Digital Archaeology: Gateway MX6426

27 days ago (Edited)

The Gateway MX6426 has an interesting dichotomy of features. It has a Turion 64 processor which is among the earliest 64-bit laptop processors. It competed with the Pentium M early in it life and later on with the Core and Core 2 processors.

However, this laptop has some limitations that prevent this processor from reaching its true potential. The biggest limitation is the fact that this laptop only supports a maximum of 2 GB of RAM.

The next limitation makes the first one a little less important. This laptop shipped with Windows XP which is a 32-bit OS. This laptop can of course be upgraded to a 64-bit OS and I have it running a 64-bit version of Xubuntu at the moment. However, the 2GB limitation means that this really isn't much of an advantage.

Unfortunately, the video solution isn't that great either, at least if you were hoping to play any games. This laptop features the Mobility Radeon Xpress 200. While slightly better, this was more or less the equivalent of the Intel GMA 950 which is about as low end as you can go.

The hardware of the MX6426 includes:

CPU: Turion 64 MK-40 @2.2 GHz (K8)
RAM: 1 GB DDR-333
Video: Mobility Xpress 200 (RS480M)
Screen: 1280x800
Hard Drive: Fujitsu MHV2080A (80 GB)

For more complete specs, see the output of hardinfohere.

As far as the design, it's similar to other Gateway laptops of the era. They had an understated gray and black design with blue lighting that seemed to be popular with many manufacturers at the time. It feels solid and well built and the keyboard is reasonably nice to type on. Overall, it seems like a pretty good choice for a budget laptop.

Though useable with a modern OS, it's not the greatest choice. The single core and limited RAM expansion really hurt it in that regard. However, if you are looking to play around with Windows XP it would work great.

Like all the old (and new) computers I play around with, this one runs BOINC and it supports most of my favorite projects including Einstein@home, Asteroids@home, Universe@home, and World Community Grid. It hasn't received any work for Rosetta@home but that project doesn't alway provide non-VM work and this laptop may not have enough memory for Rosetta work anyway. You can also check how this laptop is doing on FreeDC or BOINCStats.