The New Gateway Gaming Laptop is HERE ( P-7801u)

For my needs the 7811 was best. The 7801u is in a price point with the 6448, so there you have to weigh a faster processor against a faster gpu. Or you could wait until the price drops on the 7801u.

P.S. My 4yr old saw me playing Crysis. He started asking to play the shooting game. Mommie was NOT amused. Now he's actually into chess.

 

Hi, I'm new here.

I'm also a novice or "noob" to PC gaming, although I play MANY games on 360/PS3. I have games on the PC such as World In Conflict, BF2/BF2142, EVE online, F.E.A.R., Sins of a Solar Empire, and the classics such as Star Craft and Diablo II(can't wait for the new ones!). So I guess I'm not that much of a "noob" to PC gaming. I have always been afraid of FPS on a PC as the only FPS I have for the PC is F.E.A.R. and BF series but those are not very graphically extreme, but I would like to get into Crysis and other more graphically extreme FPSs. What I am a noob to is PC components. I think I have got the general knowledge of them but my biggest problem is finding the right package.

Now I here been researching the P-7811FX for sometime and was ready to buy. Well they don't make it anymore so I'm screwed on that front. So I researched the P-7801u and it looks to be great like the P-7811FX but the price is a little bit too much for what they give over the P-7811FX, although I believe they were selling those P-7811FX's way too cheap. I also looked at some Asus G50s but their smaller screen and resolution as well as their slightly lower graphics card turned me off to them.

A lot of you hear are bashing the price of the P-7801u but I still see it as the best bang for the buck considering it's 17" screen. My biggest gripe about the P-7801u/P-7811FX is the CPU. I want know if the 2.26Ghz P8400 is adequate to you P-7811FX/P-7801u users. Also is the P8400 able to be overclocked? And lastly do you guys think the price might go down a little before Christmas and why does Gateway say that Best Buy carries the P-7801u yet I can't find it on their site?

Thank you in advance.

 

no cpu overclock on the p-78xx gateways.

 

So I would have to buy a new CPU or it just is not possible to overclock any CPU on the P-78xx series?

Is the P8400 fast enough for running a game/music/and web browser at the same time?

 

the p8400 is quite capable a cpu. while most games are gpu restricted, you could buy a more powerful cpu, but none are o/c able on that gateway.

 

Ok I have narrowed it down to these two laptops.

-ASUS G Series G71G-X1
-Gateway P-7801u

So I know this is the "Gateway" section of the board but I'm honestly not sure if I should go for the extra CPU or extra GPU.

 

that depends on which games you play or intend to play
and remeber that you can upgrade the cpu but thats not the case with gpu unless you get a top end notebook

 

Go with more powerful GPU vs CPU, that makes a bigger difference in games and CPUs can be easily upgraded in most notebooks whereas for most notebooks, its impossible to upgrade the GPU.

 

You guys have been great help.

I love the look of the Asus and I hear their quality is good but I want the best GPU I can get.

So that leads me to two last choices.

Sager NP5793:

- Chassis Color: Orange Trim
- Display: 17" WUXGA LCD with Matte Finish Surface (1920x1200)
- Processor: 45nm Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T9300 / 6MB L2 Cache, 2.50GHz, 800MHz FSB[+$175.00]
- Video & Graphics Card: Nvidia GeForce 9800M GTS Graphics with 512MB DDR3 Video Memory
- Operating System: Genuine MS Windows® VISTA Home Premium 32/64-Bit Edition
- Memory: 4GB Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz - 2 X 2048MB
- Primary Hard Disk Drive: 250GB 7200rpm SATA 300 Hard Drive
- Optical Drive: 2X Blu-ray Reader/8X DVD±R/2.4X +DL Super-Multi Drive & Software
- Wireless Network Card: Intel Wi-Fi Link 5100AGN - 802.11A/B/G/N Wireless LAN Module
- Bluetooth: Internal Bluetooth Module
- Primary Battery: Smart Li-ION Battery Pack
- Integrated Security Device: Fingerprint Reader
- Microsoft Office: Microsoft Office Ready with Free 60-Day Trial
- Warranty: Sager 1 Year Limited Parts and Labor Warranty with Three-Day Shipping Both Ways Paid
- Carrying Bag: Standard Carrying Bag

all for $1,674.00

I'm still leaning towards the P-7801u but this Sager can be configured with better stuff and a BD drive. I've just never heard of Sager.

Is the BD on the Sager able to write CD/DVDs?

Sorry for all the questions, I just want to get the right laptop.

 

Sager is a well known and well respected maker of high end and customizeable notebooks.

That $1674 price is pretty amazing. The only downside is that the Sager system is using older generation DDR2 DRAM. The main effect of that is less battery time as DDR2 is more power hungry than DDR3. If that does not matter, then the Sager is quite temping since it has a faster CPU and a Blu-ray drive. By the way, the specs indicate that it only reads Blu-ray, but can write stadard DVDs. You can upgrade the Gateway with a drive like this as well, but you have to buy the drive and install it yourself. The cheapest I have seen is about $300 except for the occassional fluke on ebay down in the $200 price range.

