New year, new PC.... Observations
Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2012 4:29 pm
For the past few years I've been working with a Dell XPS 600 desktop. It had the old Pentium D (dual core) 3.0 GHz processor and 2gb of memory running WinXP. It was a good PC, but has progressively gotten bogged down as more updates have been installed from MS for the WinXP Pro OS it was running. COD MW2 was starting to lag on me too so it was time for an upgrade. One of the wife's PC's at the office died so I jumped at the opportunity to upgrade my PC (which I was able to write off on my 2011 taxes) and donate this old 600 to her office instead of having her waste good money on a store-bought replacement (which she didn't really need a lot of performance out of since she doesn't run any CPU-intensive applications).
Back when the XPS 600 was new, it was Dell's top-of-the-line unit. It was built like a brick sh*t house; literally. Huge case, huge CPU cooler, custom ducting around the CPU cooler AND around the hard drive bay, + a stock 650watt PSU. Tons of fans. I think the entire PC weighed 40 or 50lbs. Definitely top quality.
Well for the replacement PC, I ordered an XPS 8300 from Dell. Now before you DIY PC builders jump on my back, I need to tell you I am quite capable of building my own PC and I have done so several times in the past. But what I have also found out, building my own PC is, it is very difficult to build a PC from many different components that has 0 teething problems. The last time I built a PC, I think I spent the better part of a month finding drivers that didn't conflict with all the different hardware I was using in that unit. One of the things that companies like Dell does is make sure all of the hardware they use in their PCs has no compatibility issues when they ship (or at least that seems like a logical thing I would think they check/do before shipping units out). Time is money for me and right now I don't have the time to fart around with getting everything to work in a custom built PC. Another reason for the purchase from Dell is, after I priced everything out for what it would cost me to build my own custom PC equiv. to what Dell sold in this XPS 8300 I purchased, I would have only saved about $100 and would not have gotten the warranty I got with this Dell.
My XPS 8300 shipped with a quad core i7 2600 processor (3.4ghz), 8gb DDR3 memory (1333mhz bus), 500gb SATA HDD, nVidia 530 GT video card (stock with this system but I replaced it with the OC 450GTS card I already had), SB X-FI sound, CD/DVD burner, on-board 10/100/1000 ethernet, integrated card readers (front top of case), and Win7 Ultimate along with the stock keyboard, mouse, and 2-year warranty. I found an online discount code that allowed me to purchase this for under $1k before Christmas so I think I did pretty good compared to the other stuff I've been looking at. Took them about a week to build it and I paid $15 for 2-day shipping (they actually shipped it overnight for no extra charge so it arrived Friday, Dec 23; in time for Christmas).
Now, for the observations. This new XPS certainly doesn't have near the quality of case the XPS 600 I replaced had. This XPS 8300 only comes with a 460w PSU, but I get the feeling the larger PSU probably isn't needed for what I'm doing with it (never plan on running dual video cards; which this mobo doesn't support anyway). I noticed the CPU cooler in this new PC is very small (and basic looking) compared to what was in that XPS 600. But after some research, I've determined this is the stock cooler Intel ships with this i7 2600 processor so I'm not worried. My 600 had about 8 USB ports on the back (+ 2 on front) plus 2 back and 2 front FireWire ports. This 8300 only has 4 rear USB ports, 2 USB ports on the top of the case, and 2 USB ports on the front behind a "trap door" that opens up. Wish it had more rear USB ports. Don't really need the firewire ports. But this 8300 did come with a rear eSATA port which is nice since my 1TB BlackArmor external backup HDD has an eSATA port. As per other Dell cases, this thing has the externally opening, spring-loaded doors that cover the "CD ROM" drives which I'm not a fan of. I do feel as though after years of use the external door that covers the single CD/DVD drive this 8300 has will probably end up breaking. The XPS 600 had one big door that you had to manually open (swings out of the way to the side) to expose the three 5 1/4" drive bays (2 of which were occupied in that PC). And, of course, the XPS 600 had customizable front LED lighting whereas this XPS 8300 has no lighting of any kind except for the power button and HDD busy LEDs.
Impressions: This XPS 8300 is fast and it works great. I've thrown everything at it (including MW3 on the highest graphics settings) and haven't had one hiccup whatsoever (of course I am using my factory overclocked 450GTS video card instead of the stock GT530 that came in this 8300). This XPS 8300 isn't built using the highest quality case, but I didn't expect it to be especially since Dell acquired AlienWare which seems to be the new "top-of-the-line" units they sell. I've owned Dells, HP's, Gateways, and self-built systems. And out of all of them, I must say I've been the most satisifed and had the least problems with Dells. Hopefully that track record will be maintained by this XPS 8300. Time will tell.
