Gateway SX2800-01

By Saad Murtaza

Specification

 

Gateway SX2800-01

Processor: 2.33GHz Intel Core 2

Quad Q8200
Memory: 4GB DDR3
Storage: 640GB hard drive
Optical Drive: DVD±RW
Monitor: None
Graphics: Integrated Intel GMA X4500
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium (64-bit)

Review

Gateway's latest attempt; to out-grow the competition in the slim-desktop battle, is SX2800-01. Competing with Dell 537s and HP's slim line s5160f Gateway has kept the Quad-Core performer under $500 without a monitor yet keeping the design very stylish. It is loaded with Core 2 Quad processor, a 640GB hard drive, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a DVD burner, a multi-format card reader, HDMI output, and a boatload of external expansion ports. The only thing you will find missing from the equation is gritty 3D performance, certainly not for gamers.

The SX2800-01 comes with a glossy plastic front cover hiding the DVD drive and expansion ports; the rest of the exterior is a matte black. Easy to tuck it away beside your desk or along with your entertainment center since it is 14×7x20 inches (HWD).

The SX2800-01 performed near the top of the slim line-PC pack during the benchmark testing-and it was even competitive with many full-size systems. Thanks to its 2.33GHz Core 2 Quad Q8200 processor and 800MHz DDR3 RAM, it managed a score of 9,533 in our CPU-centric 64-bit Cinebench 10 test. This was just behind the HP Pavilion slim line s5160f, which shares the same CPU and scored 9,709, and well ahead of the dual-core Dell Inspiron 537's score of 5,548. Its scores of 3 minutes and 47 seconds for our iTunes encoding test and 4 minutes and 4 seconds for our Windows Media Encoder test were similarly impressive, just edging out the HP system by a second or two on each test.

Though the SX2800-01 was way ahead of Dell's (Score: 3854) however it was still unable to compete with HP (Score: 5010) scoring 4,791 during the PC Mark Vantage test, which examines overall system performance. However, we can blame that to SX2800-01's poor 3D performance. While both the HP and Dell slim lines include dedicated PCI Express 3D-graphics cards, the SX2800-01 relies on the Intel GMA X4500 circuitry that has been built into the motherboard's support chipset. In the DirectX 9 gaming graphics test, the score was limited to just 12.1 frames per second (fps) at 1,280×1,024 resolution, versus the Dell's 30.8fps and the HP's 25.8fps. (We also tried flexing the Gateway system's muscles with our synthetic 3DMark Vantage benchmark test, but it would not run, crashing with a blue screen when we attempted to run it on any setting, even after we updated the graphics drivers to the newest versions.)

In short, the SX2800-01 will perform just fine for casual games like Max Payne or Web-based pastimes. You can always invest in a graphics card to play modern 3D games with reasonable performance. Although, the SX2800-01 offers dramatically better CPU performance than the similarly priced Dell and it costs significantly less than the HP.

With its poor 3D performance, SX2800-01 still offers a lot for non-gaming tasks and other productivity options. With a price under $500, it will please plenty of folks who do not play 3D games at all. Looking for a PC with good performance, and do not plan to crack your PC with additional upgrades the SX2800-01 is a compact, well-performing solution at a surprisingly low price.

Price (at time of review): $499