New info on 6860 fx and other new fx NBs

still not a big leap from T5450,since bot clock at 667mhz. might as well get the 6831 and put in a T9300.

 

it would be a good deal if the retail price stays the same

 

Retail is the same, 1349.99, and it goes on planogram(has a spot on display) as of today, but none are in stock at any store yet.

 

so when do you think theyll be in stock?

 

doesn't 64 bit have a lot of problems. like there is not enough drivers yet and that it crashes. i dont think the majority will ever use 64 bit until at least 5 years from now.
new laptop
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8780198&type=product&id=1204332501169

why not just stick with the p 6831 they have it in stock
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8651167&type=product&id=1195599780039

 

i cant find anywhere on the bestbuy site where it says its 64bit , it just says windows home premium with SP1 so im not sure it even has Vista64.

 

On the Gateway website it says 64bit.

http://www.gateway.com/systems/product/529668070.php

 

Cool i had not seen that page before. It is weird that its not stated on the BB website, because to some people it would be another reason they may or may not want this model over the previous one. One things for sure for 100bucks more that 320drive and the gig more of ram is worth it especially if its tied to an OS that can take advantage of the extra ram and from what ive read about those 320 drives they move data about as fast as some of the 7200rpm drives.

 

I will trade one of my 32 bit os's for a 64 bit one, my offer is there

 

hhaha someone better grab what flynnaz is offering.this guys serious!

 

now i'm gonna wait and see how people review that one. hopefully the 6831 will still be in stock for me by the time people realize vista 64 bit sux. but if the 6831 is out i'l just install a 32 bit on the 6860

 

I have had zero trouble with Vista 64 on either of my machines. It works quite well, in fact.

 

I just ordered my 6861 fx yesterday and today I see the 6860's on the bb website. I know my order hasn't shipped yet so my question to you 606x fx vets is how much better do you think the 6860 will be? It is backordered like crazy atm so would it be worth the potential 2-4 week wait? I still have time to cancel my order and get this one but the excitement of having this sweet arse laptop has got me between a rock and a hard place.

same cpu
3gb ram vs 4gm ram
250hdd vs 320 hdd is all i can see. Let me know if there are any other differences i should be aware of

thanks
Bung~

 

I would hold out if it were me, but it really depends if you need a laptop ASAP or you can wait a few more days. The extra space and ram plus the 64bit os are all worth more then a 100bucks IMHO .

 

well im planning to order mine sometime within 2 days.. The estimated delivery time is on the 28th which is fine for me as long as I get one of these before they run out..

 

I really do want to get it and start enjoying it. The hard drive is maybe the biggest thing for me since I will more than likely remove vista all together and run winxp. I just don't really care for how vista lags vs XP.

Couple of questions and forgive me if they have been asked b4 <3

If I did do a self upgrade what is the highest level of ddr2 ram I can add to this lappy. DDR2 667 or DDR2 800?

If I did lets say want to upgrade and add a 2nd 250gb hdd to do the raid thing would either of those upgrades void my warranty?

I figure $100 for 1 more gb ram and 70 more gb hdd
or
$180 more for 4 gb of faster ram and 180gb hdd with a self upgrade.

 

I think only major upgrades, such as the CPU, void the warranty. The back of the machine was made to be removed so you shouldn't be punished for adding more space.

I'm not 100% sure, but pretty close.

 

i would believe that there are 2 160 GB HDs in the 6860, otherwise i couldn't figure out what made up the extra one pound

 

I am not jokeing, I have two Gateway system restore (Vista 32bit) disks, I would be willing to trade no problem.

 

So Dimm DDR2 667.

You can get a 2 GB stick for around $30 to $40. That will leave you with one extra 1 GB stick left over.

RAM/HDD upgrades do not usually void your warranty.

 

im not sure but if u have the stock cpu which is the T5550 you can only get rams that are 667 on clocks, get higher and it will be backwards compatible meaning it will run on which mhz it sees lower.but if you do get to upgrade to T9300 thats a whole different story.i think.

 

Nope, still DDR667 for the T9300.

 

ok that helps dtw83 thank you!!

does anyone know what the model # is on the 250gb hdd is in the laptop?

 

It's a Western Digital. Not particularly certain which model it is.

 

i guess the one thing that would make me have to have a 6860 is if the dvd drive was a slot drive so i could easily swap it out for blueray down the road or something.

 

ok 2 questions why is 64 better then 32 bit of vista and does it matter what brand of hard drive and size we put in for the second hard drive.
so can i go buy a Toshiba 2.5 80 gig sata drive as my second hdd would it work.

 

i believe some people experience a driver issue with 64 bit.

for the hard drive, as long as you don't RAID them, i don't think it matters

 

64 bit allows you to use all 4 gb of ram while 32 bit only allows 3.5 gb of ram but there are driver issues with certain programs when using 64 bit. For the second HDD any will work but for setting up a RAID its best to use an identical one.

 

What processors can use DDR 800 ram?

 

the ram is always going to run at 667 no matter what processor you use so even if you buy 800mhz it will be downclocked to 667 but the proc will run at 800.

 

i thought if u get both proc and ram at 800mhz then theyll both run on that speed?

 

nope its a limitation of the santa rosa chipset to only allow ram to run at 667. i guess the new montevina chips are going to run ram at 1066 i believe .

