Gateway P-7808u: to Quad or Not to Quad?

Specifications and Features

The basic specifications haven't changed much since the P-7811. Here's a quick recap of the differences between the two models, along with the price difference between the part used in the P-7808u and the P-7811. Only four items have changed, as far as we can tell.

Looking at the specifications, you do get more performance for your money, mainly thanks to the quad-core CPU and GeForce 9800M GTS 1GB. You also get a 500GB 5400RPM hard drive (with the ability to add a second drive later if you want). Those areas are upgraded relative to the P-7811, but in one area you actually get less: the P-7808u includes a WXGA+ LCD running at 1440x900 instead of the WUXGA (1920x1200) on the P-7811 - it's a panel similar to the original P-6831, though from a different manufacturer.

The downgraded LCD is unfortunate but in some ways it's good: plenty of users feel the native WUXGA resolution results in text and images that are "too small" even on a 17" LCD. The 1440x900 display is more legible in terms of small font sizes, though we never had any complaints even when running the P-7811 at 1920x1200 (YMMV). The lower resolution also fits better with the moderate GPU, providing increased frame rates at the native LCD resolution. Oddly enough, the GPU is now a 1GB model instead of a 512MB model. While we have certainly seen games benefit from increased GPU memory, it is typically useful at higher resolutions, so the added memory mostly goes to waste right now. It's possible that future games will make better use of GPU RAM, but more likely is that any games that see a benefit in the future will also need more GPU power.

Looking at the price changes, what we end up with is that the jump from the P-7811 to the P-7808u changes some components, but despite the intervening eight months the relative price has actually increased! With the downgraded LCD and the upgraded CPU, GPU, and HDD (unless the 1GB 9800M GTS is substantially more than the 512MB model), the P-7808u should only cost around $125 to $150 more than the original price of the P-7811. In fact, if you want a more reasonable alternative, you might want to look at the P-7807u at just $1400, which uses a 320GB 7200RPM HDD and a P8600. Sadly, the P-7801u that included the nicer WUXGA LCD is no longer available for $1300.

The quick summary is that in terms of pricing and features, Gateway has moved up the ladder quite a bit without a lot of extra performance. We'll look at how things actually stack up in benchmarks, but unless you really need the (slower clocked) quad-core CPU we think some of the other Gateway P-78xx laptops are a better buy. On the other hand, the P-7808u does appear to be the least expensive quad-core notebook that doesn't cut corners in the GPU department.

Speaking of which, as we mentioned in our review of the Toshiba X305-Q725, NVIDIA recently released updated mobile GPUs, specifically the GT 100M and 200M series. At first glance, many will assume the 9800M parts are now completely outdated, but the newer parts are merely "optimized and refined" versions of the venerable G92M/G94M cores. The GTX 280M can average around 25% more performance than the "old" 9800M GTX - it has 128 SPs instead of 112, and slightly higher clock speeds. That would obviously be faster than the 9800M GTS in the 7808u, which packs 64 SPs at lower clock speeds. The 9800M GTS falls roughly between the GTS 160M and the GTS 150M, both of which also pack 64 SPs but at slightly higher or lower clock speeds. Saying that the newer parts are merely optimized versions of the older cores does omit one useful detail: the older parts are 65nm chips and the new parts are 55nm. That means besides having slightly higher clock speeds, the chips should also run a bit cooler and use less power. Those are both nice benefits and given the choice, we would want the newer parts. However, the older parts are still competitive in terms of performance so if the price is right they are fine chips.

If everything isn't clear, the short summary is that the P-7808u looks to be a decent notebook at a price point that's higher than the previous Gateway P-series FX retail offerings. We expect performance to be quite similar to the discontinued P-7811, except in applications that leverage the power of the upgraded quad-core processor. Truth be told, we wish the P-7811 were still available for $1450, as we prefer the feature set it offered. Specifically, we liked the WUXGA LCD a lot more than the WXGA+ LCD - and it's not just about the increased resolution, as we will see later.