Gateway SX2800 – Review
Gateway SX2800 is one of the best slim tower PCs I have ever seen to date. The cost of the machine is about $510 and for me, this is the best equipped, best performing system in its retail price category. This machine is a retail system and hence you cannot configure it according to your choices. You will have to buy the components that are offered to you. What you see is what you get here but fortunately, what you get is really good.
There is a tiny door covering the front panel of the Gateway SX2800 and it reveals a DVD burner. On the bottom, there is another flap covering a couple of USB ports, FireWire, media card reader, and analog audio ports. I was glad to see FireWire port here since it is quite rare in PCs for such a price range. On the back, there are a few more ports as well – there is a model jack, 7.1 analog audio, digital audio out, Ethernet, four USB, an eSATA port, VGA for video connectivity, HDMI port as well as ports for mouse and keyboard connections.
The HDMI port on the Gateway SX2800 is really great because the system is tiny and you can use it in your living room without ruining the décor. One big reason why I really liked the system is the quad core CPU inside the hood which ensures that the PC remains fast even with the most challenging tasks. There is 2.33 GHz Intel Core 2 Quad chip inside and because of this, the system was on the top of all my benchmark tests. It will easily handle any mainstream applications such as heavy media editing. It has faster than a lot of other machines that are offered in the competition.
Gateway SX2800 has a 1x PCI Express port and a PCI Express graphics card for your future expansion. Also, you will have to buy half height cards because of the slim chassis. The hard drive and optical drive are put close to one another and it is a bit hard to get inside the cabinet as all the components are crammed in to a small room. Also, you can add plenty of RAM with four empty slots available.
I would readily recommend the Gateway SX2800 looking at its compact size, fast performance and its wide array of ports. I am a big fan of this desktop.
