Gateway FX530: Mad Cows and Quad Core Overclocking
by Jarred Walton on February 9, 2007 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
Gaming Performance
Quake 4 and Oblivion are two games that ostensibly offer support for more than one CPU core. However, Oblivion does not seem to benefit as much as it is already severely GPU limited, and Quake 4 only supports two processor threads with the majority of the work being handled by a single thread. Half-Life 2: Episode One on the other hand still only supports single core processors, but the improved clock speed relative to an X6800 should help out here. Unfortunately, we're going to be somewhat GPU limited, so even though this is the fastest CPU configuration we have ever officially benchmarked, in terms of gaming performance we don't expect it to do significantly better than the other test systems.
This is our first glimpse of any actual problems with the Gateway FX530. As we have discussed previously, the graphics subsystem simply isn't going to come out on top in various gaming benchmarks. There's no doubt that the X1950 CrossFire configuration is extremely fast, and four months ago it would've been the fastest graphics solution available. These days, however, it often falls just short of the top-performing solutions. Considering that the other systems were tested with a single GeForce 8800 GTX card, the fact that the Gateway can't sweep the gaming benchmarks is really disappointing - at least for gamers. We can also see that the X4 PCI-E connection appears to be hampering the performance of the 8800 GTX card, as otherwise it should at least be as fast as the other 8800 GTX solutions.
Our recommendation remains that if you want best in class graphics performance for games, you should either wait to see what AMD's next graphics chip can do or else look for a solution that uses one or two 8800 GTX cards (depending on how much money you want to spend). Spending this much money on a pair of X1950 CrossFire cards just really isn't the best option right now, except perhaps for a few people that might want to run Folding@Home's GPU client.
Quake 4 and Oblivion are two games that ostensibly offer support for more than one CPU core. However, Oblivion does not seem to benefit as much as it is already severely GPU limited, and Quake 4 only supports two processor threads with the majority of the work being handled by a single thread. Half-Life 2: Episode One on the other hand still only supports single core processors, but the improved clock speed relative to an X6800 should help out here. Unfortunately, we're going to be somewhat GPU limited, so even though this is the fastest CPU configuration we have ever officially benchmarked, in terms of gaming performance we don't expect it to do significantly better than the other test systems.
This is our first glimpse of any actual problems with the Gateway FX530. As we have discussed previously, the graphics subsystem simply isn't going to come out on top in various gaming benchmarks. There's no doubt that the X1950 CrossFire configuration is extremely fast, and four months ago it would've been the fastest graphics solution available. These days, however, it often falls just short of the top-performing solutions. Considering that the other systems were tested with a single GeForce 8800 GTX card, the fact that the Gateway can't sweep the gaming benchmarks is really disappointing - at least for gamers. We can also see that the X4 PCI-E connection appears to be hampering the performance of the 8800 GTX card, as otherwise it should at least be as fast as the other 8800 GTX solutions.
Our recommendation remains that if you want best in class graphics performance for games, you should either wait to see what AMD's next graphics chip can do or else look for a solution that uses one or two 8800 GTX cards (depending on how much money you want to spend). Spending this much money on a pair of X1950 CrossFire cards just really isn't the best option right now, except perhaps for a few people that might want to run Folding@Home's GPU client.
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JarredWalton - Friday, February 9, 2007 - link
I've used a Dell XPS 410, and other than the top-end 700/710 most of the XPS cases are pretty drab as well. That said, I'm one of those people that prefers function over form, and in some instances PCs that others think look great I find to be downright gaudy. It's all up to personal preference, and the case is generally well designed in my view. Unfortunately, BTX appears to work well for cooling and noise but doesn't do much for compatibility.I can't say that I've had any experience with Delta Electronics beyond supporting a ton of PCs and laptops that used that brand (all Dell systems). Many PSUs failed after a few years, but that was in a warehouse environment where dust was a real problem. That they could last even two years is pretty good, and the failure rates were probably only on the order of 5% or so (compared to a motherboard failure rate of at least 15% after three years). However, I don't have any equipment to really test PSUs, so I can't speak from any standpoint other than personal experience when discussing what PSUs are good and which aren't.
Operandi - Friday, February 9, 2007 - link
Dust will kill any PSU regardless of quality. Typically speaking Dell builds very reliable machines so the fact that Dell would source Delta is a testimate to their quality.sprockkets - Saturday, February 10, 2007 - link
They used to use Delta all the time, then, like HP and probably others, went to using HIPRO, and those die all the time.Zebo - Friday, February 9, 2007 - link
Dust kills, how so? How important is it to keep computer in general clean? Only time I ever clean is when I rebuild them- about every 6 months, not due to any kind of failure though. TIAJarredWalton - Friday, February 9, 2007 - link
Dust buildup on heatsinks reduces their ability to dissipate heat. I've seen a few GPUs where the fans literally melted because they got too hot! Besides that, dust can gum up the insides of the fans, causing the bearings or whatever else to stop working. I can't even guess at how many fans I've had fail over the years due to dust. So, if you live in a dusty environment, a good cleaning every 3 months probably isn't a bad idea. Most parts will last at least a year, even with neglect, but after that a lot of parts will start to fail if they aren't regularly cleaned.ddogsoldier - Wednesday, November 4, 2015 - link
so here it is nov,2015 . i have the fx530 q6600 do to my wife turning a nalgene botle full of water over own my asur pc witch was a lot newer and qiut fast with a nice turbo factory overclock when needed. had a friend who had 2 of these and new to the pc world i wanted to get one checked out with my pc guy to make sure it would run fps gmaes like warface , or planetside 2 and so on. one of the 2 was a d6600 and the other was a q6600 little did i know at the ime that one was quad and one was a duol core but i just had gotten lucky and grabbed the q6600. the pc set at my repair man shop for 4 months as i found the acer for a still didnt need the fx530 until the wife and her great spilledge of water . ya all 38 ounces . so now i have been running this q6600 for about 4 months with aMSI gtx560 ti twin frozer 2g/ddr5 .
holly cow guys. with nothing over clocked i scoring on windows 7 score a
7.1
7.4
7.4
7.1
5.9 <<hints hard drive
i running 166 fps in warface and running faster than 89% of windows users are with a blazing boot time of 27seconds
processor intel (R) Core (TM) 2 quad cpu Q6600 @ 2.40 GHz 2.39GHz
ram 4.00 (3.50) usable
hard drive 467gb with 416 gb free
on a 64bit windows 7 system
so i couldnt be any happier my self . all these years latter and this thing is pumping out power with no heat at all after hours and hours of hard core gaming for 8 to 12hr days '.
i payed a total of zero dollars and no cents . i have a total of 40 and its in the video card off of craigslist and stolled it might as well say . cant find another for under 250 $ hope this is helpful to maybe a budget gamer that just might run up on one of these beast of a pc still holding its own