Gateway offers sub-$600 gaming PC

Gateway on Monday unveiled a range of low-price gaming PCs in its bid to grab a piece of the ever-expanding gaming market.

The desktop PCs, belonging to the eMachines brand, will be available for prices ranging from $370 to $580 after a $50 mail-in rebate. The company expects the prices to be attractive to consumers who find that the costs of digital entertainment-enabled PCs are generally steep.

The eMachines T6212 is powered by Advanced Micro Devices' Athlon 64 chip and has a built-in ATI Radeon graphics card and 512MB of dual-channel memory, expandable to 4GB. Other features include a double-layer DVD+/-RW multiformat drive and a 160GB hard drive with 2MB of cache. The eMachines T6212 is priced at $579.99 after a $50 mail-in rebate.

The T3985 system starts at $469.99 after the rebate. It features an Intel 2.93GHz Celeron D 340 processor, 512MB DDR SDRAM and an 80GB hard drive. The machine also comes with a 16X DVD+/-RW drive.

Gateway said the T3882 is aimed at consumers who want to run digital-media applications. The system, which will start at $369.99 after a rebate, has a 2.8GHz Celeron chip, 256MB of SDRAM memory and a CD-RW/DVD combo optical drive. It has an 80GB hard drive and six USB 2.0 ports.

Not a bad price for a casual user - but more RAM will be essential.

I just looked at the full specifications on the T6212 on eMachines' website. While I personally think the integrated video may not be the best for future games, one thing is apparent.

Anyone considering any of the systems mentioned in the article will definately need to consider getting an immediate RAM upgrade. In the case of the T6212, the video shares 128MB of the system RAM, leaving only 384MB for the system. That will be enough to do most things, but for gaming 384MB will be the system's biggest bottleneck. To get the best performance out of that machine, I'd immediately add another 512 in dual channel config so the system would have 896MB of dedicated system RAM.

But that's just me.

[pcLoadLetter]

Integrated video

The fact it is integrated, makes it impossible to be a gaming system. Perhaps if the person is into 2D RTS and RPG games, it will be adequate, but not for games of any type with the latest 3D engines.

At least the RAM is expandable, but doesn't save it.

[optimusrms]

hi

hi i just wanna ask about the memory that you add did you put 2x512mb ddr memory and the original 2x 256mb and youve got 896mb? forgive me for my limited knowledge about computers cause im expecting more than 1 gb if you have the orignal 2x256 and additonal 2x512mb please help im confused thanks

[Sboston]

mac Mini

A counter to the mini?

[catchall]

Like there are game for the Mac

Ok, cheap shot, but the serious (or semi-serious) gamer is still going to be on the PC. The titles are just not there for the Mac, at least yet.
This is more aimed at the crowd that has been gazing at AlienWare equipment, but just can?t afford the price tag.
I?m still not convinced that it can be done on the cheap, though.

[bradfriedrich]

What Mac?

Why is it that everytime a PC platform tries something out of the ordinary, some Mac user gets a case of PC envy, and lets loose with a comment like this? Harden up

[Rusdude]

Gaming Means Good Videocard...

... which this thing doesn't have. I doubt this thing will be able to run even Half-Life 2 (which has very modest min. req's) not even talking about Doom 3, Far Cry, and like.

You can get a decent gaming PC for around a grand or so that would knock the socks off this.

[wazzledoozle]

Will be false advertising..

The video card in these would barely eb able to even run an older game like call of duty, let alone any other new serious game like Far Cry, Doom 3 or Half Life 2, which people will try to play if they think these are "gaming computers"