I just went to the Dell site and custom built a pretty much identical XPS 8300 to what I got for less than $1k and the price is now well over $1.1k before taxes and shipping.
Back when the XPS 600 was new, it was Dell's top-of-the-line unit. It was built like a brick sh*t house; literally. Huge case, huge CPU cooler, custom ducting around the CPU cooler AND around the hard drive bay, + a stock 650watt PSU. Tons of fans. I think the entire PC weighed 40 or 50lbs. Definitely top quality.
Well for the replacement PC, I ordered an XPS 8300 from Dell. Now before you DIY PC builders jump on my back, I need to tell you I am quite capable of building my own PC and I have done so several times in the past. But what I have also found out, building my own PC is, it is very difficult to build a PC from many different components that has 0 teething problems. The last time I built a PC, I think I spent the better part of a month finding drivers that didn't conflict with all the different hardware I was using in that unit. One of the things that companies like Dell does is make sure all of the hardware they use in their PCs has no compatibility issues when they ship (or at least that seems like a logical thing I would think they check/do before shipping units out). Time is money for me and right now I don't have the time to fart around with getting everything to work in a custom built PC. Another reason for the purchase from Dell is, after I priced everything out for what it would cost me to build my own custom PC equiv. to what Dell sold in this XPS 8300 I purchased, I would have only saved about $100 and would not have gotten the warranty I got with this Dell.
My XPS 8300 shipped with a quad core i7 2600 processor (3.4ghz), 8gb DDR3 memory (1333mhz bus), 500gb SATA HDD, nVidia 530 GT video card (stock with this system but I replaced it with the OC 450GTS card I already had), SB X-FI sound, CD/DVD burner, on-board 10/100/1000 ethernet, integrated card readers (front top of case), and Win7 Ultimate along with the stock keyboard, mouse, and 2-year warranty. I found an online discount code that allowed me to purchase this for under $1k before Christmas so I think I did pretty good compared to the other stuff I've been looking at. Took them about a week to build it and I paid $15 for 2-day shipping (they actually shipped it overnight for no extra charge so it arrived Friday, Dec 23; in time for Christmas).
Now, for the observations. This new XPS certainly doesn't have near the quality of case the XPS 600 I replaced had. This XPS 8300 only comes with a 460w PSU, but I get the feeling the larger PSU probably isn't needed for what I'm doing with it (never plan on running dual video cards; which this mobo doesn't support anyway). I noticed the CPU cooler in this new PC is very small (and basic looking) compared to what was in that XPS 600. But after some research, I've determined this is the stock cooler Intel ships with this i7 2600 processor so I'm not worried. My 600 had about 8 USB ports on the back (+ 2 on front) plus 2 back and 2 front FireWire ports. This 8300 only has 4 rear USB ports, 2 USB ports on the top of the case, and 2 USB ports on the front behind a "trap door" that opens up. Wish it had more rear USB ports. Don't really need the firewire ports. But this 8300 did come with a rear eSATA port which is nice since my 1TB BlackArmor external backup HDD has an eSATA port. As per other Dell cases, this thing has the externally opening, spring-loaded doors that cover the "CD ROM" drives which I'm not a fan of. I do feel as though after years of use the external door that covers the single CD/DVD drive this 8300 has will probably end up breaking. The XPS 600 had one big door that you had to manually open (swings out of the way to the side) to expose the three 5 1/4" drive bays (2 of which were occupied in that PC). And, of course, the XPS 600 had customizable front LED lighting whereas this XPS 8300 has no lighting of any kind except for the power button and HDD busy LEDs.
Impressions: This XPS 8300 is fast and it works great. I've thrown everything at it (including MW3 on the highest graphics settings) and haven't had one hiccup whatsoever (of course I am using my factory overclocked 450GTS video card instead of the stock GT530 that came in this 8300). This XPS 8300 isn't built using the highest quality case, but I didn't expect it to be especially since Dell acquired AlienWare which seems to be the new "top-of-the-line" units they sell. I've owned Dells, HP's, Gateways, and self-built systems. And out of all of them, I must say I've been the most satisifed and had the least problems with Dells. Hopefully that track record will be maintained by this XPS 8300. Time will tell.
I just went to the Dell site and custom built a pretty much identical XPS 8300 to what I got for less than $1k and the price is now well over $1.1k before taxes and shipping.