P6860 vs P-173XL FX

I have read alot of people upgrading the 6860 cpu to a 2.4 or 2.5 Ghz.

Tigerdirect has the P-173XL FX on there site for $1630 which would be pretty close to the price of the "Best Buy" $1349 and the ~$244 upgrade to the T8300 2.4Ghz cpu. The biggest differences I see between these is that the P-173 has a 1920x1200 screen (which would reduce fps in games at native resolutions) and the dual 200GB hard drives. Any feedback or other thoughts anyone has between these two machines?

Also a little nervous about extended warranties with both Best buy and Tigerdirect and thoughts on this?

 

best buy and gateway are phasing out their 6860s and 6831s for a newer model coming out soon. i would delay the purchase to see what they put out and base your decision on those two laptops.

 

I understand that new models are supposed to arrive shortly (mid august) but I do not see a huge advantage at this point.

I kinda see some of the components in the replacement for the 6860 as having some draw backs and if I could get the 6860 or P-173 at a reduced price it may be a better choice for me.

From some of the other threads here I have picked up on these as being the downside of replacement for the 6860:

The updated video card 9700gts draws more power (I believe in the 60+ watt range compared to the 35 watt 8800), The performance of these cards should be very similar in games. Increased power requirement is going to be a drain on the battery.

The 5100 series wireless card has marginal through put compared to the 4965 due to antenna arrangement (anandtech article). If the new laptop were to come out with the 5300 then it may be worth looking at.

The increased screen size will be 1920x1200 compared to the 1440x900 which would reduce frame rates in games at the native resolution and keeping with the native resolution should provide the best visual quality.

So that is a few points of why I am looking at the 6860 and the P-173 closely.

 

The updated Video card is not a 9700m, It's a 9800m GTS. And it should draw 35 Watts of Power just like it's 8800m GTS predecessor.

Can't you just change the game's resolution in-game?
I don't see how a higher res screen is a downside if you can just adjust the res at will...

 

That's because playing at non-native resolutions will sometimes affect the graphics of the game due to distortion.

Here you go
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=110429

 

I stand corrected about it being a 9800m GTS, but the power consumption is not on par with the 8800m GTS, it is more, look at the stats at Notebookcheck

9800 GTS - 75 watts (seems high but look at the upper and lower cards and it would at least be in the 65+ range)

9800 GTX - 75 watts
9800 GT - 65 watts
9700 GTS - 60 watts

I know you can change the resolution to improve frames rates but it could be at the sacrifice of some visual quality..

 

Here's a tip, take everything notebookcheck says with a pinch of salt.

Well based on their information, you're telling me that the 9800M GTS (die-shrink) will use twice as much power as the previous generation's highest end card (8800M GTX)?
Doesn't seem quite likely does it.

 

9800GTS uses LESS power.

 

they are the same card, just a die shrink, nothing to freak out about. The only real difference will be the 1066 DDR3 ram and the new CPUs, but i dont htink there will be a big difference from now. And the res of course.

 

Games don't look worse when played on non native, if you maintain your aspect ratio: it's only going to look "stretched" if you use non - widescreen res on a widescreen. If you keep the widescreen res it should look fine.

 

Umm. WHAT? Games (and everything else) DO look worse when running at a non-native resolution. It has nothing to do with aspect ratios. Its about the panel having to downscale the image. I dont know what laptop youre running, but drop your resolution down one notch and then tell me it looks the same. Where do you come up with this stuff?

 

Lol ill never understand how people can say downscaling on a lcd looks fine or the same as its native resolution . someday im hoping for a lcd that scales images like the old crts did but who knows if thats ever going to happen.

 

^^Yeah, fixed pixel displays like plasma and lcd are great until you have to scale and display a non native resolution. Thats why i'm clinging onto my Sony GDMFW900 and Sony KD-34XBR960 as long as possible

 

Lol, I didn't mean to say that scaled down looks same as Native Res on the same laptop.

But if you have 2 laptops side by side one is 1440x900 native and another 1920x1200 native
but scaled down to 1440x900, you will be hard pressed to find a difference while playing a game.

 

So it's not going to look as good playing Crysis with 1280x800 (all high) with the 7811 (1920x1200 native) than the 6860 (1440x900 native)?

 

In my experience downscaling the res. in Windows or any other program looks like ***. We all know that of course. That being said IN GAME I've never seen much if any difference. I suppose if you stand still staring at a chunk of grass and switch resolutions back and forth you'll see some minor loss of quality, but in practical use you're not staring at a chunk of grass- you're playing the game. So for let's say Crysis, the camera is whipping back and forth, things are blowing up, etc. I'd much rather have the FPS gain from the lower res that while actually playing for all intents and purposes looks nearly the same, than have the edges of the blades of grass and palm fronds look a tiny bit clearer.
In-game the loss of visual quality is so minimally visible (if at all really) that I'd much rather have the FPS. I recently tested this in game playing Oblivion. I decided to try and drop the res. Yes, I noticed the drop in quality, but the gain of almost 10 FPS was worth it. In fact I was able to enable AA and the quality was like 90% as good as native with AA on, but had a higher framerate than native with AA off. Staring at certain thin objects, yes you see a minor loss of crispness, but actually playing I found the trade off worth it. I suppose it all depends on preference really, I always try and run native, but if I find I can't get a good enough framerate, I don't think dropping the res a bit to pick up a few frames hurts the image enough to worry about.


Edit: Holy crap! Was that really the first time I've posted here? lol. Didn't know I was doing that much lurking.

 

I've got a now "older" Inspiron 9300 with the GF 6800 Go and have actually started playing a lot of older games (HL mods) on it with great FPS rates but less eye candy - I'd also rather have the smoothness of great FPS over "slow" eye candy graphics any day

Mind you - if I could have both at native resolution that would be perfect.

I'm still in two minds whether or not to upgrade to one of these Gateways but will probably wait until they get closer to the $1k mark.

The native resolution during game-play was something that has become a "lessons learned" experience for me - I'd probably opt for a much lower screen res than my current 1920x1200 option.

Any idea where I can pick up a cheap Gateway then?

I can't believe I missed that Buy.com refurbished offer a couple of weeks ago as they send me emails everyday....