Gateway P-6831 FX: Best Midrange Gaming Notebook Ever
by Jarred Walton on March 28, 2008 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Closing Thoughts
We always enjoy reviewing top-end notebooks, as it's exciting to see just how much performance can be packed into a (reasonably) portable package. It's a lot like eyeballing a sports car that you probably won't buy but you can still lust after, or perhaps being lucky enough to take one for a test drive. Who among us doesn't relish the thought of burning rubber Need for Speed style in an exotic sports car? At the end of the day, however, most of us drive home in our Honda Accords, Toyota Camrys, or — gasp! — minivans. (I myself drive around in a Chrysler Sebring.)
Just because you drive a midrange, midsize sedan doesn't necessarily mean you have to sacrifice in all areas, however. It's possible to get a V6, leather interior, and other upgrades, and even if you will never be able to keep pace with the exotic cars of the world you can at least be reasonably content. If gaming laptops were cars, the Gateway P-6831 FX would manage to attract a lot of attention — and deservedly so. 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.
If you've ever been interested in a gaming notebook but have decided that the price/performance just can't be justified, now might be a good time to rethink things. Oh sure, there are compromises made — your gas mileage is going to go down, the car may be a bit bulkier and noisier than you'd like, and in a flat-out drag race you will probably get smoked. But as long as you're only competing against the average business notebook, feel free to rev up your 8800M GTS engine and make some people jealous.
When we first saw Gateway's new FX notebook at CES, we were intrigued. Then they told us the expected price and our jaws hit the floor. We have never seen this much relative graphics performance in a notebook for such a low price. If you're into the LAN party scene and you're thinking it's about time to upgrade your aging desktop, it might be time to finally ditch desktops entirely.
The Gateway P-6831 FX isn't perfect by any means. We don't like the fact that the battery juts out from the rear of the notebook, we really would have liked a 1920x1200 LCD option on some of the less expensive models, the one-year warranty is short, and the LCD contrast ratio isn't very good. Like many OEM systems, it also comes preloaded with a ton of bloatware — that's easy enough to uninstall, thankfully. And would it be too much to ask for four audio jacks so we could use 5.1 headphones with a microphone? But that's just us being greedy.
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deshiboy - Monday, January 25, 2010 - link
I use the FX for school and my Sager 8690 for gaming. Sager looks plain but preforms likes a desktop, I wish they did a better job on the battery life. But thats where my FX comes in to save the day.atlmann10 - Tuesday, August 5, 2008 - link
Gateways doing the same thing with the next on this line except its centrino 2/core2duo with ddr3 and a 9800 GTI for 1449 frickin awesome these will be hard to come by after the last one (the one in this review)atlmann10 - Tuesday, August 5, 2008 - link
oh with a 7200 rpm Hard drive and wireless N oh did I mention ddr3 can you say lower power better performancexeryx - Thursday, June 5, 2008 - link
Obviously Gateway and Best Buy has decided to blow away the competition with this notebook!!I have been laptop Gaming for years, because my job keeps me on the road alot. It is a great way to pass the time away from family, and stay out of trouble.
I currently own a Sager 17" laptop with the 7800m 2gb, and a 80gb hd. When I bought it new it was $2200.
As a comparison to the Gateway, (Best Buy version)get an almost equivalent system from Sager, your looking at $2200. In all fairness, that is the 8800gtx ($395) and a 2.1 ghz (t8100) with no option of a second HD, let alone Raid 0. It also has the fingerprint scanner.
To me the 2nd hd (even though 5400) is very important, let alone the potential for raid 0. I find that laptop HD performance is not very good overall, and can cause delays when gaming.
Screen resolution, I have been gaming at 1680x1050 and in all honesty, it is too high for a 17" screen. Especially in the desktop. 1920 is way too high for a 17" screen, unless you have SLI8800m's. That is a completely different bracket.
In my opinion they did an excellent job in trading off, and adding in some very key features. SO you basically save $1000.00 for a little bit less performance than a 8800 GTX machine. The key here though is at @ $1200, not $2000 you get a machine that will be able to handle just about anything you can through at it (Crysis doesn't count).
If you are thinking about getting a laptop, for gaming...this is the absolute best smoking deal you can find!!
Rekonn - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
Anybody have an update on when the P-6860fx will be out?Rekonn - Friday, April 11, 2008 - link
Found answer today on Yahoo finance:The Gateway P-6860FX comes with Windows Vista Home Premium 64-bit Edition with SP1 and will be available beginning this weekend at Best Buy with a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $1,349.99. It comes with NVIDIA® GeForce™ 8800M GTS 512MB GDDR3, an Intel Core 2 Duo T5450 processor, 3072MB of DDR2 SDRAM and a 250GB(1) 5400RPM SATA hard drive. This system also comes with a multi-format dual layer DVD-R/RW/DVD-RAM drive with LabelFlash technology(2) for burning images and text onto a DVD or CD.
teknomedic - Tuesday, April 15, 2008 - link
I've returned both my P-6831s because of the P-6860FX... the above post is a bit wrong about the specs... here's what I know:Gateway P-6860 FX
Basically the same as the P-6831 with a few nice upgrades:
Proc = T5550 @ 1.83-1.86Ghz (up from T5450 @ 1.6Ghz)
RAM = 4GB (up from 3GB)
HDD = 320GB SATA (5400rpm) (up from 250GB)
OS = Vista Home Premium SP1 (64bit) (up/down from 32bit?)
MSRP Price = $1,349.99 (same price before BB $100 off online)
All other hardware appears to be the same... there's a small chance that the CD-Burner supports one more Dual Layer format, but that could simply be because of Best Buy not listing specs correctly.
Side note... has anyone had issues with the right speaker having bad distortions on certain sounds or speach from games... both my P6831s had this issue (another reason I returned them).
TK.
HEY, Anandtech.com.... any chance we can get a refreshed review including the P-6860... it would be interesting to see if the extra boost of Proc and RAM with 64bit OS helps or hurts the laptop.
***please, please, please, please, please***
xeryx - Thursday, June 5, 2008 - link
You did forget a couple of other differences.BTW Get this Laptop at Best Buy!! The upgrades are well worth it as compared to the Gateway website!!!
1) Comes with the Bluetooth the Gateway 172s does not
2) The wireless adapter is the upgraded to support b/g/n
3) 64bit operating system vs 32bit
Thank goodness you can Raid 0 this puppy later, I was worried! The specs for the 172s says no raid support??
kyp275 - Monday, April 21, 2008 - link
aye, a refresh on the review for the 6860 would be great :)Rekonn - Tuesday, April 22, 2008 - link
Yes, please update the review! I'm planning to buy a laptop soon and would love to see how the faster Proc, more RAM, and 64bit OS affect results.