- Joined
- May 23, 2002
Hey all, This is my mini-review of the FX series from gateway. Gateway has really impressed a lot of people lately (myself included) with their latest FX series.
It started with the insane deal of the P-6831 FX. You could buy this rig for 1250 + a free PC game at best buy. They quickly sold out. Here is a very good review of the P-6831 at anandtech:
http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3273
Now, there's spotty reports of more trickling into best buy and people getting them for 1350 and 1250 (originally they were 1350, but BB offered 100 off instantly). The new ones coming in have the T5550 (1.83ghz, as opposed to the T5450 which is 1.66).
Well I was in the market for a gaming laptop and the only other options were the alienware 15x or a sager/clevo. The 15x at 3000 for a model I would actually want, that's out of control. The next was sager. For around 2400 you could get a decent setup, but it didn't have one thing I wanted...dual HDD's for RAID 0 (we all know how bad laptops HDD's are). The Sager though also has this 200 dollar "dead pixel warranty"...which to me is complete BS. If I'm spending over 2k on a laptop and it comes with a messed up screen that I can't replace I'd shoot someone (and I'm not gonna pay 200 more) Both these models sported the GTX over the GTS which is faster of course, but the 10-20% increase was not worth the price.
So when I heard about this P-6831 hitting the streets I called my parents who went to best buy immediately, but it was too late, they were already sold out, but my dad was able to get a rain check with a feb 30 arrival date (this was around 20 feb I wanted it). During the next few days I was thinking about what I would need to do to this laptop. The P6183 obviously has an unsat CPU, so I checked prices on the T8300 (2.4ghz) and T9300 (2.5ghz, higher FSB)...about 250 vs 350. not bad, brings the cost to around 1500-1600 depending on processor. Next was the screen. 1440x900 will not fly for me, I've been running 1920x1200 for ages. now 1920x1200 on a 17" laptop is quite small, but 1440x900 is just plain not usable (I'm picky...but have good eyes). 1680x1050 17" screens which are compatible are expensive and rare (although this is a perfect fit...why can't more manufactures offer this!). WUXGA screens can be had for 200 if you hunt, 250 for a quick buy. So I added 250 and now I'm at 1750-1850. Now this is basically = to what the sager would run (except 8800GTS vs GTX, which is about 10-20% in gaming...not worth the loss of RAID 0 and 600+ bucks)
I was able to call gateway and get a rep to give me a discount on the P171X FX. This model is just like the P6183 with the following upgrades:
- 1920x1200 screen (nice because now I won't need to rip apart my new laptop to install a screen)
- 2.4ghz T8300 2.4ghz is good for me, I would have went with the T8300 over the T9300 anyway
- slot loading DVD drive (compared to normal tray)...it looks cool, small perk
I ended up getting the laptop for 1600 base, + 100 for a 3 year warranty with accident plan, and another 150 for tax and shipping (tax on the BB would have been around 90 for me)...
So total spent was 1850. (1950 if you count the 250gb HDD I bought separate for RAID 0)
The Pro's..upgrades as listed, and 3 year warranty. Cost was = when you factored in BB tax, so the warranty was the pro.
Cons, well it is fun to take stuff apart, I had to wait about 3 weeks from the day I would have gotten the P6183.
The actual REVIEW! Again I'm gonna link the anandtech review it has more meat and potatoes, it basically covers everything. I'm just gonna post a few scores with mine and talk a tad about my experience.
http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3273&p=1
Out of the box it looks flashy, glossy black with hints of carbon fiber painted on it. Finger prints show up easily, some people might care, I really don't though.
The laptop is heavy relatively speaking but I've had a dell 9200, and 2 E1705's (I do like Dells 17" series, but no 8800's were available...and I buy and sell hardware alot as I'm sure you can tell), heavy laptops don't bother me, laptops sit on your lap or on a desk...I would never carry a laptop without a bag so 5lbs more doesn't bug me.
Build quality is decent. The laptop is sturdy, the only complaint is if you pick it up on the edge with the DVD drive and a DVD is in there it will make evil noises (it's causing the plastic to flex and the innards hit the DVD/CD). I may be a little rough on laptops, but my old Dells I could lift them in the same manner and never had any issues. Dell's 17" series definitely felt stronger, but this wasn't terrible.
Fingerprint reader works...it's one of those cool things that some people have to have, I don't really care, I programmed one finger to log me onto windows. Might even do away with it, I just don't see the need for that type of security.
Other little things, which are nice, although not necessary.
- 1.3mp web cam probably won't ever use it, but it's there!
