Gateway FX6803

Gateway FX6803

As has become a sort of tradition on the performance desktop charts, Gateway has brought another iteration of its FX-series desktops to the market, and--surprise--the machine is a fairly competent piece of hardware. We don't always expect to see mainstream vendors dishing out systems that beat boutique offerings in price and performance, but here we are. At $1499 (as of August 23, 2010), the Gateway FX6803 delivers a great mix of speed, design, and connectivity that's hampered by a few inconsequential issues--when it comes to the performance, that is. Into the belly of this beast, Gateway stashes a 2.8GHz Intel Core i7-930 processor, a speedy--but not record-shattering--CPU. What is eye-opening, however, is the company's decision to install 9GB of DDR3 memory to accompany said processor; we just don't see that kind of a loadout at this price point, period. The system's single 1.5TB hard drive is just right for the category, but again rather generous. Just how much does this wealth of memory affect the system's overall performance? On our WorldBench 6 suite of tests, the FX6803 cruised to an impressive score of 143.