBook) in the color comparison and LCD tests for comparison sake- comparing gaming laptop LCD's to each other is fine, but having some other common laptop screens that some of us will have worked with would also be useful....iclicku - Friday, March 28, 2008 - link
As the review states, you can't beat the value of this laptop. I purchased this laptop at Best Buy during the President's Day sale for $1199 and it came with a $50 game (COD4). Out of the box, it's a great machine. However, the review doesn't mention the amount of bloatware that is on the machine (which is commonplace).I managed to place a few upgrades in my machine. I placed a T7500 C2D, 4GB total ram, 200GB 7200RPM HD, and wiped my machine and installed a dual boot with Vista Business 64-bit and XP Pro 32-bit. I got great deals on the upgrades and the OSes I had from previous machines. Total cost of machine came to $1500.
3dMark06 scores are as follows: (drivers I used are 169.09 from laptopvideo2go.com)
Vista 64 - 8900
XP Pro 32 - 9150
tomek1984 - Tuesday, May 13, 2008 - link
Give me few hints how you got video driver to work with XP. I downloaded 169.09 and tried installing it with base file and 2nd time with an updated one by INF file. Nether1 recognized Nvidia hardware. I am using 6860 FX with factory specs+ 2nd harddrive(XP is instaled on 2nd HD)Starcub - Saturday, May 17, 2008 - link
I got a newer driver from laptopvideo2go.com to work by replacing the inf file with nvwi.inf which I extracted from the included originalinfs.zip.ap90033 - Friday, March 28, 2008 - link
Nice, I have one and wondered what the difference would be if I upgraded the CPU...Great review by the way.
ToeJuice - Friday, March 28, 2008 - link
I own an Asus G2 and it's one of the better (if not the best) midrange gaming laptops I've ever owned or seen. But I guess Asus lappies don't even deserve a mention here?