Gateway, the third largest PC vendor in the United States, is launching a new Intel-based small form factor desktop. The Irvine, California-based company is advertising the 2610N desktop as a small form factor PC with three bays, the company said its BTX chassis will allow customers to configure the machines as a six-bay minitower, the 2610D, or as a three-bay desktop, the 2610S. Gateway has been looking to attract customers to its products by offering the latest in Intel and Advanced Micro Devices processors, as well as touting the addition of Microsoft Windows Vista operating system for consumers and SMBs. The E-2160 family is mainly aimed at customers such as education institutions, government entities and small and midsize businesses.
In addition to using a range of Intel chips (Celeron D, Pentium 4, Pentium D and Core 2 Duo) the desktop comes with Intel"s 945G chip set, a minimum of 512MB of DDR2 SDRAM and a SATA II hard drive with up to 500GB of space. With the tower version, the company offers an additional hard drive bay and a maximum of 1TB of space. The PC also includes GatewayShield, the company"s Internet, hardware and data protection tool that includes Trusted Platform Module 1.2, which provides networking security and encryption features. The E-2610, which is immediately available, has a starting price of $599.