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More…At first glance, Gateway's LX6810-01 value PC seems to be an excellent choice priced at a reasonable $800 (as of 8/23/09). The system throws gaming to the curb, however, and while that won't matter to everybody, its failure to match the general performance of one particular PC--one that's $100 cheaper--might make anyone pause.
Gateway LX6810-01
Pricing
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- Spec Navigator
- Processor
- Memory
- Storage
- Multimedia
- Software
- Expansion Slots
- Display
- Modem / Networking
- Case
- Other Features
- Interface Connection
Multimedia
| Audio Adapter Model | Integrated Realtek High Definition Audio |
| Audio Channels | 7.1 surround |
| Graphics Board RAM Type | DDR2 |
| Video chipset | nVidia GeForce GT120 |
| Installed video memory | 1024 MB |
| Video bus | PCI Express |
Software
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (64 bit) |
| Included Software |
|
Expansion Slots
| Open PCI Express X16 Slots | 0 |
| Number of PCI slots | 2 |
| Open PCI Express X1 Slots | 2 |
| PCI Express Slots | 0 |
| Slots | 1 |
3
5 User Reviews Add your own »
$729.99
From 1 Vendor
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- Lab Tested
- How We Test Desktops »
Pros
Strong performance considering the price
Easy-to-access hot-swap drive bays
Cons
Gaming performance suffers
No next-generation device or display connections
Gateway LX6810-01 Value Desktop PC
LX6810-01 Review, by David Murphy, PC World September 10, 2009
A single 650GB hard drive is the LX6810-01's sole storage offering, above-average capacity for a budget PC. As for horsepower, on paper the machine's 2.33GHz Core 2 Quad Q8200 CPU, alongside 8GB of DDR2-800 memory, looks like it would fall behind faster-clocked rivals on PC World's general benchmarks. But whether it's due to hardware differences in the motherboards and graphics cards, to updated drivers, or to fancier firmware, the LX6810-01 actually put up a fair showing against rivals such as the $1100 HP Pavilion Elite m9550f and its 2.5GHz Core 2 Quad 9300 CPU. Similarly, the LX6810-01 dished out benchmark scores so close to those of the $1449 Dell XPS 625 (which has a 3.0GHz Phenom II X4 940 CPU) that they're identical for all practical purposes.
While the aforementioned HP and Dell machines received scores of 107 and 109, respectively, on our WorldBench 6 benchmark, the LX6810-01 earned a mark of 105--a great score for the Gateway when you factor price into the equation. But to shine in both performance and price, something in a system has to give, and in this case it's the graphics. The included nVidia GeForce GT120 video card produced unplayable frame rates on our standard suite of game tests, including our runs through Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and Unreal Tournament 3 (at 2560 by 1600 resolution and the high-quality setting). When we dialed back the resolution, the PC unsurprisingly delivered better performance, but nothing nearly as playable as the frame rates we've seen from some machines on our Top 10 Value PCs chart; in some cases the gap between this system and its competitors was 40 frames per second or more. The most eye-opening difference: The Micro Express MicroFlex 82B outperformed the LX6810-01 in both our general benchmark and our gaming measurements--and it undercuts the Gateway's price by a cool $100.
The LX6810-01 comes with a good amount of connectivity for a value PC, but it has no superhigh-speed ports for external devices or advanced connectivity for displays. The rear of the machine supports up to four USB devices and one FireWire 400 device, as well as gigabit ethernet and integrated 7.1 surround sound. A 15-in-1 media card reader joins two USB ports and a single FireWire 400 port on the system's front. They're swell offerings, but nothing that differentiates the LX6810-01 from the norm. Some kind of next-generation connection would have helped.
An unpleasant but not insurmountable tangle of wires awaits you inside the LX6810-01. It hurt my eyes, but it shouldn't give you much pause in your attempts to access the system's single free 5.25-inch bay. The hard-drive bays, of which one remains free, face toward the side of the case. They're as easy to access as the two hot-swap bays that open on the case's front--an extraordinarily simple way to add more storage without having to pop the side off your computer. That said, the empty space underneath the drive bays inside the chassis is pointless; airflow can't possibly be that big of a concern for this kind of system, and owners would have benefited had Gateway exploited this space to fit in more drive bays. As for the motherboard slots, the LX6810-01 has room for only one additional PCI card, and that's a tight wedge in itself given the proximity of other cards.
The black-and-gray chassis design of the LX6810-01 is a nice alternative to the black base and orange accents of Gateway's traditional look. Enhancing the case's slick appearance is Gateway's dedication to camouflage: All of the system's front-panel connections hide beneath pop-out panels, and the optical drives (and hot-swap bays) are stealthed under simple black coverings.
The system's included input devices are similarly barren in their look, but that isn't a good thing. The two-button mouse shipped with our test system is attractive in form yet drab in functionality, a perfect match for the jet-black keyboard, which is generic in every way but for the presence of three extra volume-control buttons.
It's hard to top the combination of price and performance you'll get in the Gateway LX6810-01--hard, but not impossible. For the most part, you can find faster systems in the value-PC category, but you'll have to jump up significantly in price to acquire that speedier performance. The Micro Express MicroFlex 82B is the sole rival to Gateway's machine, but it, too, is not without its flaws. The LX6810-01 presents a compelling all-around package. If you care about the fastest speed for the lowest price, however, you may be a tad disappointed.
