68909 vs. Mayhem G1 for gaming?

I am considering buying a laptop to game on. The emachines is a great deal and I already own the 5312 and love it....but not for gaming. I have been reading about the ABS Mayhem G1 and it gets great reviews and looks like a good gaming system. Looks to be about a 500-600 dollar price difference. I would prefer to save the money if the machines are comparable as far as gaming performance, both current and future. Any opinions would be appreciated.

Thanks

 

The Mayhem G3 is the one to look at:

http://www.abspc.com/app/config.asp?mono=1850

But for the money, you just can't beat the M6809. I'm not sure how big a difference the 128MB Radeon 9700 in the Mayhem would make over the 64MB Radeon 9600 in the M6809.

Looking at the Mayhem G1... the 128MB Radeon 9600 isn't worth the inferior CPU, especially for the price premium.

Also check the Acer Ferarri 3200.

 

For the price, nothing beats the M6809, especially with mail-in rebates from BestBuy that bring the out the door price to $1399 plus tax.

From a pure performance standpoint, it depends on what you want to use your computer for. If you want to be mobile, the M6809 offers about 2.75 hrs of battery vs approx. 2 hrs for the Mayhem G3 (mobile Athlon 64 3200+ vs. DTR Athlon 64 3400+). The G3 should have more power, but, as we have seen with other systems (Toshiba and Fujitsu spring to mind), more powerful components do not necessarily mean better power.

Are the small amounts of additional power worth a difference of $700? In the end, it boils down to a wallet decision.

 

Thank you guys for your opinion. I had not seen the G3 and that is probably the right one to compare to since they both use the Athlon64 processor. As you said, I guess the real question is, is the upgrade on the graphics card worth the money? I'm thinking maybe not.

 

Actually...i've seen guys spend an extra $225 at newegg.com and upgrade their memory to 2GB total 1gb a slot. Then an extra $80 to get a Hitachi 7200 rpm notebook drive, newest omega drivers from ATI, and overclocked their chip (both GPU and CPU) and they ended up with a BEAST of a system...i'd go with the M68xx then do the same mods..that should give you the power to crush anything except a Voodoo or Alienware behemoth...

Still here, Still Dangerous

 

You can save even more at Tigerdirect.com on the M6809, M6810, or M6811. I bought mine back in January and have been extremely happy with it. I even play a Doom3 on it and was surprised at how well it runs on my 6809. Just get the Omega drivers and overclock the video with AtiTool and your set.
They are refurbished laptops but they are as good as new. I haven't noticed any difference in appearance or operation of my unit from the new ones at Best Buy. Just the price!
It's the best laptop I've ever bought for the money.

Prices at Tigerdirect.com as of 4/20/05

M6805 - $829.97
M6809 - $989.97
M6810 - $899.97
M6811 - $1039.99 ($1059.99 w/wireless router)


-Airdog
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M6809 • WinXP Pro SP2 • Athlon 64 3200+ @ 2.0ghz • 80GB • 1.2Gb pc2700 • Radeon 9600 • 802.11g Wireless • DVD±RW • USB 2.0 • Firewire • 6 in 1 Media Reader

 

Wow, those are great prices! I want one... Oooohhhh...[B)]

Dell I6000

 

128MB Radeon 9700 will have alot better gaming performance then the 9600.

Learux

 

Apperently, the MR9600 is easily overclockable to 9700 speeds.

Dell I6000

 

DO they have the same architecture?

Learux

 

ATI starts the MOBILITY 9700 off with their M11 graphics core, which is fundamentally quite similar to ATI’s RADEON 9600 XT on the desktop. Image quality is the same from both chips because of this. However, due to the stringent power and thermal requirements found in a laptop system, core and memory clocks aren’t up to the same level as the RADEON 9600 XT on the desktop. ATI has specified a clock frequency range of 390MHz-450MHz on the M11 core. This is an improvement of at least 40MHz on the MOBILITY 9600 PRO, as most notebook manufacturers clock their MOBILITY 9600 PRO’s at 350MHz.

For memory, MOBILITY 9700 can be configured with up to 256MB of DDR memory operating between 200-260MHz (400MHz-520MHz effective). The MOBILITY 9600 supports 64MB of dedicated memory. Memory clock frequency for MOBILITY 9700’s predecessor, MOBILITY 9600 PRO, topped out at 200MHz.

In comparison to ATI’s desktop offerings, on paper MOBILITY 9700 falls somewhere between the RADEON 9600 PRO and RADEON 9600 XT. At up to 450MHz, MOBILITY 9700 has a very fast core, ATI’s RADEON 9600 PRO is clocked at 400MHz while RADEON 9600 XT runs at 500MHz. MOBILITY 9700’s memory subsystem does fall a little short of RADEON 9600 PRO/XT though, both operate at 300MHz (600MHz effective).

Like the MOBILITY 9600 the MOBILITY 9700 doesn’t sport the eight pixel pipelines or 256-bit memory (4 pipes and 128-bit memory).

Hope this helps a little [ ]

for more video card info look here:
http://www.pcvsconsole.com/features/video/



-Airdog
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M6809 • WinXP Pro SP2 • Athlon 64 3200+ @ 2.0ghz • 80GB • 1.2Gb pc2700 • Radeon 9600 • 802.11g Wireless • DVD±RW • USB 2.0 • Firewire • 6 in 1 Media Reader