Product Listing

Samsung Series 7 700G7A - The Future Choice of Pro-Gaming

By James Lu - 25 Oct 2011
Launch SRP: S$2899

Benchmarking and Performance

Benchmarking and Performance

For our benchmark comparisons, we put the 700G7A up against two other 17.3-inch 3D gaming notebooks, Dell’s ultra powerful Alienware M17X R3, which has pretty much the best performance scores possible on current gaming notebooks, and another gaming notebook of similar weight, Toshiba’s Qosmio X770.

Specifications / Notebook Samsung Series 7 700G7A Alienware M17X R3 Toshiba Qosmio X770
Processor Intel Core i7-2670QM
(2.2GHz quad-core)
Intel Core i7-2860QM
(2.5GHz quad-core)
Intel Core i7-2630QM
(2.0GHz quad-core)
Chipset Intel HM65 Intel HM67 Intel HM65
Memory 8GB DDR3 16GB DDR3 8GB DDR3
HDD  1.5TB (2 x 750GB SATA) 7200 RPM 1TB (2 x 500GB SATA) 7200 RPM 1.5TB (2 x 750GB SATA) 7200 RPM
Video AMD Radeon HD6970M  NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M

 

PCMark Vantage

The 700G7A scored well in PCMark Vantage, actually outperforming the more powerful M17X R3 on the Gaming and Productivity Suites. Both the 700G7A and M17X R3 use similar 1.5TB (2 x 750GB SATA) 7200 RPM hard drives as evidenced by almost identical HDD Test Suite scores, but the 700G7A carries only half the RAM capacity at 8GB compared to the M17X R3’s 16GB, which may explain the 700G7A’s underperforming scores in the Memories and TV & Movies Suites.

 

3DMark06

The Samsung Series 7 700G7A’s AMD Radeon HD 6970M graphics module is one of AMD's best mobile GPUs, with only the almighty Radeon HD 6990M (found only in 18-inch notebooks) sitting higher than it in AMD's lineup. In our 3DMark06 test, the Radeon HD 6970M lived up to its positioning, easily outperforming the Toshiba Qosmio X770’s NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M and holding its own against the M17X R3’s top of the range, GTX 580M.

 

Far Cry 2

Benchmarks are a useful tool, but how a machine fares during actual gameplay is what really counts. We used Far Cry 2 to test all three machines, running at Very High settings at 1920 x 1080 pixels resolution. While the M17X R3 posted a better score (expectedly), the 700G7A was more than adequate, hitting the targeted 60FPS average with a score of 61.57. In terms of the actual gaming experience, despite the M17X R3’s better score, comparing the two side by side showed virtually identical gameplay.

 

Far Cry 2 in 3D

How much impact will 3D gaming have on your system? We ran the Far Cry 2 Benchmark with 3D turned on (unfortunately our M17X R3 was not available for this test) to see how each 3D technology affected the system's score. With TriDef 3D turned on, the 700G7A struggled at very high settings, averaging 30.87 FPS - still playable, but just half of its previous score. The X770, which uses NVIDIA's 3D Vision, did even worse (only because of its mid-range GPU), managing only 40% of its previous score.

Turning the settings down to medium on both machines showed bigger performance gains on the TriDef enabled 7007GA, which was definitely more than playable at 53.91 average FPS. The X770 only improved a small amount, just barely attaining 50% of its non-3D enabled score. Obviously, the X770 is limited by its choice of graphics engine though.

 

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9.0
  • Design 9
  • Features 9
  • Performance 9
  • Value 9
  • Mobility 7.5
The Good
Sleek design
Superb value
3D 1080p screen + Blu-ray drive
Great performance
The Bad
Plastic construction
High power consumption
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