- USB ports on both sides! I don't know why, it seems 95% of the time when I goto plug a USB device into any laptop I pick the wrong side!
- eSATA port. I use this actually as my backup device (2 320's in RAID 1) uses esata or USB, esata is just much faster!.
- HDMI...I'll never use it but some people love this, I might use it for a DVI out though, since there is no DVI port (this will suffice), there is a VGA though.
- SD card reader...I almost have to have this, after I've used my dells with this I don't know how many times I'm on a trips and want to look at photos I took (because I only really use my laptop on trips)
- touchpad volume controls (nice change over the standard clicking allows for finer adjustments)
WiFi on/off switch saves battery life and is simple
Bluetoof *shrug* don't care but some people it's a must
Hot buttons are programmable (vista only, regedit trick), so DVD is my DVD X Player, music is winamp as opposed to windows media center, and home is firefox
I booted up the laptop when I got it, booted up great. I looked at the screen with a virgin windows (with whatever gateway puts on). I blinked once or twice then hit the power button. Turned the laptop upside down, and popped the HDD covers, and dropped in my other 250gb WD drive. Grinned, then flipped it back over (almost like I had a quick threesome). Booted it up, set it RAID enabled, and put in the windows vista DVD (it is nice gateway ships a real OEM copy of windows and not some proprietary BS with a hidden partition like Dell). While installing windows I created a 200gb partition first, then a 50gb, then the rest (213 or something). Installed windows in the 50gb partition (the 200gb on the first portion...which is the fastest portion of the disk will be setup to my Games drive which only games and important programs go on).
Gateways website has all the drivers you need except the touchpad (bad link), but synaptech has newer drivers anyway. laptopvideo2go has the latest greatest laptop video drivers, so I got those as well.
The 1920x1200 screen has a nice look (it's not glossy, but not matte, a good compromise) and has decent viewing angles (not that great, but not as bad as the 1440x900 screen).
Here is a pic with how my laptop rolls:
And on to benchmarking:
As you can tell, the HDD bandwidth is damn impressive. seek times aren't that great, but the first portion of the disk is 100mb/s average! 3dmark is done at the standard 1280x1024 and is clocks are stock (will be OCing soon). Almost 8k at the standard res competes with many desktop setups.
Overall this is a pretty bad little machine! For the price it can't be beat. The devil is in the details, and in this Gateway FX definitely comes through!
It started with the insane deal of the P-6831 FX. You could buy this rig for 1250 + a free PC game at best buy. They quickly sold out. Here is a very good review of the P-6831 at anandtech:
http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3273
Now, there's spotty reports of more trickling into best buy and people getting them for 1350 and 1250 (originally they were 1350, but BB offered 100 off instantly). The new ones coming in have the T5550 (1.83ghz, as opposed to the T5450 which is 1.66).
Well I was in the market for a gaming laptop and the only other options were the alienware 15x or a sager/clevo. The 15x at 3000 for a model I would actually want, that's out of control. The next was sager. For around 2400 you could get a decent setup, but it didn't have one thing I wanted...dual HDD's for RAID 0 (we all know how bad laptops HDD's are). The Sager though also has this 200 dollar "dead pixel warranty"...which to me is complete BS. If I'm spending over 2k on a laptop and it comes with a messed up screen that I can't replace I'd shoot someone (and I'm not gonna pay 200 more) Both these models sported the GTX over the GTS which is faster of course, but the 10-20% increase was not worth the price.
So when I heard about this P-6831 hitting the streets I called my parents who went to best buy immediately, but it was too late, they were already sold out, but my dad was able to get a rain check with a feb 30 arrival date (this was around 20 feb I wanted it). During the next few days I was thinking about what I would need to do to this laptop. The P6183 obviously has an unsat CPU, so I checked prices on the T8300 (2.4ghz) and T9300 (2.5ghz, higher FSB)...about 250 vs 350. not bad, brings the cost to around 1500-1600 depending on processor. Next was the screen. 1440x900 will not fly for me, I've been running 1920x1200 for ages. now 1920x1200 on a 17" laptop is quite small, but 1440x900 is just plain not usable (I'm picky...but have good eyes). 1680x1050 17" screens which are compatible are expensive and rare (although this is a perfect fit...why can't more manufactures offer this!). WUXGA screens can be had for 200 if you hunt, 250 for a quick buy. So I added 250 and now I'm at 1750-1850. Now this is basically = to what the sager would run (except 8800GTS vs GTX, which is about 10-20% in gaming...not worth the loss of RAID 0 and 600+ bucks)
I was able to call gateway and get a rep to give me a discount on the P171X FX. This model is just like the P6183 with the following upgrades:
- 1920x1200 screen (nice because now I won't need to rip apart my new laptop to install a screen)
- 2.4ghz T8300 2.4ghz is good for me, I would have went with the T8300 over the T9300 anyway
- slot loading DVD drive (compared to normal tray)...it looks cool, small perk
I ended up getting the laptop for 1600 base, + 100 for a 3 year warranty with accident plan, and another 150 for tax and shipping (tax on the BB would have been around 90 for me)...