Ira

 

the sager is the one to get. the only issue is the battery life. but for a desktop replacement...

 

I am very happy with my 7801u but that Sager is a nice buy as well... Only downside is the DDR2...

 

Thank you guys for the info.

It seems the biggest flaw with the Sager is the DDR2, but isn't it relatively easy to get new memory?

I posted my questions in the "What laptop should I should buy?" section. Sorry for going off topic.

 

You cannot change the memory technology as that is a function of the Intel chipset on the motherboard. The Sager uses an older chipset that only supports DDR2. The Gateway uses the latest chipset that supports only DDR3. DDR3 does use less power than DDR2 and thus increases battery life and also (in theory) provides higher performance.

Ira

 

i dont see that as being flaw, as it affects nothing other than the miserly increase you receive in battery life.

 

If you were to later change the Intel processor, would you then be able to change to DDR3?

Or is the mother board totally different?

Thank You.

 

So for now it is just more energy efficient?

 

pretty much, thats it, the speed is obviously faster, but RAM speeds usually dont affect anything, quantity over quality with RAM by far..

 

Would the faster processor on the Sager out weigh the faster RAM on Gateway as far as gaming?

 

I would trade my miniscule extra battery life, +266MHz faster ram, and extra 512MB GPU memory for a T9300, Blu-Ray, finger print reader, Blue Tooth, Carrying Case.

Don't get me wrong, I love my 7801u but I think in the end it all boiled down to price and the 7801u was on sale for $1549 when I got it. It is on sale again right now but for $1599.00 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834101166

EDIT: I really wish I could have gotten a 7811FX for under $1000 like a couple people have..

 

+1

If they were still making the P-7811FX and selling it for $1300, I would already have it. I was researching it for so long and then made up my mid that I was going to buy it only to find out they don't sell it anymore. Cnet needs to take it off their "editor's choice" and review the P-7801u.

 

Haven't read this thred that much, but does 7801u bios work with 7811 fx?

 

Same BIOS the 7801u just comes already loaded with the almost latest bios they seem to have tested and improved on during the 7811FX's release

Only difference between the 7811FX and 7801u is the extra 120GB on the hard drive and +512MB on the GPU...

Assuming the person who posted the 7811FX 3dMark06 scores at 1900x1200 was running everything stock and his scores were legit, the 7811FX scored almost exactly the same as my 7801u so the extra 512MB ram on the GPU doesn't seem to be used.

 

im not ripping the 7801, just telling it how it is

 

lets say the sager maxed out vs. the 7801 maxed out.
x9000, ddr2, 9800m gts vs. x9100 ddr3 9800gts (the x9000 is much cheaper)
i would say performance difference in games less than 1%
as it is the t9300 out performs the p8400 hands down.

for me, the sager built quality the service and the price (not to mention the BR drive).... truly i don't see the question here.

 

I bought the Sager.

Thank you all for helping me understand the components more and sorry for going off-topic.

You guys have been very helpful.

 

I asked this, because we all know that Gateway doesn't give a rats a*s about P7811 FX anymore, and don't develop new bios for it. But they may support 7801 for long time, and its good to know that we can use it's bios. Maybe there will be extrem CPU sliders in bios etc. and future Quad CPU support with that.

 

I was the one that ran 3dMark06 at 1920x1200. 9C.08 BIOS, DOX 178.24 driver. All stock speeds.

Somehow I think the 7801u will be available only until they run out of parts on the assembly line. As much as we purchase stuff from Newegg, it does nowhere near the volume that BestBuy does, so I doubt it will be high in Gateways priority list. I still don't see the 7801u in the support section (Both Drivers & Downloads, and Documents) of Gateway's website.

 

Why does everyone say the p7811fx isn't for sale anymore? It's sitting on bestbuy's website for like...$1280 as a "last chance" item. I'm still debatting on wether or not to buy it to be honest.

 

I searched forever for one. If I can find a Best Buy within 2-3 hours of Dallas Texas I will drive to go get it. I have yet to find anything so far :/

 

I'm in the same vote.. all the BB are out in Washington. Id go to OR to get one but its just cheaper to find it on the net

 

3 months later and my 7811 is still running strong!

 

I caved in and bought the 7801u. I really hope I like it. It came down to the G50VT-X2 or the 7801u and I got the Gateway. I hope that the build quality is good and that it will last me for a long time, and I really hope nothing is DOA lol

 

Hello Friends.
I purchased the p-7811fx on November 20th as the display model <last one> from Best Buy in Buffalo for $1299. I loved the machine, but 8 days in the screen started to get fuzzy with that white horzontal problem that some people have attributed to disconnected lcd wires, wrong lcd, etc. I also noticed that the problem grew worse as the machine was hot. That machine was amazingly hot and got to a high temp very quickly. I decided to take it back and they refunded me since it was just 12 days from buying it. They also credited the 2 year warranty I got with it. I just didnt wanna take it over the 14 day mark if it was having those issues that early.
I ordered the p-8701u from newegg for $1599 and have had it about a week now. I love it just as much as the p-8711fx, but it doesnt heat up at all. It gets mildly warm under full stress of hours of Team Fortress 2, or CoD MW, or Fallout 3, all on full graphics. I am using a 2 fan cooler, which I had from before the 2 Gateways but really dont feel like I NEED it, and often go without. For me, the extra $300 was worth it for a computer I feel confident in and runs what I want it to how I want it to. I would take a chance on another 7811 if I could find one for 649 as refurbished, like someone posted they saw on Tiger Direct, but I think the heat with those will still be an issue, even if the video issues were corrected.

