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Athlon 64 laptop

Have you seen the Gateway (Arima) 7426gx at best buy? It's got an A64 3700, 1GB ram, DL burner, MR9600, 100GB HD. It's 1399.

 
Originally posted by: Mike01
Have you seen the Gateway (Arima) 7426gx at best buy? It's got an A64 3700, 1GB ram, DL burner, MR9600, 100GB HD. It's 1399.
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Should I trust Gateway?
 
It's not really Gateway. It's made by Arima, and they make good stuff.

If trust is an issue, spend another 300 bucks on best buy's 3 years service plan. You'll get a new battery every year and any and all problems will be taken care of.

I've had mine for over a month with zero problems of any kind.
 
Originally posted by: Mike01
It's not really Gateway. It's made by Arima, and they make good stuff.

If trust is an issue, spend another 300 bucks on best buy's 3 years service plan. You'll get a new battery every year and any and all problems will be taken care of.

I've had mine for over a month with zero problems of any kind.
Click to expand...

The vid card is 9550...I'm looking forward to play games on laptop so I don't think that laptop is the best option for me.
 
it's actually an underclocked radeon 9700 chip. install the new omega drivers and you can easily set it to 9700 or near 9700 speeds without any problems using Radlinker (the included overclocker). I have last season's model (7422gx) and I have yet to find a game that i can't play in high detail. Only drawback is that battery life for me has been about 2:45 on regular use and 2:00 when playing games, or watching divx movies. As with any laptop that doesn't have the geforce 6800 or above, you'll probably have to tune down the settings a bit for the next generation of games, but for the money and top of the line (yes it's better than even the best Pentium-M in most situations) overall performance, the Gateway just can't be beat. Configuring something comparable to it even with dell coupons would cost you considerably more. updrading memory to 1gb and the processor to 2ghz (which still isn't as fast as the Gateway) Adds $600 to the price, that's almost half the prce of the Gateway when it goes on sale ($1250). Also the battery life of the dell isn't any better unless you shell out the extra $129 for the 9 cell battery.

Good Luck
 
I think it's a 9600, not a 9700, but the difference is not worth discussing.

It gets an average of 40fps in Half Life 2 when overclocked at a stable setting.

I don't think there's a reasonable priced manufacturer that offers both A64 chips and high end video cards on the same machine.
 
I would have to say stick with what you know. The Gateways are great machines and there are a number of other makers of A64 lappys out there. If you want a list here is one i know of. All i can say is get the smallest mem and Hdd the company offers and then install your own.

Will G.
 
Check out Acer and Asus; they offer A64/Turion packages w/X600 & X700 chips; won't be $1399 tho. At that price, the Gateway 7426 is the best bet
 
That's a good suggestion, though do try to get the x700...it's significantly faster than the x600 (which is only a hair faster than the 9600/9700s).

 
Whatever you do, don't skimp on the vid card. If the 9700 is only a few bucks more than the 9600 or 9550, then get it. Check Anand's review on the 9700; it's ~25% faster than the 9600, and you can't just clock the 9600 up to the same speed, because the 9700 uses ATI's low Dk process, and the 9600 or 9550 don't. The 9550's probably use ultra cheap memory that doesn't clock as high, otherwise they'd just be called 9600's.
Spend the extra cash on the vid card up front, and you'll be a happy gamer.
 
Why are you stuck on AMD? All of those laptops you linked have radeon 9700's = last years video card. Whether you go AMD or Intel cpu, the video card will make or break your gaming experience. Either find an AMD with at least a 6600, or just get a P-M with 6600 or 6800.
 
Originally posted by: jewno
Do you know where I can buy a better gaming Athlon 64 laptop from? The budget should be under $1,700.

