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New Dell Gamer Centered PC (1 Viewer)

MikeAlletto

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http://www.dell.com/us/en/dhs/produc..._dimen_XPS.htm

Dell Dimension XPS. New case design. 3ghz hyperthreaded P4, 800Mhz fsb, 460W power supply, dual channel 400Mhz ddr memory. Basically this is intels new 875P motherboard with the processor built for it. I was going to build my own PC at the end of the summer to have this kind of mb and processor, but hell if Dell is gonna put one out that has exactly everything I want, why not just buy it from them.

Other goodies:

Audigy 2
ATI 9800 128MB video card
serial ata with raid support as well as ata100 support

I priced one out at $2100 bucks. Granted the processor alone currently runs $500 and the mb's for this chip around close to $200. Hopefully these prices will drop come the end of the summer cause this looks like a really kickin' machine.
 

gregstaten

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Joined
Aug 1, 1997
Messages
615
I actually just purchased one of these bad boys. I too had been thinking about putting a similarly-configured system together myself but, after pricing out the parts this weekend (including one of the Asus P4C800 mobos) it turned out that the Dell system was only about $200 more. I've been extremely happy with my Dell Latitude laptop and, for my money, I figured it would be ultimately simpler to single-source the computer from Dell.

Note: I built an HTPC last spring and was very glad for the build-it yourself experience, but I figured that I'd rather have a prebuilt system for my primary work system at home. Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if I upgraded the processor in a year or so, but that's the great benefit of buying in on a new 875P (Canterwood) system - the processors are only going to get faster!

-greg
 

MikeAlletto

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Mar 11, 2000
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Greg when are you supposed to get it? Let me know how it is. Its also got 8 USB 2.0 ports (2 front, 6 back) and 2 firewire ports (1 front 1 back). Also this chipset is all set to accept the next set of P4 processors too. I don't need a monitor so I'll save some money there.

I have a dimension 8100 with a 1.3Ghz P4 at work and this thing is slower than my 800Mhz P3 that I built myself at home so dell desktops kind of have me worried. I'm hoping its just all the junk I have installed on my work pc for various work things that I would never install on a home pc.

Dell doesn't really have any specials on these new boxes yet, but I'm sure come the end of summer they will be having back to school sales with all kinds of specials that I'll just be dieing to jump on :)
 

gregstaten

Supporting Actor
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Aug 1, 1997
Messages
615
Mike - it is supposed to come in towards the end of next week. I'll let you know what I think once I put it together.

Regaring your current system, a 1.3 GHz P4 is pretty equivalent to an 800 MHz P3. In fact, the P3 will run faster on some work. That said, the reviews on the new P4s are very impressed with what Intel has done. And Dell makes some pretty good hardware. My company qualifies all the systems we recommend for our video editing software and we have qualified Dell's "workstation" laptops and some of their high end systems. They build a good box.

-greg
 

gregstaten

Supporting Actor
Joined
Aug 1, 1997
Messages
615
Followup:

The system arrived early last week (while I was away on a business trip). I hooked it up yesterday afternoon and am almost through moving stuff from my old system. I thought I'd give you a few impressions:

1. The system is really QUIET. I'm absolutely stunned at how quiet it is. The reviews mentioned this, but didn't prepare me for the reality. My previous system (a MicronPC P3) is much much louder. I can barely hear a whif of white noise when the Dell is on. And this is with three 7200 RPM drives installed! (Of note: my external USB2 drive enclosure is over twice as loud as the whole Dell system.)

2. The clamshell-like way the system opens is quite nice and it is pretty easy to get around in. I also like the "no screws" way the system is set up. It made it easy to put the extra drives in. (It isn't nearly as slick as the XW8000 HP workstation I recently got at work, but close.)

3. One negative about the clamshell design is that, when opened, the 3.5" drive bays are quite a distance from the PCI slots -- so much so that I couldn't connect up the two drives I added without partially closing the case. Certainly the system is built for SATA as opposed to IDE and with the longer SATA cables this won't matter in the future. But, as I was installing IDE drives and a RAID card, the run length was definitely an issue.

4. No question, the system is incredibly fast. No surprise here.

5. I picked up a Dell UltraSharp 18" LCD panel and it is just gorgeous. This is one of the best-looking screens I've seen - even better than the NEC flats we use at work. The off-axis is excellent both horizontally and vertically and it looks much less soft when driven at its non-native resolution. (Indeed, when I first booted it up, it was at 1024x768 as opposed to its native 1280x1024. The image was surprisingly sharp at 10x7 and looked no worse than what my older Sony Trinitron 17" looks like. Of course, at 1280x1024 the image became that "impossibly sharp" look that LCDs can provide.

-greg
 

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