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Gateway GT5220 Refurbished AMD Athlon 64 X2 Desktop Computer

Saturday, June 16th, 2007 | Desktop Computers | 1 Comment

At $400 this really is quite a cheap computer, adding in a monitor would still not push the price far above the $500 mark. But will it perform for such a low price.

The AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ is about the cheapest in the X2 series from AMD. This is not a bad thing and still gives a fair amount of performance. It is based on the newer AM2 socket type, which means that you would not be stuck if you wanted to upgrade to a faster CPU at some stage.

The standard set of features is good, having all the necessary extras. A PCIe slot means you will be able to upgrade to a super-fast graphics card, or even a little faster if you wanted to. But I wouldn’t do that unless you are into games or run huge, or multiple monitors.

There is a DVD burner, which is always a plus. Other extras include a card reader that is built into one of the drive bays, a great convenience if you are taking photos and using memory cards a lot. All the other ports are at the front too, making them very accessible, these include 2 USB ports, a firewire port, microphone input and sound output.

The standard hard drive is 250GB and uses an IDE connection. This is fine, but SATA would be the best choice, but that only really applies if you are upgrading to a really fast hard drive.

The choice of Windows XP Media center Edition keeps the cost of the computer down. It doesn’t offer all the features of the professional edition, but should do for home use. Vista is all the rage, but this computer should handle it as it has 1GB or memory, which is about the least I recommend for Vista.

The price is right and the features are good, the case is very user friendly and gives easy access to all the ports you need. It is not the most powerful machine around, but will handle all office applications and general use applications. A good buy, especially considering the price.