Gateway Desktop Has Designs on High End

Gateway is getting to the core of business PCs.

The Irvine, Calif., PC maker on Aug. 3 rolled out the E-Series 6610, a high-end business desktop based on Intels new Core 2 Duo processor.

Gateway created the new desktop, which pairs Intels Core 2 Duo desktop chip and high-end 975x supporting chip set, to offer customers a heavy-duty desktop for demanding applications, such as computer aided design or video editing, company representatives said.

The desktop, which starts at about $1,200, can also be outfitted with stronger hardware to serve as a corporate workstation.

As such, customers can add faster, SCSI-interface hard drives, error correcting code memory as well OpenGL-compliant graphics from Nvidia.

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When configured as a desktop, it starts at $1,199 and offers features including and Intel Core 2 Duo E6300, 1GB of DDR2 RAM (double data rate 2 random access memory), an 80GB Serial ATA II interface hard drive, a multifunction DVD-burner, an ATI Radeon X1300 graphics card, Gateway said in a statement.

Customers wishing to set the machine up as a workstation can add an Nvidia Quadro FX 550 OpenGL graphics card, high-speed SCSI hard drives and up to 4GB of ECC DDR2 RAM, Gateway said in a statement.

An E-6610 configured with a Core 2 Duo E6300, 1GB of ECC DDR2 RAM, a 73GB SCSI drive operating at 10,000 rpms and the Quadro FX 550 card starts at just under $1,800, the PC maker said in a statement.

Microsofts Windows XP Professional operating system and a three-year warranty are standard on both configurations, Gateways statement said.

Gateways E-6610 machine joins workstations announced July 27 by Hewlett-Packard and Dell.

The companies workstations, which include the HP xw4400 Workstation and Dell Precision 390, also offer the Core 2 Duo chip. They start in the $1,000 and $1,400 range, respectively.

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