Why You Can Trust CNET Gateway E-4500D review: Gateway E-4500D
The E-4500, the midrange model in Gateway's E Series line of corporate desktops offers straight-ahead business computing with no surprises. Its stable hardware platform and warranty options are tailor-made for volume buyers who expect easy deployment and long life cycle.
The volume buyer outfitting a whole company with desktop computers has one major guideline: no surprises. Slick new designs, the most fashionable features, or the latest (and possibly undertested) technology are frills that impede the computing needs and the budgetary concerns of IT managers. The $1,487 E-4500D from Gateway offers a stable hardware platform and warranty options tailor-made for volume buyers who expect easy deployment and a long life cycle.
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
With these aesthetics--a matte-black case with negligible ornaments--the E-4500D won't exactly drive the design department wild. But pop open the easy-release latch in back and take a look inside. The BTX case design allows the system to deal with heat more efficiently, and with less noise. And unlike its big brother, the Gateway E-6500D, this system is also available in a smaller, slim desktop configuration.
The midtower case we reviewed offers a decent amount of room for expansion, including two free PCI slots; three free DIMMs, depending on your choice of RAM; and two free drive bays. There are six drive bays in all: two 5.25-inch, two external 3.5-inch, and two internal 3.5-inch bays. (The E-6500D is slightly larger and offers on additional hard drive bay.) Unfortunately, the internal cables aren't routed very well, blocking easy access to some components.
Externally, the Gateway E-4500D provides just what you'd expect from a business PC: dual USB 2.0 ports and mic and headphone jacks up front, with four additional USB 2.0 ports around back. You have to opt for an optional $15 PCI card or upgrade to a third-party sound card to get FireWire ports. Moreover, Gateway does not offer a flash-card reader as an option, which is not a must-have business accessory but might be useful for some.
Our test system came with dual 160GB SATA hard drives (RAID configuration isn't an option here as it is on the E-6500D). You can get a single drive with up to 250GB of space and add up to 400GB in the second drive bay. Gateway offers a variety of optical drive options for one or both optical drive slots, including a double-layer DVD burner. Our test system included only the default DVD/CD-RW drive. The E-4500D comes standard with 512MB of RAM in the form of two 256MB DIMMS, and you can go as high as 4GB, although it'll cost you an additional $560.
The E-series systems are easy to configure via Gateway's Web site, and the options at the processor level are impressive. You can choose from among several of Intel's 500- or 600-series Pentium 4 processors or the dual-core Pentium D 800 series. Our system included the dual-core 2.8GHz Pentium D 820 CPU, and the top upgrade, a 3.2GHz Pentium D 840, is available for an additional $310.
The next step up in Gateway's E series is the Gateway E-6500D; we tested a configuration with a more powerful 3.0GHz Pentium D 830, which led to a score 11 percent faster in CNET Labs' SysMark 2004 tests. Another recent business system, the Dell OptiPlex GX620 uses a single-core but faster-clocked 3.6GHz P4 660 to beat the E-4500D by 9 percent on the same test. Since faster single-core CPUs are available for the E-4500D, that might be the way to go for users who need more raw processing power.
With integrated graphics, serious 3D work isn't an option, but beyond the basic 945G chipset, you have a few video card options. They start with the Radeon X300 SE for an additional $70, and they top out at the midrange 256MB GeForce 6600 for $160. Our system included only a $20 DVI-out card that offers a digital hookup for an LCD monitor.
Gateway offers several display options. Our system came with a very bright, 15-inch LCD panel, which didn't particularly impress in terms of image quality. For an extra $50, you can trade up to a 17-inch LCD. The flimsy stereo speakers that came with our system are the only set available, and the Audigy 2 sound card (a $50 option) is the only third-party sound card offered, although it's certainly not a bad choice.
As with the other systems in this line, the E-6500 and the E-2500, Gateway offers a wide variety of sometimes confusing service options. The E-4500D is backed by the default three-year Desktop Value plan, which includes next-business-day onsite service and toll-free technical support. You can upgrade to five years of this kind of protection for $199 or choose the even more airtight Total Protection Plan ($348 for five years), which adds priority support, allowing you to skip those annoying toll-free phone menus.
Accidental damage protection, onsite system installation, personalized help desk (for third-party application support), and various online training and learning packages are available. The "Keep your hard drive" program, at $10 per year, allows companies to retain a faulty hard drive rather than send it back to Gateway for replacement and is particularly good for companies with sensitive data. Also important to business buyers is Gateway's dedication to what the company calls Professional Managed Desktops, guaranteeing at least a 12-month life cycle for platforms and adherence to Intel's Stable Image Platform, which dictates standardized hardware configurations.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
 | BAPCo SysMark 2004 rating | | SysMark 2004 Internet-content-creation rating | | SysMark 2004 office-productivity rating |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
| Half-Life 2 1,024x768 4xAA 8xAF |
Find out more about how we test desktop systems.
System configurations:
Dell Dimension 5100C
Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 SP2; 3.0GHz Intel Pentium D 830, 512MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; Intel 945G chipset; 224MB (shared) integrated Intel 950G; Maxtor 6L160M0 160GB 7,200rpm SATA
Dell OptiPlex GX620
Windows XP Professional SP2; 3.6GHz Intel P4 660; Intel 945G chip set; 512MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; 128MB ATI Radeon X600 SE (PCIe); Seagate ST380013AS 80GB 7,200rpm Serial ATA
Gateway E-4500D
Windows XP Home SP2; 2.8GHz Intel Pentium D 820, 512MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; Intel 945G chipset; 128MB (shared) integrated Intel 945G; two Seagate ST3160023AS 160GB 7,200rpm SATA
Gateway E-6500D
Windows XP Professional SP2; 3.0GHz Intel Pentium D 830, 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; Intel 945G chipset; 128MB Nvidia GeForce 6600 (PCIe); two WDC WD2000JD-22HBB0 200GB 7,200rpm, Serial ATA
Gateway FX400XL
Windows XP Professional SP2; 3.0GHz Intel Pentium D 830, 1,024MB DDR2 SDRAM 533MHz; Intel 945GP chip set; 256MB Nvidia GeForce 6800 (PCIe); Hitachi HDS722525VLSA80 250GB 7,200rpm SATA (two separate drives no RAID)