Dell's XPS 730x Core I7 Gaming System Reviewed 171
MojoKid writes "Shortly after Intel released their new Core i7 processors about a month ago, Dell announced a new update to the XPS 730 with Core i7 tech under the hood.
The new Dell XPS 730x is first and foremost a technology update but the chassis has also been buffed up a bit. The Intel Core 2 processor and NVIDIA 790i Ultra SLI chipset powering the original XPS 730 line have been swapped with
the new Core i7 processor and an Intel X58 Express chipset based motherboard. The XPS 730x retains the original 730's ability to
support both Crossfire and SLI multi-GPU graphics. Like all XPS 700 series machines since the XPS 710, the XPS 730x is available with optional factory overclocking and a H2C edition featuring a two-stage liquid cooling system. And yes,
it rips through Crysis quite nicely and puts up rather impressive benchmark numbers."
Re:Oblig. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Windows again (Score:1, Informative)
this isn't the world, it's slashdot.
signed, a fat basement dweller who can't wait for 2009, year of the linux desktop.
Re:XPS cases sucks (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Dell? (Score:3, Informative)
Dell bought Alienware.
Indexed Search is a Lifesaver (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Windows again (Score:4, Informative)
From what I can remember, it was also management issues at the top.
Not to mention that the Amiga was tightly bound to the custom chips they did in-house (Paula/Agnus, etc). Commodore didn't spend (or didn't have?) enough resources on R&D to keep up with the PC, and was also too slow in changing the platform so that it could use PC components instead.
Re:Dell? (Score:1, Informative)
I wouldn't say Dell became the purveyor of 'de-facto gaming rigs', but they've been trying to get a piece of the action when it comes to higher-end gaming systems.
Chances are the average consumer is familiar with Dell, so they'll go there first to get a 'bitchin desktop', rather than go to the places that most gaming snobs would look at, like Falcon Northwest, VoodooPC or whatever (which often times are even more expensive than Dell).
Besides, if you ignore all the whizz-bang lighting effects and other annoying things, they're pretty good development machines.
I have a air-cooled XPS 720 that I bought from the Dell Outlet as a refurb a couple of years ago. Paid less than 1/2 the retail price, and I'm running Vista64 Ultimate, and VMWare with 3 virtual machines running 24/7 (Ubuntu 8.10, Centos52, XP Pro for VPN access to work).
The video card is a 7900GTX, so pretty 'old', and I only have 4GB of RAM, but I have no complaints whatsoever about performance (and I do quite a bit of work on it). Also, it's virtually silent even with high workloads, and that's something I've never seen in any custom-built boxes that are air-cooled.
If you're into building your own systems, more power to you, but if you want a well-performing system at a decent price, go look at the refurbs in the Dell Outlet. Never buy new.
Re:But can you upgrade? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, you can.
There are 4 drive slots located below the power supply towards the rear of the case.
1) open the side panel,
2) remove the drive tray in one of the empty slots,
3) place your drive in the drive tray, slide it in,
4) connect the SATA and power cables,
5) close the side panel.
That's it.
Re:Indexed Search is a Lifesaver (Score:5, Informative)
Hold it, you are assuming people are going to search only by file name. However, the rest of us do search by content. How will you remember which file contains "int restriction_level = 1;" on a project with thousands of files and a class diagram that looks like spiderweb on steroids? Indexing is very useful in that aspect.
Re:Windows again (Score:5, Informative)
There were a lot of reasons. Probably the number one overall was the same reason Mac market share dropped: the large prevalence of cheap PC clones from different vendors. The average user didn't see a real difference between Windows and another OS.
As far as the technical side, you are correct in that the custom chips ultimately held the Amiga back. The updated AGA chipset machines (more or less comparable to VGA at the time) were pricey for the power they offered. For example the A1200 was released with a 68020 at a time when 486s were becoming common on PCs.
Re:1st post (Score:2, Informative)
Re:1st post (Score:3, Informative)
FTFA: "Also included are a few freebies. Every XPS 730 system comes with a free tool kit with all of the various screwdrivers you would need to tinker with your system, a free Dell XPS metal mouse pad and a free set of XPS branded Turtle Beach Ear Force HPA2 surround sound gaming headset."
Re:?Booting games (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Oblig. (Score:4, Informative)
While it is a ridiculous shitload of money, I did a quick cost comparison and it's actually a pretty good deal considering what's it in. Sure, you get the semi-sucky Dell versions of everything, which means a blah motherboard, blah (underclocked?) graphics card and a "1000w power supply" that competes with 700w models from Antec or Seasonic (same shit really), but you would have a hard time building an equivalent system for that kind of money, and you certainly won't get any kind of warranty from online dealers.
I hate to say it, but if you're in the market for a $5000 beast, this one ain't so bad. That said, if you're still somewhat sane you could build a rig that yields 90% of the performance for less than half the price, but clearly some people just have to have that last 0.2 ghz for $1500 more.
Re:Oblig. (Score:3, Informative)
That's gotta be my biggest gripe with UAC: without the use of a password, it can't even secure a PC from a click-happy granny from out of town.
Which is not what it's meant to do.
If you really want to, you can configure UAC to prompt for a password (and even a username). In typical scenarios, however, it adds nothing.