M680 and nVidia GeForce Ge6800 256MB - together at last - Page 2

Any ideas how much more juice the 6800's will use? The rep said no more than a half an hour but he did'nt even now gateway was selling this configuration until I told him.

P.S 20% to 30% increase in speed is huge; at 50mph you get a ticket for going to slow, at 70mph you get a ticket for going to fast..... I'd rather have a car that can get a speeding ticket.

Look at it this way. People without the 6800 in the Dell get a little over 4 hours of battery life with some minor power saving features and just over 3 with the 6800 (3:10 I think). So, if the M680 gets like 5 with the extended battery, then figure prolly high 3 hours, maybe 4. IMO, if you want a gaming rig, go ahead. It will get alot hotter. I'm more than happy with the X700 to be honest. I don't game all that much, just here and there and it seems to be doing OK. Now, if only they would stop using shitty QSI DVD burners. I haven't been able to burn 1 single DVD yet. Thinkin bout returning it based on just that

Ha ha ha. She would kill me if I get another 17 inch laptop.

Actually, if you read most of my recent posts, I have been deciding on whether to get the Asus z70v or the future version of z70va (refresh version with 128 MB ATI X700 video card). I heard that the Asus z70v has a pretty good non-glossy 15.4 inch screen. We need a smaller laptop for portability.

Yup...no more Gateway for me. I like to have different brands of laptops.

If I have a choice of changing my m680 now, I would order either the m680 with the 6800 video card or get the Asus W2 that is going to come out soon in the U.S.A.

Notice I did not mention anything about the DELL XPS2

Hmmm, that is strange. I was able to burn (back up a DVD game) without any problem. I only use DVD burning once though. Also, I am using the TDK brand DVD+ discs.

I think its based on media. You can try searching at club.cdfreaks.com and see what media people are using for it.

czm2000: I just ordered my m680 three days ago, so this news is really kinda a kick in the balls. I spent some time trying to get through to customer service (online chat assistant couldn't help, so I had to go to a telephone operator), and it looks like although it's too late to change the laptop config now, I can send it back at some point during the first 15 days after delivery to get the upgrade for free. Unfortunately, I don't think I can cope with the turn-around time that would be involved (the m680 is going to be my replacement system for my current, broken, vaio). That's life.

By the way, your review is responsible for my purchase. Thanks :-D

Ed

not in his department. I'll check with my old connections tho see what I can find out.

Well I hope you like it. My review is my opinion and I love it. I'm over the initial shock of the anouncment of the 6800's. I was playing COD II last night and this rocks. I have no complaints and am probably better off with the better battery life. I don't think I could stomach a 30+ day turnaround time either. That's just too long for my tastes. I can take months to pull the trigger on a purchase, but once I decide on something, I typically want it yesterday. I'm sure you'll love it with the X700 card and be just fine. Let me know what you think when you get it. Good luck.

Otto,

Just tried the latest Omega drivers on my m680 and they did not install. The ATI tray tools seemed to install but the drivers will not and according to their own tool, ATI 5.7 Cats will not install either. They still do not support our motherboard I guess. Whoever told you this I believe is mistaken unless I don't know what I am doing and that may be possible too.

Gary

None of the new Catalyst or Omega drivers work for me either. I even tried using the windowsupdate to install over my original gateway ones. Can you say PRETTY GREEN LINES?

I'm francophone, do not look at the mistakes

I'm trying desperatly to buy a M680 in Canada. You can only buy a 8510 GZ at Bestbuy or Futurshop which is a none cuztomizable crippled version of the M680.

I have received an email of someone from "Dakota International Trading" which distributes gateway. Their Email was confusing. And send Emails to Gateway directly also, and they told me Gateway did not.
How to get one in Canada ?

czm2000, you have posted a great review.

Thank you very much. I hope you can get one.

Did not mean anything personal againt you Otto or anyone else but just relating what several of us have posted previously regarding how the m680 at present will not work with any other drivers. I was able to use Update driver and get the Windows update to work for the ATI as cm2000 had mentioned before but regarding the Moded Cats and the Omegas, no go at this end as well as Garfor all who have posted. Just wanted to get accurate information out. Still am very impressed with my system so far.

Gary

ATI states in their release notes that their driver only supports the listed manufacturers. Quanta which makes the M680 is not on that list. I twice asked ATI in the past why Quanta wasn't supported and they told me to go and read the release notes.

update on the burning issues. I upgraded the firmware and managed to burn a DVD using LG DVD-Rs, but I had to set it @ 2.4x burning and then it adjusted it down to 2x. Overall, the computer is nice, but it's a shit DVD burner. I contacted Gateway and thery said that they had a different DVD burner brand and they were going to send me to try out and see if it's better. Didn't say which kind it was, but just that it wasn't a QSI. and I get it UPS and open it up, and lo and behold, it's another frickin QSI. But I noticed that while the firmware flash was from LX34 to LX43, this one is labeled as LX44. Not sure if they released a new one. Testing it now as I type. Will give you guys updated info as soon as the disc is done.


Edit: it's not done burning, but looks like the same BS as before with pickey media and speeds. I did notice in Nero though that the hardware buffer never gets near 100%, always stays near 80%. On my NEC burner in my home computer, the hardware buffer always goes to around 97% or 98%. Only goes below that when there is a buffer underrun error of some sort. CD burning on the QSI always gets to around 96%. Still one of the slowest burners I have ever used, even in a laptop. I'm off to work right now, but if anyone wants a screenshot of what I am talking about, let me know and I'll post it when I get home around 6ish today pacific time