So total spent was 1850. (1950 if you count the 250gb HDD I bought separate for RAID 0)
The Pro's..upgrades as listed, and 3 year warranty. Cost was = when you factored in BB tax, so the warranty was the pro.
Cons, well it is fun to take stuff apart, I had to wait about 3 weeks from the day I would have gotten the P6183.
The actual REVIEW! Again I'm gonna link the anandtech review it has more meat and potatoes, it basically covers everything. I'm just gonna post a few scores with mine and talk a tad about my experience.
http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3273&p=1
Out of the box it looks flashy, glossy black with hints of carbon fiber painted on it. Finger prints show up easily, some people might care, I really don't though.
The laptop is heavy relatively speaking but I've had a dell 9200, and 2 E1705's (I do like Dells 17" series, but no 8800's were available...and I buy and sell hardware alot as I'm sure you can tell), heavy laptops don't bother me, laptops sit on your lap or on a desk...I would never carry a laptop without a bag so 5lbs more doesn't bug me.
Build quality is decent. The laptop is sturdy, the only complaint is if you pick it up on the edge with the DVD drive and a DVD is in there it will make evil noises (it's causing the plastic to flex and the innards hit the DVD/CD). I may be a little rough on laptops, but my old Dells I could lift them in the same manner and never had any issues. Dell's 17" series definitely felt stronger, but this wasn't terrible.
Fingerprint reader works...it's one of those cool things that some people have to have, I don't really care, I programmed one finger to log me onto windows. Might even do away with it, I just don't see the need for that type of security.
Other little things, which are nice, although not necessary.
- 1.3mp web cam probably won't ever use it, but it's there!
- USB ports on both sides! I don't know why, it seems 95% of the time when I goto plug a USB device into any laptop I pick the wrong side!
- eSATA port. I use this actually as my backup device (2 320's in RAID 1) uses esata or USB, esata is just much faster!.
- HDMI...I'll never use it but some people love this, I might use it for a DVI out though, since there is no DVI port (this will suffice), there is a VGA though.
- SD card reader...I almost have to have this, after I've used my dells with this I don't know how many times I'm on a trips and want to look at photos I took (because I only really use my laptop on trips)
- touchpad volume controls (nice change over the standard clicking allows for finer adjustments)
WiFi on/off switch saves battery life and is simple
Bluetoof *shrug* don't care but some people it's a must
Hot buttons are programmable (vista only, regedit trick), so DVD is my DVD X Player, music is winamp as opposed to windows media center, and home is firefox
I booted up the laptop when I got it, booted up great. I looked at the screen with a virgin windows (with whatever gateway puts on). I blinked once or twice then hit the power button. Turned the laptop upside down, and popped the HDD covers, and dropped in my other 250gb WD drive. Grinned, then flipped it back over (almost like I had a quick threesome). Booted it up, set it RAID enabled, and put in the windows vista DVD (it is nice gateway ships a real OEM copy of windows and not some proprietary BS with a hidden partition like Dell). While installing windows I created a 200gb partition first, then a 50gb, then the rest (213 or something). Installed windows in the 50gb partition (the 200gb on the first portion...which is the fastest portion of the disk will be setup to my Games drive which only games and important programs go on).
Gateways website has all the drivers you need except the touchpad (bad link), but synaptech has newer drivers anyway. laptopvideo2go has the latest greatest laptop video drivers, so I got those as well.
The 1920x1200 screen has a nice look (it's not glossy, but not matte, a good compromise) and has decent viewing angles (not that great, but not as bad as the 1440x900 screen).
Here is a pic with how my laptop rolls:
And on to benchmarking:
As you can tell, the HDD bandwidth is damn impressive. seek times aren't that great, but the first portion of the disk is 100mb/s average! 3dmark is done at the standard 1280x1024 and is clocks are stock (will be OCing soon). Almost 8k at the standard res competes with many desktop setups.
Overall this is a pretty bad little machine! For the price it can't be beat. The devil is in the details, and in this Gateway FX definitely comes through!
