I just wanted to post the Passmark rating for this lappy (specs in signature) for anyone who was interested... I didn't do the 3D mark because another poster had already listed their scores here, and I'm sure they are pretty much the same... Also it's a much smaller download for the Passmark software...



Added 12/27/06...
Ok, here goes the review as promised...

I ordered this notebook 11/24/06 from Gateway's website with an ETA of 12/5... I had been looking at several different manufacturers, and this seemed to be the best price for the features that I wanted. Several things made the deal a go... The first was that this notebook offered a full keyboard unlike any that I had seen, another was that it had a full sized PCMIA slot, so all my "older" periph's would work , and the last was that 15% off coupons were easily had...

The order process was easy and painless and the "wait" was on... Like anywhere else, the wait is always too long, but the laptop arrived on 12/4, a day early...

My first impressions...

This laptop was big, but is well layed out, and is easy to work on, both inside, and out... I went ahead and applied AS5 to both the CPU and GPU... This tutorial is very good as the units are basicly the same, but I left the thermal pads in place, as they are needed to "reach" between the "spaces" on the heatsinks, and only used the thermal paste on the CPU, and GPU themselves... I also upgrade the RAM from 2GB to 4GB...

It looks nice with a "clear coat" finish that can be easily kept clean...

The keyboard seems a bit more "sloppy" (key movement) than what I'm used too, but it could be the size of the keyboard

The Windows (media center) installation was a breeze (after deleting the hidden partitions), as well as installing the drivers...

Battery "life" sucks (2 hours on the 8 cell...), but that was to be expected with this setup...

Gateway's customer service is outstanding...

Here comes a couple of complaints though...

I really hate prioritized drivers , and Gateway makes use of them on this laptop for the graphics... As such, my "new" copy of Vista looks like crap because I have to wait for Gateway to either release a new driver or BIOS update... The other is... I contacted customer support asking about a T7600 upgrade, and was informed that the CPU is not offered, as it causes overheating issues wth the motherboard... Looks like Gateway needs to engineer better heatsinks...

Other than those issues... I am VERY pleased with my purchase, and look forward to future Gateway releases... THX.

Pictures can be seen here...

4GB RAM? WOW, you went all out. Why not get a T7600?

From a reseller that is. Or a T7400. I don't see why it would create that much of a heating problem, unless you get the overclockable T7600 but I'm sure your BIOS won't support that feature. If the NX860 has the same layout as my old NX850, then it does have a fairly adequate heatsink. The 7900gs shouldn't add to the problem since it probably runs cooler than the older 6800go and you already put AS5 on it. I would go ahead and throw a T7600 and see how it does.

(What's up with the errors for editing your reply?)

Yeah, I'm still loving the NX860XL.

I'm on my desktop right now, and simple things such as loading programs, viewing high-res pictures, and downloading/transfering files take noticibly longer. I didn't notice it when I switched from desktop to notebook, but switching back to the desktop makes me realize how nice the laptop is.

I haven't played anything other than World of Warcraft and BF2142, but both play at flawlessly at highest settings. The benchmarks are a bit lower than those posted by Dell users, but hopefully a new BIOS or driver like you mentioned will help somewhere down the line.

I thought the same about the T7600, but would like wait for the cpu price to drop, and the warranty on the lappy to run out, because I can always replace the mobo myself, but will let them do it until it's no longer covered... I've looked @ the thermal specs, and from what I've found they are all about the same for each Merom... As far as the "edits" I posted the benchies before the review... The 4 Gigs were also purchased "aftermarket" as I got a great price on eBay...