Gateway FX510XT

Gateway's FX510XT may not have the same aesthetic appearance as many of the performance desktop computer systems, but the internal components give it a very strong performance and at a price much more reasonable than the prestige manufacturers.

6/20/06 – Gateway is probably not the first company that comes to mind for a performance desktop computer. They don't offer any particular product lines like that of Dell, but their FX510XT does provide a very high performance system in a deceptively ordinary looking desktop PC.

Gateway sticks to the Intel product line for the FX510XT. It uses the high performance Pentium Extreme Edition 965 dual core processor. While not as fast as the AMD processor for gaming, it still does very well and is slightly better for some multimedia applications. The amazing thing here is Gateway include a full 4GB of memory for the system, double what most companies provide. This will let the system run through all applications without much as a hiccup.

Storage is a bit of a let down for the FX510XT. While it does feature a full terabyte of hard drive space, using two 500GB SATA hard drives, it trails behind others using the new Seagate 750GB drives for storage or those using the WD Raptor 150GB in terms of performance. The performance is still strong. A 16x DVD+/-RW dual layer burner is standard for the optical storage.

For graphics, Gateway uses two ATI Radeon X1900 XT boards in a CrossFire configuration. This provides extremely fast 3D performance even with high resolutions, but it still can't quite match up to the new GeForce 7950 GX2 boards. Gateway does include their new FPD2185W 21” LCD monitor that is surprisingly good for color and speed.