One notch above Gateway's entry-level, Intel Celeron D-based 3310S desktop, you'll find the Pentium 4-based 5310 series, which the company dubs its "affordable power" line of PCs. With prices starting well below $1,000, it's certainly affordable, and a Pentium 4 processor offers more power than what you'll get with a low-end Celeron D. For this roundup, Gateway sent us the 5310S, one of two customizable models in the 5310 series. The Gateway 5310S is priced at $700, and with a handful of upgrades, including the processor and the warranty, plus the inclusion of a 17-inch LCD, our test system carries a price of $954. It's a middle-of-the-road performer with limited upgrade potential. In all, it adds up to a decent, if unremarkable, budget-class system.
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
With the exception of the new high-end FX400 series systems, Gateway uses the same case across its line of home desktop machines. The black-and-silver midtower chassis (with tool-free side panel removal), has only one available PCI slot (a 56Kbps modem card occupies another) and a vacant x1 PCI Express (PCIe) slot; there's not a whole lot of room for additional expansion boards. Gateway uses a stripped-down version of an Intel 915 motherboard that doesn't include an x16 PCIe graphics card slot, which means that aside from a half-hearted upgrade in the form of an underpowered PCI graphics card, you're stuck with Intel's relatively weak integrated Graphics Media Accelerator 900. The case does provide room for an additional hard drive and another optical drive, and two open memory slots let you bump the memory up to 1GB or more without having to replace the existing DIMMs.
The Gateway 5310S's lack of a DVD burner disappoints as well. Mirroring the default configuration, our test system included a CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive; a DVD-recordable drive is a $50 upgrade. You get a fair amount of external utility, by way of a floppy drive and an 8-in-1 media card reader, as well as seven USB 2.0 ports (three are front-mounted) and three FireWire ports, with two up front. Audio connections include three jacks on the rear of the system for up to 5.1-channel output, and two jacks up front for headphones and a microphone.
Powered by a 3.06GHz Pentium 4 519 CPU and 512MB of 400MHz DDR memory, the Gateway 5310S performed adequately for a system in its class. Its SysMark score of 156 places it squarely in the middle of the budget competition in our roundup. Given its specs, the system's performance met but did not exceed expectations. The 5310S scored 50.1fps on our Unreal Tournament 3D gaming tests (second fastest of the five budget systems), an admirable result considering the integrated graphics chip. Still, you're better off sticking with older 3D games, as the 5310S couldn't run Half-Life 2, even at that game's most dialed-down graphics settings.
A 160GB hard drive provides plenty of storage for photos, music, and other multimedia content, but the drive is a bit noisy. Otherwise, the Gateway 5310S runs fairly quietly. The system ships with a bright Gateway 17-inch LCD monitor, which adds only $150 to the system's price, and a multimedia keyboard and optical scroll mouse, all of which match the 5310S's color scheme. The display features a 1,280x1,024 native resolution and has a wide viewing angle and a tilt adjustment, but it lacks height adjustment. For music playback, the included 2.1 GMAX 2100 speaker system is better than most desktop setups, delivering deep bass response and crisp mid and high tones. It's a smart upgrade for only $9 more than the standard two-piece speakers.
The 5310S ships with Microsoft Windows XP Home, Microsoft Works 8.0, and a 90-day trial version of Norton Internet Security. It's enough software to get you started, and it's about right for a budget system. A quick setup sheet accompanies the 5310S, but no other printed documents are included. Fortunately, Gateway's Web site provides electronic user guides for its entire desktop line, as well as troubleshooting tips and a how-to tutorial.
As priced, the Gateway 5310S comes with a one-year parts-and-labor warranty. That's a $59.99 upgrade, though. The standard warranty lasts a mere 90 days. You'll have to make do with toll-call telephone support, which is on from 8 a.m. to 3 a.m. ET. For an additional $40, you can add onsite service, while two- and three-year plans with onsite service cost $149.99 and $179.99, respectively.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
 | BAPCo SysMark 2004 rating | Â Â | | SysMark 2004 Internet-content-creation rating | Â Â | | SysMark 2004 office-productivity rating | Â Â |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
| 1,024x768 with no antialiasing and no anisotropic filtering | Â Â |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
| 800x600 with no antialiasing and no anisotropic filtering | Â Â |
** ZT Group Pro A7055 ran Half-Life 2 using DX7
*** Shuttle XPC K6200h ran Half-Life 2 using DX8.1
Find out more about how we test desktop systems.
System configurations
Gateway 5310S
Windows XP Home SP2; 3.066GHz Intel Pentium 4 519; Intel 915GV chipset; 512MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; integrated Intel 915GV graphics chip using 128MB shared memory; Seagate ST3160023AS 160GB 7,200rpm Serial ATA
iBuyPower Value-Pro
Windows XP Home SP2; 2.2GHz AMD Athlon 64 3500+; Nvidia Nforce 4 chipset; 1,024MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; 256MB Nvidia GeForce 6200 Turbocache PCI-Express; Western Digital WD1600JD-98HBB0 160GB 7,200rpm Serial ATA
Shuttle XPC K6200h
Windows XP Home SP2; 2.8GHz Intel Celeron D 335; ATI 9100IGP chipset; 512MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; integrated ATI 9100 graphics chip using 128MB shared memory; Western Digital WD1600JB-00GVA0 160GB 7,200rpm EIDE
Sys MediaMax S2600
Windows XP Home SP2; 1.8GHz AMD Sempron 3100+; Via K8M800 chipset; 512MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; 128MB Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 AGP; Western Digital WD800JD-75JNCO 80GB 7,200rpm Serial ATA
ZT Group Pro A7055
Windows XP Home SP2; 2.4GHz AMD Athlon 64 3400+; Via K8T800 chipset; 512MB DDR SDRAM 400MHz; 128MB Nvidia GeForce4 MX 400 AGP; Western Digital WD2000JB-00GVC0 200GB 7,200rpm EIDE