Here's a list of laptop options before I make the final decision:
Sager 4750 from PCTorque.com - starting at $1,469
Battalion 101 S-Turbo II from ibuypower.com - starting at $1,349
Mayhem G3 from buyabs.com - starting at $1,449

What do you think? If you find some sites better than this, then can you give out links?
Click to expand...
I've not heard much about Mayhem. Sager is a good company, but you're comparing a 17" Sager to a 15.4" IBuyPower. What size do you prefer? Mobile or not?
IBuyPower overall seems to be good. Shadowmage has a very similar model, looks to be the previous incarnation: IBuyPower Battalion S Turbo 101
Regardless, I still think the 7426 from Gateway is your best bet. A 9700 is just an OCed 9600; and a 9600 is just an OCed 9550. Buy the 7426 w/3700+ CPU & 1GB RAM, OC the video card and use Omega drivers; and BE HAPPY 😉
 
Originally posted by: railer
Why are you stuck on AMD? All of those laptops you linked have radeon 9700's = last years video card. Whether you go AMD or Intel cpu, the video card will make or break your gaming experience. Either find an AMD with at least a 6600, or just get a P-M with 6600 or 6800.
Click to expand...
:thumbsup:
 
A 9700 is just an OCed 9600; and a 9600 is just an OCed 9550. Buy the 7426 w/3700+ CPU & 1GB RAM, OC the video card and use Omega drivers; and BE HAPPY 😉[/quote]

eh....sort of but not exactly. A 9550 or a 9600 are not going to clock to the same level as a 9700. A 9700 stock clock is ~ 25% faster than a stock clock 9600. You can OC both cards, so the 9600 isn't ever going to catch up, unless you get some flukey miracle 9600 core. 9700 = m11, 9600 = m10...so they are similar but different.
 
Originally posted by: railer
A 9700 is just an OCed 9600; and a 9600 is just an OCed 9550. Buy the 7426 w/3700+ CPU & 1GB RAM, OC the video card and use Omega drivers; and BE HAPPY 😉
Click to expand...

eh....sort of but not exactly. A 9550 or a 9600 are not going to clock to the same level as a 9700. A 9700 stock clock is ~ 25% faster than a stock clock 9600. You can OC both cards, so the 9600 isn't ever going to catch up, unless you get some flukey miracle 9600 core. 9700 = m11, 9600 = m10...so they are similar but different.
[/quote]
I was more referring that they have the same number of pixel piplines & such; those make more of a performance difference than clock alone. Therefore there isn't much reason to go for a 9700 over a 9600 if the cost differential is high
 
The performance difference between a 9600 and a 9700 is negligeable. I've had my "9550" pumping out 27 fps in Aquamark 3 (default settings), and I've seen many 9700 benchmarks with 23 or 24. There's one you can find that's out there now that had 26 fps overclocked (9700). Then again, it wasn't backed by an A64 3700...

However, I agree with railer... if games are very important, get something with a 6800. It's the fastest mobile video card you can get (in ultra form, second fastest in regular form).

Personally, I don't play games on laptops except to see how they run when I first buy one. I have a desktop for that. But if a lappy is your only PC, and you're a gamer, you need to get the fastest vid card you can, because a year from now, it will barely be able to keep up.

Remember that the MR9600/9700 was one of the baddest things you could get in a laptop a year ago.
 
The difference is 25%, at least when aa and af are on. That's something. Check Anand's review. I think a 6800 will be more than adequate a year from now. The 9600 is an old card...it had been out in desktop form for how many years? The 9700 desktop card from like 3 or 4 years ago smoked last years mobile 9600, so that difference was quite large. Nowadays, the fastest laptop vid card is nearly as fast as the fastest desktop vid card. There used to be a huge difference in desktop vs laptop gaming, so a top of the line gaming laptop would have a limited number of useful years. There's virtually no difference now, so that equation has changed. I run d3, hl2 and ut24k at 1920x1200 on my 9300. Games based on those engines for the next few years will run fine. I may <shudder> have to drop to 1600x1200 or something in 3 years, but games still look great at that res so I'm not worried.
 
So, are you saying 6600 is the best bet than 9700 but I don't see any Athlon64 laptops with 6600/6800 cards yet.

I don't want P-M. I'm not an Intel fan.
 
Here's a rough list:

6800 ultra crazy performance
6800 excellent performance
x800 excellent performance
x700 very good performance
6600 good performance (not sure if on par with x700)
x600 pretty good performance
9700 pretty good performance
9600 pretty good performance

I know I left some out, but these are all the ones I've looked into.
 
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