Gateway Core i7 Refurbished PC $699 Buy.com

[WorldExclusive]

http://www.buy.com/prod/gateway-fx6...66ghz-3gb-ddr3-750gb/q/loc/101/212508610.html

Features
Processor Intel® Core™ i7-920 Processor1 (2.66GHz Quad-Core w/ Intel® Hyper-Threading & Turbo Speed Technology)9
Operating System Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium (64-bit) with SP1
Memory 3072MB DDR3 1066MHz Three Channel Memory (3-1024MB modules)10
Chassis Premium Tower Desktop with Media Control Interface with a Stunning Jet-Black Finish and Copper Metallic Accents
Video ATI Radeon™ HD 4850 with 512MB Discrete Video Memory (Ports: 2x DVI-I, S-Video includes DVI-HDMI & DVI-VGA Dongles)10
Hard Drive 750GB 7200rpm Serial ATA II/300 hard drive with 16MB Cache5
External Ports (8) USB 2.0 ports (2 Front, 6 Rear), 2-IEEE 1394a Ports (1 Front, 1 Rear), 2- eSATA Port, (2) PS/2 Ports
Application Software Microsoft® Works 9.0, Microsoft® Money Essentials & Microsoft® Office Home and Student 2007 (60-day complimentary trial period)4
Audio 8-Channel (7.1) HD Audio
Available Expansion Slots Available: 1 - PCI-E x16, 1 - PCI-E x4 & 0 - PCI x1
Backup Media Cyberlink® Power 2 Go
Keyboard Premium Multimedia Keyboard
Media Card Reader Gateway® 15-in-1 media card reader with copy button
Memory Capacity Expandable to 16GB (6 Slots Total, 3 Slots Available)
Modem 56k ITU v.92 ready Fax/Modem (RJ-11 port)
Motherboard Systemboard with Intel® X58 Chipset
Mouse USB Optical 2-button Wheel Mouse
Network Intel® 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet LAN (RJ-45 port)
Optical Drive 18X DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti Drive featuring Labelflash™ Technology8
Power Supply 500W Power Supply11
Security Software Norton 360 All-in-One

 

[Hulk]

how does 2.6ghz i 7 compare to a dual or even quad core at 4.5ghz?

 

[UL]

how does 2.6ghz i 7 compare to a dual or even quad core at 4.5ghz?

Depends what your doing... a lot of folks still see the e8500 as the best gaming CPU...

Personally owning a i7 and taking it to 3.8 ghz in a breeze makes me content.

 

[Roland00]

how does 2.6ghz i 7 compare to a dual or even quad core at 4.5ghz?

A Dual Core at 4.5 ghz (with at least 3 megs of cache) vs the stock 2.66 ghz I7 will kill everything the I7 is capable of, except things that scale perfectly such as video rendering.

If we were talking about an i7 at 3+ ghz this would be a different story.

Depends what your doing... a lot of folks still see the e8500 as the best gaming CPU...

Personally owning a i7 and taking it to 3.8 ghz in a breeze makes me content.

This is not possible on this gateway, for the bios lacks oc options so any ocing will have to be soft mods and such.

 

[WorldExclusive]

I wouldn't buy this PC to achieve 4GHz and 60fps in Crysis. It's a great deal for people who do multimedia work and can buy a PC at a good price to work with.

 

[kirbyrj]

That's a pretty good deal IMO. If I didn't just refresh my LGA775 setup, I'd be all over that for that price.

 

[Roland00]

I wouldn't buy this PC to achieve 4GHz and 60fps in Crysis. It's a great deal for people who do multimedia work and can buy a PC at a good price to work with.

A month or two ago I would agree with you. In fact I was arguing the exact same point you are now, in a similar thread about the same refurb Gateway I7 a month or two ago for a different website.

But that was a month ago, and now I don't consider this a hot deal due to two things.

The 1156 nehalem socket is out. You can get a similar performing i5 750 + a very good motherboard for 300 to 310 (Gigabyte GA-P55M-UD2 or the ASRock P55M Pro). The i5 750 performs very similar to the i7920 for it is the same chip as the 920 but without hyperthreading, but with a more aggressive turbo boost (dual vs tri chanel memory doesn't matter that much, and we aren't talking dual gpus)

The 5750 and the 5770 will be out on Oct 13. Thus you should be able to easily find them in a two to four weeks. Here are the latest leaked specs, we won't know for sure until the cards are out though we are for sure on the number of stream processors

5750 MSRP of 179, 1120 stream processors, 700 mhz core clock, 1150 mhz gddr5 memory, 128 bit bus, thus 16% more bandwidth than a 4850, 64% of the bandwidth of the 4870.
5770 MSRP of 219, 1120 stream processors, 825 mhz core clock, 1150 mhz gddr5 memory, 128 bit bus, thus 16% more bandwidth than a 4850, 64% of the bandwidth of the 4870.

Now even though these cards don't have the bandwidth of the 4870/90 early results show that this card is about the same/faster than the 4890. Regardless either card will kill a 4850 which this gateway has.

This is a tentative estimate what it would cost to build a new computer based off the stuff I mentioned
300 cpu+motherboard
30 cpu cooler
80 memory
70 hard drive
25 dvd drive
50 power supply
50 case
200 graphic card
=805 brand new computer you build it, this does not count operating system.

And I won't be surprised we will see oem having similar brand new computers for similar prices come november. This is a really good time before christmas where we are seeing convergence, i5 release, 5000 series release (with a tdp oems love on the 5700 series), and windows 7 release.

I ain't sure the 100 dollar savings is worth the possible hassle a refurb may possess (noticed I said possible). And if you are caring about overclocking or gaming the build I listed above will kill this refurb.

--------------------

I ain't sure this computer is one you recommend for a family member to keep things super simple.

 

[WorldExclusive]

Assuming that there are a few people in the forums who are not interested in building their own PC, this could be a viable option.

There are still other desktops that cost more with older dual core configs.

This is the [H]ardforum, so it's understandable that most will frown upon pre-built PCs. We generally like high performing PCs with the lastest hardware.