Digital Trends

Gateway 7200XL

February 7th, 2005 | by Ian Bell

The FPD1940 19” monitor is bright and sharp and sure to appeal to multimedia enthusiasts. For games, it held its own, but hardcore gamers will probably want to opt for a CRT based substitute or spend the extra money and get a high-end Samsung LCD with a low response rate.

To measure real-world application performance, we use BAPCO's SysMark 2004 test suite. SysMark installs programs like Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft Office among others, and then tests the systems performance with those applications. In our SysMark tests, the Gateway trailed behind both of our test machines, and while its score was slightly lower, it is no slouch. The biggest factor with the SysMark 2004 tests was the memory installed on the 7200XL. Although 1GB of memory is great, the memory speed is just slower than that of our two other test machines.

Where the 7200XL really excelled was in our 3DMark and gaming tests. No doubt due to the ATI X800 XT video card and the 3.6GHz Intel processor, the 7200XL outperformed our two test machines ever so slightly. To see complete benchmark results, please click on the performance tab located above this review.

Conclusion

Gateway's 7200XL is a system that deserves attention. For the price you will be hard pressed to find a system that comes with as many features as the 7200XL. For the multimedia enthusiast, the 250GB hard drive, 256MB video card and plethora of USB, FireWire and media card slots is a dream come true. And because the system is so quiet, you can get your work done peacefully without losing concentration.

Gamers will love the 1GB of memory, the smoking fast ATI Radeon X800 XT video card and the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS sound card. And because the system is easy to access and upgrade, the 7200XL should last for some time.

We did not encounter a single problem with this system. It worked out of the box and every component we tested performed admirably. With the 7200XL, it is very clear that Gateway means business.