Just my $.02
Keep up the great posts.

 

Just wondering is it possible to throw in a blu ray player to the 7801u? I found a couple slim blu ray drives on newegg but Im not sure if they will work with this laptop. Any ideas?

 

@Gunslinger Rob
I don't see why not, although the ones on newegg are all sony and VERY expensive. I'm sure there are cheaper ones out there that aren't sony branded.

@Everybody Else
Just letting those who are on the fence know a little more. I bought a 6831 when it was first introduced. Great buy at $1200. And now I'm thinking of buying ANOTHER gateway (the 7801u) because I think overall it's built very well. Now I just gotta manage to sell my 6831 for a decent price to make up for costs. =p

 

Not all 7811's have heating issues. you just got a bad one and made a bad decission to by a floor model, IMO... I have a 7811 oc'd 798/988/1798 GPU only breaches 70c when playing crysis 1920x1200 all high settings and every other game is below 65c. CPU hardly gets 55c playing crysis and warhammer for hours... the 7801u IS a 7811 with the price jacked and some useless upgrades... well extra HDD space is always nice =) but then i could by 3 320 7k drives for that amount...

 

Nothing about the 7801 is different from the 7811 except the hard drive size and gpu cache... so the difference in problems is not in the fact that it's a different model, just in the fact that you got a lemon 7811, could have just as easily happened to your 7801 (or could still)

 

so i've read quite a bit from this thread and really i feel comfortable with my decision to purchase the 7801 The three i was looking at and even though the asus and gateway counter balance each others weakness i know i will have this laptop for a long period of time before i purchase my desktop for gaming. although i like asus i've actually gotten to test the gateway for myself and have liked what i saw.

Edit: sorry for just inviteing myself into your guys convo ( iam new here) i just wanted to thank everyone for clearing up my own questions. ^^

 

Well, I finally got around and bought the 7801u. So far everything is great. Screen is nice, except when I look at my screen at an angle from the right I see this streak of...I think light bleeding? But I don't notice when I look at it dead on. Temps are great, hwmonitor says my cpu is idling at....15C? I wonder if this is even correct.

In any case, sometimes my fans come on with a loud but short burst every 5 minutes or so. Does anybody else have that problem? My 6831 never did that and I doubt it's the cooling issue because gpu is idling around mid 40s, which was also the same as my 6831.

 

Not sure about your CPU temps, but as far as the GPU fan doing short bursts every few minutes or so, that was normal for me until I updated the BIOS.

 

Ah bios update, good idea. I just checked the gateway driver site and there doesn't seem to be a bios file under the 7801u section. Does the 7811 bios work for the 7801u? I'd assume yes since it's basically the same thing except for minor upgrades.

Edit: Ok, I tried to find the 7811 bios but I couldn't find that either. Where are you guys getting your bios update files?

 

from here
10 char

 

Awesome, installed the version 28 or whatever bios. GPU fan still does the same thing, but whatever, I kind of got used to it by now. Thanks though!

 

forget about this laptop go and get the P7805u from BB its the same specs for cheaper $1049

 

use the money u save to get a better proccessor

 

I just got the Gateway FX P-7801.

I'm trying to install a dual boot of Windows XP in addition to the pre-existing Windows Vista Home Premium. Has anyone done this yet? I'm getting an error after I put in the Windows XP SP2 CD, it loads the drivers, and then it says Starting Windows. This is still during the setup process. The computer suddenly crashes. There's a blue screen saying that it stopped to prevent further damage to the computer.

When I read online, it seems that the problem might be because the Windows XP SP2 installation CD does not have drivers supporting SATA drives. Does anyone have an XP compatible SATA driver for the Gateway P-7801 (or maybe P-7811 if they're similar enough?)? I tried going to the Gateway website, and they only have the Vista version of the SATA HD driver.

If anyone else has figured out how to dual install both Vista and XP on this notebook, please let me know. I'd much prefer to run XP. Thanks.

 

Go into BIOS (F2 right when you turn the computer on). Advanced -> SATA Mode -> IDE.

Try that perhaps?

 

Goto Intel's site;

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=2101

How to dual boot, just fyi for others, you can google how to do this, there are a ton of sites that show you how.

http://windowssecrets.com/2008/02/14/01-Make-your-computer-dual-boot-Vista-and-XP

 

Can anyone recommend a good bag for this beast?