Any Good?

[Brandon]

Well, I am looking at buying a new PC soon. This look good to you guys?
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Gateway+...&skuId=9535416

I am not worried about price or building my own system, want a nice out of the box solution.

[adamparkzer]

It doesn't have Vista on it, it should be fine.

...

Actually, do computers even come out with Vista on them anymore?

[Brandon]

Should be 7, since it's the newest release.

[like2program]

Wow this is really nice, the hard drive is a little slow, 7200 is better in my opinion, but other than that, I do want this :drool:

[Brandon]

Wow this is really nice, the hard drive is a little slow, 7200 is better in my opinion, but other than that, I do want this :drool:

Thanks for pointing that out =p I can always grab a faster HD for the OS and reinstall it at a later date (like a 10k?) and leave the 1 TB for data storage.

[Smith6612]

Pretty decent computer. The video card will be your limiting factor if you want to play games but it should still handle a bunch of games just fine. Also, the hard drive is a little slow for my tastes and is still decent, but as I see you've posted, you have another one to stick in. Beware of the pre-loaded software though, it's trialware :3

[Mr. DOS]

Eww, Gateway, etc.

5400rpm is really slow! You will almost certainly notice that. With a 2.5GHz quad-core, your hard drive will be a bottleneck to begin with; 5400rpm will just make it worse.

The Radeon HD 3200 is a very low-end video card. Actually, my bad, it's not even a card; it's ATI's integrated video chip. Do not expect to be doing any relatively modern gaming at all on this GPU. Also, the machine only has one PCI-e x16 slot, so while upgrading is entirely possible, dual video cards is not.

Also on the subject of expansion card slots, it's only got two extra PCI slots, so expansion on that front is limited as well. (Although, given how much is onboard, it's doubtful that that would be a problem.)

It's a really weirdly-balanced machine. On one hand, it's got a 2.5GHz quad-core and 8GB memory; on the other, it's got a 5400rpm hard drive which has been sub-par in desktop machines for well over a decade and onboard video barely better than your average Intel GMA.

Given the above low points and including past experience with Gateway's build quality, I'd say the $680 pricetag feels too high by about $20. However, I can't even match the systems specs (with the exception of the hard drive which has been substituted with a 1TB, 7200rpm drive) with a lowly Inspiron without a $63 higher pricetag. (As a side note, I'd probably feel better about buying the Inspiron regardless of the higher price.)

tl;dr: I wouldn't buy it because I don't like Gateway and the hard drive's too slow.

--- Mr. DOS

[Brandon]

1) I currently have an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ (2.2 Ghz Single Core) w/ 2 GB RAM running an NVIDIA 6150 LE ... i think anything is better than that. Any games I can play with this should be Superior on those integrated chips. (Still trying to master CS:S w/o lag ;p)

2) http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+-+Pav...&skuId=9549438

Might go with that, the COMPAQ (also owned by HP) I have now has been great, no problems. I hear HP's support is great too.

About the preloaded software, I'd crash it when I first get it and put a fresh install on there, speed it up 50% =p