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Gateway FX400XL Evaluation

Gateway's latest swing at the high-performance system industry comes packing the punch of Intel dual-core technology, a 6800 Ultra, and 5.1 surround. Does this system have a glass jaw or is it a contenderNULL

Part I - Product Overview: Having a Look Inside

It’s What's Inside That Counts

First, let's take a look at what we're expecting to see when we crack open the side of this box.

Before this review was completed, Gateway made a few changes to the FX400XL. The system now comes with 2 GB of 533MHz RAM (4x512MB), with an upgrade package available for 4 GB. Also, the FPD1975 now comes standard with the system, and there are no other monitor upgrades available.

For an OEM machine, this box is rather easy to get into, although it has the tamper-proof foil tape that shows if you've opened the side, just in case you bungle something up and THEN decide to send it in to support. All that there is to do is remove a single screw and lift up on the convenient lever and the side pops open. The side comes off quite easily (almost too easy) and we get our first look at the guts of the system.

At first glance, we see that it looks very much like the 9310 on the inside -- including that off-green manifold and the messy wiring. We see that the 6800 Ultra has its own custom expansion card retainer that's not meant to be removed (I've tried). As Chris noted before, there are card expansion slots, but they're scarce and difficult to access. In the bottom, we find the SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS and a 56K modem card. At the top of the board, we see two RAM sticks of 512MB each. There are two open RAM slots for additional expandability. We see one extra bay for an additional hard drive, just in case 500 GB isn't enough (although some of the junior FX400 family members don't carry nearly as much storage). The optical drives, the 3.5” floppy, and the card reader take up the remaining bays in the BTX chassis.

The cooling solution is much the same as what we saw in the 9310XL. The case operates on two large 12V fans that don't operate at high RPMs, but they push a lot of air. Consequently, neither the CPU nor the GPU have a fan. The CPU has a large aluminum heat sink that is different from the all-copper sink on the 9310. The 6800 Ultra uses a heat pipe solution with 4 heat pipes and 17 dissipating platforms. The BTX airflow system works by having an intake fan on the front of the machine, and the exhaust fan on the back. This facilitates constant airflow across the components and ensures fresh air is always available inside the chassis. There is also an intake fan on the ventral side of the PSU that contributes to keeping the air inside the chassis circulating and fresh. Although two primary low-rpm fans doesn't sound like a whole lot, as our performance data will show, this solution is more than enough to keep this GPU happy. The purpose of the greenish hood is to steer airflow directly over the CPU heatsink, which we will see is a simple, but very effective solution. This deviates from the BTX solutions that you or I could put together with off-the-shelf components from Newegg, but it retains the ‘spirit’ of Intel’s new form factor.

One key issue that I identified while I was inspecting the build was that the main 24-pin power supply wire bundle passes very close to the heat pipe platforms. So close, in fact, that the platform made contact at several points with the 24-pin wire bundle. Since these machines undergo pre-ship testing, I wondered if the heat dissipated off these platforms was hot enough to melt the insulation on the wire. Sure enough, before I even started up the machine, there are visible nicks or marks of thermal abrasion primarily on the yellow wire corresponding to the points of contact with the platforms. Its hard to say if the wire has been melted, or has just been physically damaged by the platforms, but the fact that there are abrasions indicates that there is some kind of damage being exerted on the wire. Issues like this could be avoided with proper cable management.

First Boot: The BIOS

I have to say that I was disappointed, but not surprised, by the lack of tweaking that is afforded to the consumer in the BIOS. It gives all of the necessary information, it allows you to set the boot sequence, it allows you to change video adapter input, and that's about it. It allows you to look at the settings, but affords little latitude as far as being able to adjust them. There appears to be no obvious way to adjust either the CPU or RAM clock. If overclocking is your bag, look for a 3rd party utility.

