Gateway M675 review and banchmarks - Page 2

Thanks for the advice

I can see your numbers do look good and actually I have seen both machines and I prefer the looks of the M675. I nice looking machine. I am leaning toward the Sager for exactly the same reasons you stated....cost, sub and tuner. I guess now its just a matter of forking over the money!! LOL I'm still waiting for some sager users reviews to see how they like them...they are slowly showing up so some reviews should be coming. Keep us all updated on your machine and thanks for the review!!!

steve

I own a M675. If I was to go back a month and do it again, I’d still order the Gateway. If I was to order a laptop today.. I might get the 4780.

I ordered my M675 the first week they came out… back when you could customize them anyways you wanted. Plus I snagged a $100 rebate because the sales rep gave me some wrong info after I ordered. Even after upgrading the RAM to 1 gig PC3200 and the HD to 7200rpm the total cost was only a $100 more than a 4780 of same specs today. I got a good deal.

M675 Pro’s :

-Dual Channel Memory
-Internal Wireless G
-Full sized keyboard and better case design (IMO)
-Option for 2nd hard drive.
-Possible option for 2nd battery. Gateway is working on one for the media bay like the 600 series notebooks.

M675 Con’s :

-The M10P’s memory is clocked lower than most. Being a numbers person this bugs me.. but I need to get over it. The system performs great and most of my benchmarks where higher than the ones posted by Adam in his 4780 review.
-More expensive now.
-No TV Tuner / Mini-Cam / Sub .. If you’re into those things. I have 2 tivos and a WinTV PVR in my desktop.. so I’m not

Both the M675 and 4780 are great systems, each with their own advantages. Can’t go wrong either way.

BTW : I had my first experience with Gateway support yesterday. Much to my surprise it was a good one.

I went to copy over some images from my digital camera only to find (a week after having it.. lol) that they gave me a floppy drive in the left bay instead of the 6-in-1 memory card reader. I called, talked to sales rep. He verified I was given the wrong drive and he sent me the correct one.. should be here next week. He said I could keep the floppy too

Also, For some reason they are sending me a free port replicator. I got a letter when I ordered my system saying it was on backorder and wouldn’t ship until middle of December.. I was like, wtf, I didn’t order one or get charged for it. Maybe they decided it should come with the system, who knows.. I’m not one to complain over free crap

You can check out my specs and some pictures here :
http://www.mokb.org/shoon/toy.html

My camera isn’t the greatest, they don’t do it justice.

I see by the picture that even with a widescreen laptop you still have the black bars on top and bottom of the screen. Not a problem as I'm used to those bars on my normal display when watching widescreen movies. Just thought it would fill the screen as the aspect ratio was setup for that.

Hi sp0rk. You're right about the M675 being more expensive. I was puzzled looking at the prices today because MBarrette said it works out to be cheaper than the 4870 even after loading 1GB DDR400 dual channel.

It's still possible to customize the options under the business section, but I don't know what the requirements are to qualify for that.

Funny that you should mention your benchmarks outperform Adam's review, and your setup is a 3.0GHz, right? MBarrette's M675 (fully loaded and optimized) were beat by the 4870 except for memory bandwidth. And I think his is a 3.2GHz!

I'm looking into getting one too, but I can't decide either. ^^

The +/- scores in benchmarks aren't important. I really want 802.11g though; it should make for 5x faster transfers in my LAN at home, right? Advice?

In fact, how about a review on the M675 if have the time and don't mind doing it? ^^

Also, thanks for posting up your review and bechmarks, MBarrette. ^^Y

I was talking about the vid card tests, mainly UT2K3 (I dont have the other tests he used)

You're right, the 4780 was ahead in all the CPU tests because it's a 3.2. But the M675 killed the 4780 in memory bandwidth.. that's to be expected with dual channel.

here are my UT2k3 scores.. they start out close to the 4780 but the M657 pulls way ahead 1600x1200 test.. seems odd to me too, basically the same hardware, donno why the 4780 was so low on that test.. could just be a typo on adams part.

UT2K3 Flyby/Botmatch 800x600 : 179/74
UT2K3 Flyby/Botmatch 1024x768 : 124/72
UT2K3 Flyby/Botmatch 1280x960 : 103/66
UT2K3 Flyby/Botmatch 1600x1200 : 80/56

3DMark03 = 2842. Adam didn't post that test so I can't compare.. seems lower than the other Sagers with M10's tho. Not sure if the lower clocked memory or gateway drivers are to blame.

