Gateway m680 vs. Dell 9300 gaming performance

Well yeah, it has a better video card. Regardless, I can play everything I have thrown at the m680 with no problem even up to 1680x1050. The crappy screen alone is reason enough not to get the 9300. If you want the best gaming notebook out get a xps2.

You may want to factor in that the gateway latop is MUCH more portable, light, and cooler than the 9300 is. The 9300 has a desktop replacement class hot video card that sucks up alot more power. Oh, and dong forget the brilliant WSXGA Ultrabright screen on the m680 which most everyone agrees is much better than the 9300 screen.

Just my 2 cents

Here is a mini-review I posted in another thread:


Games run great on the m680. Guild Wars runs at 50+ fps at 1680x1050. Also tried Half Life 2 and Far Cry. Both are quite playable at 1680x1050 as well although I ended up lowering HL2 down to 1280x768. Other games I tried are Unreal Tournament 2004 (again, runs great at 1680x1050) and Tribes Vengeance. I am using the latest ATI Catalyst driver that I modded with Mobility Modder.

Far Cry @ 1680x1050
Guild Wars at 1680x1050

Battery Life- I bought the 12 Cell. I am testing the battery right now doing basic tasks, wifi on, browsing the web, etc. I had 100% at 7:34 p.m. As of 10:17 p.m. I have 51% left. I am on track to get 5.5 hours. Amazing for a notebook this size.

Screen- Ultrabright WSXGA+ 1680x1050 Resolution. I can sum it up in one word- PERFECT. I had the Dell 9300 before the m680 and I can safely say that the Gateway screen blows it away. No "sparkles", white whites, and black blacks. Excellent viewing angles and no noticeable light leakage. I lucked out and have no dead pixels.

Size- Big and surprisingly thin. My 12" Dell 700m was thicker.

Heat and Noise- Cool for the most part. Idles around 41 degrees Celsius when on battery and around 49 degrees when on AC. Gets warm in the left palm rest area when on AC and especially when gaming. The memory slots are directly beneath this area so I'm sure that contributes. On battery everything stays cool. To the guy that sent his notebook back for repair because the fans would come on, I'm sorry to say you will probably get it back in the exact same state. The fans are very quiet but they do run.

Sound- Very good. No tinny sound here.

A word of advice- Format the machine as soon as you get it and do a clean install. Either that or disable the preloaded crap. The notebook was unbelievably slow out of the box. After a fresh start everything is smokin'.

I will post pics soon if anyone is interested. If you have any questions let me know.

My specs:

1.73 Ghz
1 GB PC PC4300 533 Mhz
100 GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive
8x DL Dvd Writer
ATI x700 128 MB using latest Catalyst driver
12 Cell Battery
Intel 2200BG Wifi

1. I don't have the 8 cell so I can't test it.

2. One of the fans runs all the time. The other comes on around 51 degress Celsius. Even with both fans on the notebook is extremely quiet. I haven't had any luck using fan speed control programs. There may be others out there that I don't know of.

3. Correct, the screen is glossy like the Xbrite but without the "sparkles".

4. There is no driver cd or OS cd with the notebook. When you turn it on the first time you can make a recovery disk. I own an XP Pro cd so I did a clean install with that. I then downloaded all the drivers off the Gateway web page (except video and wifi). The wifi driver is on Intel's web page and the video driver I got direct from ATI and modded using Mobility Modder. No problems at all doing the clean install.

Flashram, how much did you pay for your m680? You customized the "m680xl" version correct?

Oh, and do you think the 7200 rpm is worth only having 60gb? Or is it just better to go to the bigger 5400 rpm options?

Thankyou

another question for flashram !!

you said you got the video drivers from the ATI website. which drivers did you get exactly cause i've been looking and I can't find anything except the catalyst one and ppl are saying those don't work with the gateway M680!

do it, if the screen is a issue for you as it was to me i had a i9300 loved the notebook hated the screen. bad lightleakage from the bottom with cloudy blotches in the middle i sold it and now own a toshiba g20 (g25 in the us)also giving up the 6800 nvidia card for the 6600 nvidia but with no regrets because my screen now is super bright (500cmd) and with no leakage at all ,as for gaming performance i get 2700+ in 3dmark 05 go here for details http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm05=956678 im sure the m680 will do just as well if not better and you will have a nice screen as well.............

Vancomycin yes i realise i came in here a bit late now,but like you the screen thing was a big deal to me as well, have you done any benchmarks......would like to know if your happy with your gaming side of things.

I don't see how serious gamers who want that few extra frames are gonna buy a laptop. A desktop will allow you to be in the gamers league with those high 3dmark scores and such. If your gonna get a laptop, get one that won't drain your battery to in an hour and can play recent games decently. Thats around the x700 or 6600go. Don't narrow your choices down based on a few fps or a slightly higher res or some 3dmark score. The notebook market is already small enough and narrowing it even more brings too many tradeoffs.