When it comes to video memory, the word "upto" usually means the graphics card is using at least partially shared, if not entirely shared, memory. That's always an instant show-stopper for me. System RAM is much slower at processing graphics than is dedicated video RAM. When a video card is set up to borrow its memory from system RAM ("shared memory"
, it will always run very noticeably slower than if it had its own onboard VRAM.
That having been said, when I look at the specs of the GT5628 directly on the Gateway website (
http://www.gateway.com/retail/gt5628.php ), it shows it's got an nVidia GeForce 8500GT with 256 MB of dedicated video memory. Further, nVidia's own site lists 256MB as the ONLY option for the 8500 GT. So I'm not sure from where you quoted that "upto" listing, Jezabell, but it seems like it's incorrect. And that's a good thing.
Also, your listing shows 5.1 audio, but Gateway lists it as 7.1. That's just too many mistakes for me to believe whatever site you were looking at really knows what they're doing.
I might suggest that if you do go ahead and buy this machine, that you get it from somewhere less prone to typos. If they were wrong about specs, they could be conveniently "mistaken" about other things they're telling you as well (like how well they plan on treating you when you need service).
Anyway, judging from the specs on the Gateway site, I'd say that for the money, it's a pretty decent machine. There are a few things I'd be leery of though.
1. I notice there's no secondary PCI-E x16 slot. That means if you ever want to add a second video card, you'll be SOL. If that doesn't matter to you though, then don't worry about.
2. Notice it says "BlueRay/HD-DVD capable", but it does not actually come with a BlueRay or HD-DVD drive. At that price, it shouldn't, but it's worth being aware that it doesn't. The wording is a little tricky there. Me, I really don't care about BlueRay or HD-DVD (I'm sitting back and hoping the silly format war will come to an end, or else I'll just stick with DVD's for the next decade), so if you don't either, then don't worry about it. The machine does come with a what looks to be a pretty good dual layer DVD writable drive, which is nice.
3. The 7.1 HD Audio is most likely the Realtek card that nVidia is attaching to a lot of their motherboards these days. If high quality sound is important to you, be aware that you'll probably want to disable the onboard audio, and replace it with a stand-alone card (Creative X-Fi is cheap and sounds great). That Realtek, if indeed that's what it is, doesn't sound very good, and is prone to crackling. (If yours crackles, turn off enhanced audio effects in the driver settings, and in all your games. That usually solves it.)
4. The monitor specs are quite bad. They're actually worse than those of the 5-year-old panels I've got sitting in my closet right now.
First, the 700:1 contrast ratio on that thing is abysmal. Most modern LCD monitors will give you at least 1000:1. Heck, 3000:1, which was a luxury just a couple of years ago, is now so common, it's almost a standard. At just 700:1, you'll miss an awful lot. Textures and other imagery with any degree of subtle shading will likely end up looking very flat and monotone on that screen. There will be a tremendous amount of detail, both inside SL and out, that you simply won't be able to see.
Second, the viewing angle is atrocious. These days, any flat panel worth getting will have at least a 170x170 degree viewing angle. This one is only 150x135. At that narrow of an angle set, if you'll notice very quickly that if your head is not exactly in the right position, the colors will distort and fade.
Third, the 6ms response time is OK, but it's not great. Lots of inexpensive LCD's sport 2ms response these days.
Third, as has been mentioned, the height is really small. I agree with Qie about 1920x1200 being a more ideal size, not only for HDTV, but also for doing texture work. At only 900 pixels tall, that Gateway display will never be able to show you what a 1024-tall texture looks like at full size. You've only just barely got enough room for a 512 after you account for the combined heights of the start bar, window borders, title bars, menu bars, and tool bars. You'll also find yourself scrolling endlessly when viewing Web pages or even Word documents. 900 pixels just isn't a big number.
Remember, before wide screens became all the rage, a 19" monitor was 1280x1024, and that was pretty much a minimum standard size for a decent screen. Now consider that at 1440x900, that so-called "wide" 19" screen actually has almost 15,000 less pixels in it than a standard 19" screen. By getting wider, it actually gets smaller.
If I were you, I'd spend the extra hundred bucks or so, and get at least a 1680x1050. And preferably not a Gateway. There are lots of other makes that feature better contrast and response times within the same price range.
That's my 2 cents. Hope it's helpful.
USB 2.0 (2 front, 6 rear), (2) IEEE 1394 (1 front, 1 rear), (1) VGA, (2) PS/2 (keyboard and mouse), (1) RJ-45 Ethernet, (1) RJ-11 modem 
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