Gateway DX4840-15

Gateway DX4840-15

At $850 (as of August 16, 2010), the Gateway DX4840-15 mainstream desktop is all about compromise. You get a potent PC at a palatable price, at the cost of future upgrade potential. That may not matter if your needs are simple. But you're out of luck if you want to breathe new life into your machine later on down the line. The DX4840-15 is equipped with a 3.2GHz Core i5-650 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 1TB hard drive. On our WorldBench 6 test suite, it earned a mark of 128--a strong showing that eclipsed the results we saw from some pricier machines. The Dell Studio XPS 7100, for example, achieved a score of 120, but it closes the gap by offering superior graphics performance and a Blu-ray player. Gaming performance was a bit lackluster. Powered by an nVidia GeForce GT 320 graphics board, the DX4840-15 produced an average of 37.8 frames per second on our Dirt 2 benchmark (at 2560 by 1600 resolution and the highest settings). That's a playable frame rate, but it doesn't leave much room to grow. You won't find much room for growth inside the DX4840-15's standard Gateway chassis, either. The midsize-tower case is fairly small, which limits your ability to swap in new components--and the untidy wiring job doesn't help.