 

i had the feeling it was due to the chipset

 

You can switch out the DVD drive regardless of whether it's a slot drive or normal model.

It fits the same anyway.

 

sweet dtwn83!!! I think I'm going to stick with the 6831 that I ordered and add a 2nd 250gb hdd as long as i get the T5550 cpu.

sorry for all the questions but you guys have already been down this road b4 so I wanna ask ppl who know

If I did upgrade to a T9300 cpu....what kind of fps increase should I expect to gain in cod4? lets say at the max res

 

I have 2 questions if someone can answer me:

1. Is the P6860FX CPU upgradeable? If so which is the best CPU I can find for it? (Believing it has the same options to upgrade the CPU/RAM/HDD as the 6831FX)

2. Is the computer capable to record Video using the HDMI port? I want to know since I should like to record some video game cutscenes from my PS3.

Sorry if this questions have been answered before, but I was searching and I couldn't find the exact answer.

Thanks in advance.

 

Ya the CPU is upgradeable same as 6831 as to which is the best i would say for the cash probably the 9300 theres faster out there but the prices really skyrocket for very little to no performance.

The HDMI is most likely just video out not in but im not 100 percent sure cause i never bothered to try but if going by all past video ports on PCs/laptops there always just OUT not IN.

 

pretty sure all P socket CPUs would work for 6831, the best ones among them are the T9300 and T9500, possibly even the quad cores in the future.

 

Is nice to hear that. Sucks about not been able to use the HDMI port for incoming media. Thanks for the info Quadzilla and ryo1000!

 

Unless they're changing anything in the internals of the 6860FX, which I doubt, you will be able to upgrade the CPU.

Best CPU technically would be the X9000, but there's not very much of a need for it. That usually costs at least $600 or more, but a few buyers have gotten it for $500+.

Most people go for the T9300 or T8300 for the Penryn processors and the T7500 or T7700 for Santa Rosa processors. The T7800 and T9500 don't provide a very large performance increase over the previous processor, so most people tend to skip out on them.



The T9300 can usually be had for between $325-350. The T8300 for around $260-280.

I've got 2 T9300s that I bought and haven't installed. Don't have a box for them though.

 

To those worried about 64-bit Vista, like I was - don't be.

I've been doing some reading, and it seems I was mistaken about the state of 64-bit Vista. I was under the impression that the compatibility of games and apps was poor, but it seems that it has improved. I searched on Google, but I told it to only give me articles published in the last 3 months. Instead of giving me articles that were published when Vista was first released, I got ones that tell more about it in it's current state.

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2280808,00.asp
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/winvista_1yr_x64.asp
http://www.winsupersite.com/vista/ (This site looks pretty good, it has a ton of reviews. Remember to pay attention to the date)

From what I'm seeing, Vista 64-bit is fine. Also, you get an extra gig of RAM. So I'm gonna go ahead and order my 6860

 

I just got a email from Rico, my gateway rep, he responded to my email about getting a 64 bit gateway system disk and this was the response "Did you mean 32 bit for 64 bit? If so, unfortunately we only have the 32 bit.. but are looking into possible 64 by Q3 but not in Q2 I know for sure…"

this is reguarding the gateway.com P series lappy's not the best buy ones, but who knows, I saw the book at best buy the one the best buy employees have, and it shows 64bit vista with the P-6860 fx

 

One other note, I have told Rico about the poor color choice for the number keys "dark red" they are hard to see, and he has told the development team at gateway about it, and and they say that Q2 products are too late to make the change but Q3 or 4 they will have some options to change the color.. so the ball is rolling on that so to say. That is the only real negative I have on these laptops. Asus have bright yellow number and a,w,s, and d keys (gamer keys )

 

So... that means that we could see some refreshes of these laptops each Qs...thats interesting...so the next refresh (Q3) could have montevina on it

Its nice to see that they are open to suggestions and are looking to get these FX laptops a great deal

 

Thats what I like too, gateway is willing to listen to their customers. Know if they could add the keyboard display and lite keyboard like on the dell m1730, nah that would drive the price up

 

For those with the 6831... have any of you noticed bad audio distortions of the right speaker? Both my 6831s I had did this so I returned them... so now I'm waiting for the 6860s.


@ Flynnaz... You seem to have an ear at Gateway... do you have any idea why they made the wireless on/off switch... a switch, instead of say putting an on/off button of sorts near the volume control area?

This is one of the things I really hate about the laptop... not only the current location of the wireless switch, but it's design as well.

Another annoyance is the locations of the Ctrl/Fn keys on the left... it would be a bit nicer if they swapped those.

Other than those issues (my main concern is the speaker problem I ran into twice in a row of the 6831) I love what Gateway is doing... keep it up!

 

tek, I don't like the wireless switch either, very cheesy looking, Gateway should have given us a few laptops to beta test

 

I agree... I'd be happy to beta test any and all future laptops... all they have to do is ship them to my house and I'll run all sorts of tests. I promise to ship them back within a year or two as well.

 

Check out this link, looks like maybe a cheaper version in the P series at Best Buy, $999.99 but it has a ATI card in it , oh well

http://www.betanews.com/article/Gateways_notebook_lineup_under_Acer_starts_to_gel/1207956801

 

here is a little better link;
http://hardware.earthweb.com/news/article.php/3740366