It may not be the flashiest Core 2 Duo offering to come out of the gates so far, but Gateway is hoping its new E-6610 desktop and workstation models will tap into the market who wants the computing power of Intel’s new Core 2 Duo architecture without having to shell out for fancy graphics, freakish cases, and swarms of menacing LEDs.
"The Gateway E-6610 is designed as a maximum performance desktop with workstation configurability," said Marc Demars, Gateway’s senior director for professional desktops and displays. "Complementing these high-end features is BTX technology boasting an ultra quiet dual fan cooling system for improved reliability, making it one of the coolest running PCs available."
The E-6610s feature Intel Core 2 Duo processors running at 1.86 GHz, 1 GB of PC5300 DDR2 SDRAM, two 80 GB Serial ATA II 7200 RPM drives configured as RAID 0, 16x double-layer multi format DVD burner, an ATI x1300 Ultra video card (with 128 MB video RAM, dual DVI and TV output), and a 7 bay BTX tower case with a 400 watt dual-voltage power supply to accommodate all manner of additional storage. Also on board: six USB 2.0 ports, three FireWire/1394 ports, serial, parallel, and PS/2 ports, gigabit Ethernet, headphone, and audio output. Configuration options include Nvidia Quadro FX 550 OpenGl graphics cards, high-speed SCSI hard drives, and optional support for up to 4 GB of ECC memory. The systems ship with Windows XP Professional, Gateway’s three-year warranty, Intel’s Active Management Technology, and Trusted Platform Module 1.2.
Pricing on the E-6610 starts at $1,199 for a base desktop configuration; workstation configs (with Nvidia graphics and 10000 rpm SCSI drives) start at $1,777. Units should be available by mid-August.