PCMark04 = 4348

As for a review.. we'll, I've shared my thoughts, above are most of the benchmarks i've run, and a posted a link with pictures.. not sure what else I can really say

Does your warranty become void if you install parts yourself?

lol no. Maybe if you ripped out the MB or LCD and tried to replace it yourself it would, but upgrading your ram, drives, stuff like that doesn't void a warranty. Hell they even have detailed instructions/pictures on the Gateway support website on how to do all that stuff yourself.

Speaking of warranty, that's one thing I forgot to list under "M675 Pro's". Gateway offers an optional accidental protection plan. So if you're a clutz like me sometimes and spill crap on your laptop, drop it, or do something else stupid they will fix or replace it.. bout the only way they wont replace it is if there are signs that you took a hammer to the laptop or something

Thanks sp0rk!

Where did you get your Hitachi 7200RPM 60GB and PC3200 dual channel 1GB?

Hey, I'm thinking of getting a big notebook as well. Err, and by big, I mean a 17" one. I've been looking at HP's zd7000, Gateway's M675 and Sager's 4780. Unless my folks really cut down on my budget, I'll be getting the Gateway or the Sager.

Now, I was wondering about a couple of things. I know sp0rk sort of mentioned this but if he could clarify some more... Does having dual channel memory really boost up the performance? I'll be doing some coding, some Photoshopping, some gaming. Would this help me?

Also, what's the difference in performance between Gateway's and Sager's wireless? I'm under the impression that Gateway's is built in somehow, maybe with the antenna along the edges of the screen while Sager's is one of those cards that you plug in. I won't be going anywhere near the bandwidth provided for 801.11G but it's nice to have my options open.

Thanks to sp0rk and the MBarrette (sp?). Great reviews, guys.

costco claims to have an M675 with WSXGA+ display...

anybody beleive them? Would make it the highest resolution currently available for a 17" notebook...

here is the link:
http://www.costco.com/product.asp?ca...7&log=&navtop=

I'm Confused

Did you get the Dual Chanel Memory and 7200RPM Hard Drive from Gateway?

If not, then I will ask along with rockman and ask where you got them.

Thanks in Advance!

those benchmarks posted here are decieving heres why.
the sager model they tested was inferior and the the gateway tested and doesnt accurately reflect sagers overall performance.

Gateway: 3.2HT 800FSB ATI 9600 128Mb
Sager: 3.02Gb 533FSB ATI 900 128Mb

Does this sound like a fair comparison? ofcourse the 800mhz bus will kill the 533.
if they wanted an arcuate comparison they should have used a better model sager.

cheers

Costco are just noobs.. it's WXGA .. They just put an extra "S" in there.. WSXGA.. as in (W)ide(S)creen(XGA) .. not to be confused with (W)idescreen (S)uper(XGA)

Umm, he stated in the first post of this thread what the specs where on the Sager. He wasn’t trying to deceive anyone. He was comparing his new M675 with systems he already owned.. his desktop and old Sager.

wow really? my bad.

I just bought a M675 (the 3.0ghz HT version) as well as the exact same GeIL ram the poster got, and the machine refuses to boot up with both 512mb sticks installed. I can put in one of the older sticks (256mb PC2700) along with a GeIL stick and it will boot up, but not both GeIL sticks. What the heck is going on? Does this mean the ram is bad, or my motherboard is bad, or what? Anything else I could try to help figure this out?

wogg,

I ran into the same problem. Two sticks of GeIL 512MB PC3200 memory, with DDR400 CL=3-8-3-3, GDS3200-512 labels on each SO-DIMM fail (the machine powers on, but no display appears). If I put one or the other in socket 0 (leaving socket 1 empty) it fails.

If I put in one of the original Infineon 256MB PC2700 modules with either of the GeIL's, it works and passes memtest86 with a total of 768MB memory!

Of course, with mixed memory modules the M675 is running the GeIL memory at CAS 2.5 and dual channel support is disabled.

My BIOS version is 39.00.26 and I have a 3.2GHz HT processor. For now, I have returned to using the original memory until another pair of the GeIL arrives to test. Pretty odd behavior.