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PCWorld Lab Results
- Rating Breakdown
-
73
-
61
-
78
- See Complete Lab Results »
73
61Performance
| Adobe Photoshop CS2 | 376 |
| Autodesk 3ds max 8.0 SP-3 DirectX | 403 |
| Autodesk 3ds max 8.0 SP-3 Rendering | 375 |
| Enemy Territory Quake Wars High 1024x768 | 70.63 |
| Enemy Territory Quake Wars High 1680x1050 | 24.43 |
| Enemy Territory Quake Wars High 1920x1200 | 18.73 |
| Enemy Territory Quake Wars Normal 1024x768 | 74.43 |
| Enemy Territory Quake Wars Normal 1680x1050 | 40.13 |
| Enemy Territory Quake Wars Normal 1920x1200 | 32.5 |
| Enemy Territory Quake Wars Normal 2560x1600 | 19.67 |
| Firefox 2 | 297 |
| Microsoft Office 2003 with SP-1 | 360 |
| Microsoft Windows Media Encoder 9.0 | 234 |
| Nero 7 Ultra Edition | 273 |
| Overall Graphics Score | Poor |
| Roxio VideoWave Movie Creator 1.5 | 222 |
| Unreal Tournament 3 Highest 1024x768 | 60.91 |
| Unreal Tournament 3 Highest 1680x1050 | 29.37 |
| Unreal Tournament 3 Highest 1920x1200 | 23.07 |
| Unreal Tournament 3 Highest 2560x1600 | 13.76 |
| Unreal Tournament 3 Medium 1024x768 | 72.35 |
| Unreal Tournament 3 Medium 1680x1050 | 52.97 |
| Unreal Tournament 3 Medium 2560x1600 | 16.21 |
| Unreal Tournament 3 Medium1920x1200 | 27.31 |
| Winzip Computing WinZip 10.0 | 223 |
| WorldBench 6 Score | 105 |
| WorldBench 6 Word Score | Very Good |
User Reviews
Average User Reviews for Gateway LX6810-01
1 Review Add your own »
- Latest User Reviews 1 review
-
Reviewed by: ricva
Duration of ownership: 4 Months
Strengths: affordable
Weaknesses: Extremely poor support. Case scratches easily. Hard drive would not boot after 3 mo.
Overall: I doubt if I will buy a gateway or acer product again. Error on hard drive prevented booting after 3 mo. Support wanted to charge for recovery disks. All memory slots used - you cannot upgrade without replacing all. Speakers are cheap. Downloads from their support site are SLOW and timeout. Only 1 extra power plug available, making it difficult to expand the capabilities or add cooling fans. Easily collects dust into the cpu cooling fins - be sure to clean regularly! Mechanically a poor design.
Review Now! Already own it? Tell us What You Think
User Reviews From Around the Web
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Reviewed by:
Strengths: front loading HD Slots
Weaknesses: it shares your RAM
Overall: i just got this machine today and i'm satisfied with it. i see people complain about their PCs, i think its because they don't know what they doing. this is my first PC that i bought i always built my own. i would say this is a good buy. i'll be doing some heavy video editing on this baby.wish me goodluck lol
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Reviewed by:
Strengths: very fast and affordable
Weaknesses: support sucks big time, all software not provided, rca jacks dont work
Overall: Hi I m stuck, i cant seem to detect my video camera using the front rca panel jack on my gateway lx 6810, but i finally was able to use the tv tuner that came with the computer by installing nero9. I have chatted with the gateway people, they are of no use. the support people suck big time. they would simply point you to getting the paid support serivice, i dont know how good they would be even if I buy the support, because what i have heard is that . once you buy the support those suckers will only ask you to buy another software to run those rca jacks. that is how gateway makes money. they also said i need a driver for the camera . I bet those bloody suckers would also say the sme if you ask them how to connect a dvd player. they would say "there has to be a driver for the dvd player," OMG i cant stopp laughing then they say that. " its a third party equipment driver issue".. man now I know all the terms gateway teaches them to say to customers to make them buy the support.Haha
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Reviewed by:
Strengths: is very fast
Weaknesses: computer cuts itself off,also
Overall: HERE IS THE FIX!!!! FIND A PROGRAM YOU CAN STREAM, SUCH AS MUSIC FROM AOL ALL DAY, PUT IT IN THE BACKGROUND (TURN SOUND DOWN SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO HEAR MUSIC) AND THE COMPUTER WILL STAY UP AND NOT GO DOWN...IT WORKS!!!!!!!!!!!
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Reviewed by:
Strengths: Good deal for the money.. if it works
Weaknesses: Poor customer service, too many problems for new machine
Overall: Purchased this computer in the middle of January. By the middle of February we were having issues with the machine shutting itself completely off with no warning. Called Gateway and they want us to spend $35 to ship it to them and they will have it for at least 2 weeks. We have 2 friends that bought the same computer and are having the same issues. Gateway's service is unacceptable and we will never buy their product again.
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Start New Topic Don't see the answer to your question? Ask it here!
Discussion: How To?
-
weespat - Sun Nov 22 17:05:06 PST 2009
Hello, I am wondering how to use the front hard drive bays?
-
JimH443 - Mon Nov 23 04:24:16 PST 2009
Simply put, all you have to do is buy the hard drive, mount it in the bay and connect the cables.
If you're talking about the bays with the removable panel, those are "designed" for CD/DVD and 5.25" floppy drives. If you want to put a hard drive in one of these bays, I would recommend getting a mounting adapter such as this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817994073&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Accessories+-+Hard+Drive-_-BYTECC+INC-_-17994073
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