Gateway FX541XT

Gateway FX541XT
Moderately powerful desktop is also an earful

GATEWAY'S FX541XT has much in common with its predecessor, the FX540XT: While it's a fine performer with DX9 titles, it's best avoided if you're playing DX10 games at high resolutions. Still, the FX541XT has a great component lineup, even if it sounds like Cape Canaveral during a space-shuttle launch. Plus the three major differences between the models are nothing to sneeze at.
First is price. Coming at $3,499, the FX541XT is a slightly better bargain, despite having nearly identical specifications, such as a 3GHz Core 2 Extreme QX6850 processor (overclocked to 3,66GHz), 4GB of DDR2 RAM, the ever-handy Blu-ray/HD DVD combo optical drive (which also burns conventionals DVDs), and Windows Vista Home Premium. Also included is the second major upgrade:a total of 1.5 terabytes of hard drive space, spread across two 750GB drives in a RAID Level 0 configuration. Already, you have a lot more room for storing applications, music, and photos, as well as any TV programs you've recorded using the included TV tuner.
The third big change is probably th emost significant: the graphics cards. Gateway has ditched the previous pair of 768MB nVidia GeForce 8800 GTX cards in favor of two 512MB GeForce 8800 GT cards in a Scalable Link Interface (SLI) configuration, offering more speed-at least in some respects-for less money.
Although you'll get better DX9 performance, you'll also wind up with worse DX10 performance at extreme resolutions, which is a downer if you go nuts over the latest gaming titles. Because of the reduced price and the bumped-up feature set, however, we still recommend the FX541XT, albeit with a pair of earplugs to drown out its distractingly loud running noise-even when it's idle.

source: Computer Shopper August, 2008.
www.gateway.com