The Small Form Factor system that we'll be reviewing today, part of Gateway's SX desktop series, is nearly identical in form and fit to the Acer Aspire X1200 we looked at nearly two years ago. Of course, the internals have been beefed up to meet today’s standards, but the layout and styling cues are very similar.

The SX series from Gateway is one-third the size of a traditional desktop tower yet it still packs a sizable punch for its small footprint. Exact dimensions are 10.43" x 3.93" x 12.4" with a weight of only 12 pounds (5.44 kg). Pricing starts at $520 with both Intel and AMD processor options that can scale up to $600 for a quad-core system like the one in our hands.

The SX2311-03 features an AMD Phenom II X4 820 processor operating at 2.8 GHz, 4GB of DDR3 memory (expandable to 8GB), a 1TB hard drive, Nvidia GeForce 9200 graphics, a 16x DVD burner and a 64-bit copy of Windows 7 Home Premium. Read on as we explore the Gateway SX2311-03 in closer detail.