by Joel Santo Domingo

The Gateway DX442XP ($1,000 direct) is a new twist on the $1,000 PC idea. Rather than spend any money on a discrete graphics solution, the DX442XP instead pours the dollars into the processor, memory, and, in a novel reversal, the Windows XP Pro operating system (which costs Gateway money to support). In this day and age of Vista ubiquity on new PCs, the DX442XP rolls back the clock OS-wise but fills the system with today's hardware. If you have a lot of old applications that don't work with Vista and you need more power than you have now, this is your system.

Microsoft Windows Vista was supposed to have completely replaced Windows XP in new PCs by now; Microsoft has repeatedly quoted June 30, 2008, as the deadline for selling most XP-powered PCs. But due to Vista-related hardware and software incompatibilities, the Windows user base is demanding the continued sale of computers running XP. When I first booted up the DX442XP, I saw the familiar yet now somehow foreign Windows XP boot screen. Sure, I still use XP on some of my older home PCs, but this is novel in a brand-new PC.

The internal components all current include a quad-core 2.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor, 3GB of DDR2 SDRAM, a speedy (7,200-rpm) 500GB SATA hard drive, and Intel GMA 3000 graphics. While the integrated graphics are not necessarily anything to crow about, we would consider the system "Vista Premium Ready" (all ready to take on the OS) if we were still tracking such things.

The DX442XP looks a lot like the rest of Gateway's current mainstream DX- and GT-series desktop PCs, with a pleasant yet nondescript front panel. A sliding door hides a pair of front USB ports, a headphone jack, and the slot for the Gateway multimedia removable hard drive. As I've said before, I don't like Gateway's removable drive. If you have to connect it to a PC that doesn't have a compatible drive bay (which basically means any non-Gateway PC, any laptop, and any Gateway desktop not equipped with the bay as well), you'll need to use the nonstandard USB cable that Gateway supplies. The cable has Type A connectors;the plugs that fit into the standard (rectangular) USB slots in your computer at both ends, PC and drive, which is unusual. If you lose or forget this cable, you're out of luck.

The chassis is mostly tool-less. You'll need a screwdriver to add another internal hard drive, but the expansion cards and case door are easy to open. There are four possible expansion slots: a pair of PCIe x1 slots, a PCIe x16 slot for a graphics card, and though the PCI slot is filled with a 56K modem, technically astute PCMag.com readers with broadband Internet will be able to pop that out and replace it with a more useful PCI card.

There's some bloatware on the DX442XP, including the ubiquitous Microsoft Office trialware and the usual AOL software touting Internet access. Yet you can find a few useful items, like the Spare Backup online/local backup package that gives you 1GB of online storage. In general the unit has a bit less bloatware than the usual Vista-powered Gateway or eMachines system. I had to go through a few more setup screens on XP than on a Vista PC, but that's a one-time deal. The payoff is the fact that a lot of software and hardware is still more compatible with XP than with Vista and you won't have to go through the trouble of learning Vista, either. Sure, you won't be able to use true DX10 for 3D graphics on this XP box, but it's really only high-end games that use DX10, and this isn't a gaming rig.

Where the DX442XP excels is at multimedia tasks. It did well on our two multimedia tests: Photoshop CS3 (28 seconds) and Windows Media Encoder (1:02), so it's a good machine for students and others who are dabbling in digital photography or video production. The DX442XP's SYSmark 2007 Preview Overall score (145 points) indicates that it will be good at doing other day-to-day, Office-type tasks. This is an excellent score, considering that other quad-core systems didn't even reach 100 points. (The Gateway FX7020, for example, topped out at 92.) Just about the only disappointing score that the DX442XP turned in was a 3DMark06 score of 306 a result of its integrated GMA 3000 graphics set, which is good only for light 3D tasks. At least there's a PCIe x16 graphics card slot in case you want more 3D gaming performance.

So why would you get this system instead of, say, a cheaper eMachines T5246 or the similarly priced HP Pavilion Slimline s3330f or Gateway FX7020? With the DX442XP, you get a lot of quad-core multimedia performance. If you tweak and edit your videos before you upload them to YouTube, or if you're a budding digital photographer, the extra oomph will pay off. Sure, the FX7020 and s3330f are better at 3D gaming, but the DX442XP is quicker at multimedia tasks.

If you're looking for an off-the-shelf PC with the latest technology but don't want a Vista PC, take a long look at the Gateway DX442XP. It's powerful, upgradable, and although weak at 3D, it's well equipped everywhere else.