Houston Chronicle Computing Column: For Gamers, the Glory Days Are Here and Now
By Dwight Silverman, Houston Chronicle
Apr. 3–Gamers and PC enthusiasts, rejoice! Your time has arrived!
With the average personal computer being reduced to a commodity item, computer makers are increasingly turning their attention to developing lines of higher-end systems aimed at those who play games and like to tinker. There isn’t much money to be made in low-end systems, but the profits in the pricier, more muscular boxes are attractive.
That’s one big reason Dell bought Alienware last year, and why it continues to develop high-end products in its XPS line. And on Wednesday, HP will begin taking the wraps off the fruit of its recent acquisition of Voodoo PC. As I wrote earlier this year, Voodoo co-founder Rahul Sood is developing a line of systems to compete with Dell’s XPS and Alienware machines (see www.chron.com/voodoo), and will show off some of the technology involved during an invitation-only event.
Yes, everyone is getting into the gaming PC business — including Gateway. Late last year, the company released its FX530XT Gaming PC, which goes head-to-head with Dell’s XPS 700 monster I recently reviewed (see www.chron.com/xps700). While it’s not quite as cool on the outside, it’s packed with power on the inside.
At the heart of the FX530XT is Intel’s new QX6700 chip, which has four processors in one package. Gamers love to tweak processors so they run faster than the rated speed — a practice known as overclocking — but there’s always a possibility the chip will be damaged and the warranty voided. Gateway has taken the risk out of it by overclocking the 2.66-GHz chip up to 3.2 GHz, so you don’t have to.
That’s bolstered by 2 gigabytes of fast memory; two 150-GB, 10,000-RPM hard drives set up as a single 300-GB drive; a DVD burner and a DVD-ROM/CD burner; a Creative SB X-Fi sound card; and a pair of ATI X1950 video cards set up in a Crossfire configuration. The two work in tandem to boost graphics performance, particularly in games.
The system also comes with a nine-in-one media card reader; a gigabit Ethernet adapter; and a wireless keyboard and mouse. It’s packed into a case that’s less than exciting — Gateway’s standard, silvery-gray box with an accent “FX” in a high-tech font on the side. You have your choice of colors for the font — mine came in a lovely dark blue.
There’s one good thing about the case, though — it’s much smaller than the XPS 710′s, which is so big it comes in a box that indicates that it takes two people to lift. While the FX530XT is not a featherweight by any means, toting it to a LAN party probably won’t give you a double hernia.
Serious money Gateway pairs this with 24-inch widescreen high-definition monitor that adds about $310 to the price — an incredible buy for a monitor of that size and quality. The company also sent along a slick speaker bar that snaps to the bottom of this monitor and costs $70.
The grand total: $4,318, as configured. That’s serious money, so you’d better be a serious gamer. Still, it’s noticeably cheaper than a comparably outfitted Dell XPS 710, at almost $5,400.
The FX530XT shipped to me came with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 on it, and I then installed Windows Vista Ultimate (the price above includes Vista’s Home Premium Edition).
There were only a few hiccups upgrading — I had to get the latest Vista drivers from Creative’s Web site before the sound card would work, and there were no drivers available for two minor motherboard-related hardware components. However, the FX530XT worked just fine without them.
(This, by the way, is one of the few consumer machines still available with Windows XP — most all others now come with Vista. It’s an option when you customize on Gateway’s site.)
I set the FX530XT in the room of a very demanding gamer — my 15-year-old daughter, who is a serious Sims 2 addict.
‘Just go play it’ Hey, you fans of 3-D shooters, quit your snickering. When it comes to 3-D simulation games, the Sims 2 is not for wimpy PCs. My daughter likes her Sims loaded — the highest resolution possible, all the visual effects turned up. On the right machine, the game looks astonishing and plays smooth as butter. On an unworthy machine, it’s slow and ugly.
The FX530XT is definitely worthy. She usually complains about something Sims-related when she uses a review PC. But this time, when I asked her what she thought of it, she looked at me very seriously and said, “Just go play it.”
Whoa. She was right. The game never hiccups, and the graphics are nearly perfect. You can zoom in close or move around your Sims as they work, play and go to the bathroom — a lot, for some reason — and never experience a stutter.
My only complaint is that the PC’s fans and hard drive are loud. The drive clatters and the fans rev up when the machine is stressed — but given that the processor is overclocked and there are two graphics cards in it, it probably could be a lot worse.
The junkware factor is minimal, which is usually the case with Gateway, which doesn’t bog down its machines with as many pointless trial versions and marketing come-ons as its competitors.
dwight.silverman@chron.com / http://blogs.chron.com/techblog
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Copyright (c) 2007, Houston Chronicle
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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