Gateway FX6800-09 Performance Gaming Desktop PC

Jun 8 2009 - Gateway's FX6800-09 is currently their highest level of desktop computer offered exclusively through NewEgg. With a price tag of $1600, it is a very reasonably system that offers a fair amount of gaming performance thanks to the Core i7 920 processor and GeForce GTX 280 graphics card. The case is well designed making it easy to expand storage space, but there is more limited space for expansion cards.

Jun 8 2009 - Gateway's FX platform has a wide range of computer systems with the majority costing below $1200. The FX6800-09 is an exclusive system available only from NewEgg at $1600 and comes with the highest performance out of all the Gateway FX desktops available. Like the others, it is based on the Intel Core i7 platform and using the lowest level 920 processor. While it may not be the fastest processor out there, it certainly gives very strong performance with the 6GB of DDR3 memory and more than enough for gaming.

Storage is probably some of the best features on the FX6800-09. The system comes with a one terabyte drive which is above average for most performance desktops right now. The better part is the front panel of the FX series case that has two easy to use SATA drive bays that make adding in extra hard drives a breeze. It would have been nice to see a Blu-ray compatible drive but Gateway like most continues to use a standard dual layer DVD burner but it does support Label Flash media for burning labels directly to compatible media.

Since the system is design for gaming, the graphics are key and Gateway doesn't disappoint with the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 280 graphics card. While this is a slightly older graphics model from NVIDIA, it still offers extremely high performance with support for 3D games at 1920x1200 without any problems and gaming up to 2560x1600 in some games quite possible.

Probably the biggest problem with the FX series systems remains the internal expansion space. The system only has room for four expansion slots on the back panels and three of those four are used up with the graphics card and modem. The 750W power supply can likely handle a second GTX 280 but it would mean removal of the modem and no future expansion cards.