It took me a while to get the right RAM for my XPS 8500. Vengeance RAM has to be tweaked up to 1600 in the BIOS and the XPS 8500 BIOS does not allow that... so was only running at 1333. I had to find Kingston Value Ram CL11 and the upgrade took with no problem. There are limited posts about the XPS 8700 on this subject but one I read suggested the 8700 may be even more finicky. I hope not because I bought my son an XPS 8700 for Christmas but have been waiting for someone to confirm what RAM will take to that system at 1600 speed before I upgrade it.