First Boot: First Impressions

After shutting down the computer following the BIOS inspection, I pushed the power button and started the stopwatch. It hit the desktop in 52 seconds, just a hair faster than the 9310XL, but it took almost an additional minute to load the taskbar and for the hard drive to end its paging. As far as the noise (or lack thereof) created by the system, it was only 2.5-6 decibels above ambient noise levels. At high load, it rose to 13 decibels above ambient noise.

With only three icons on the desktop, it makes for a very clean display. Immediately I'm hit with a large window message from Norton asking me to install. I'm also greeted with a McAfee message saying that I need critical security updates. A major complaint that Chris had in the 9310XL review was that for some reason, both the McAfee and Norton security packages came pre-installed. The same is the case with this system, but both were apparently only partially installed, and both constantly urge me to complete the installation, despite my best Task Manager efforts. While I can appreciate the consideration that Gateway has afforded the consumer in including a choice between security programs, I think that it is requisite that they find an alternate means to present it. Perhaps a 'Security Disk' with both programs on there that allows the consumer to pick which one they would like. Recently, they have changed their online purchasing options in which you can be more specific as to the extent of your security package. Whether that means that all of the abbreviated versions are still loaded onto your system is a question I don’t have the answer to, but they appear to have made some changes. We'll see if anything has changed on our next Gateway.

The first setting I checked was the video settings, since it was obvious the desktop was set to 1024x768. In peeking at the NVIDIA advanced tab, the pre-installed drivers were 71.25. Although WHQL certified, they were released in January of 2005 -- 8 months before this system was received -- and they were the same drivers present on the 9310 when we received it. Big deal? Not really, but as Chris said in his review of this issue, it’s good to keep your consumers up to date as much as possible when the system ships. In preparation for the gaming to come, I upgraded to 77.30. I also changed the resolution and refresh rate to 1280x1024 and 75Hz, respectively.

First Boot: The Green Button in the Corner

The start menu main window was pretty clear of unnecessary items, except for the AOL icon that seems to permeate every part of your system. The Program Files list was pretty full, but, to Gateway's credit, it wasn't a bad line-up. Most notably, they included Nero 6. For an upgrade package, you can have the full Office Suite pre-installed for you. This system only had Word 2002, PowerPoint Viewer 2003, and the Works Suite. For those that don't consider themselves particularly computer literate, Works can actually be extremely useful, so I had to resist getting too worked up about that. There is a library of templates in the Works Suite for every occasion, so I imagine that many people would appreciate its addition to this system. Rolling over the Startup folder presented an unknown program named BigFix and Office.

First Boot: Surf's Up

One of the three icons on the desktop was for AOL, also pre-installed on the system. Before you ask, no, I did not use AOL for my ISP. I connected through my cable provider and got my first look at the IE window. Immediately, I am sent to an AOL window that was stored on the hard drive - note the address in the address bar. Shortly after the window opened and the computer was able to detect the internet connection, here come the messages. The first was from BigFix, which congratulated me for installing it. Apparently, it’s a security/monitoring program of some kind, which in addition to Norton, McAfee, and Windows SP2 Security, makes four programs pre-installed all for the same purpose. Needless to say, I cancelled out of that window, just in time to be alerted by Windows Update that I have updates ready for download. If you look at the scroll bar on the right, you can see how many updates and fixes are in that list. Most are security updates, some from as long ago as December 2004 - or older, I didn't have the patience to look all of them up. I figured that 12/04 was old enough.

Another issue immediately visible in the IE window is the number of toolbars. Google, AOL, Norton Internet Security, and Norton AntiVirus were all there. Thankfully, all could be removed rather easily. My first web destination was Google to search for Ad Aware. After downloading Ad-Aware SE, I ran a full scan on the system. The results are below. Apparently, there was yet another toolbar.

First Boot: First Shutdown

I took the liberty of going into msconfig and looked at the startup list. Obviously, there's a lot of programs starting up. I cleared everything that had to do with anything but what XP needed to start up. On the subsequent restart, we hit the desktop in 38 seconds, and the hard drive stopped paging in just over a minute - cutting the startup time in half. Even on the best systems being constructed, bloatware can slow you down significantly.