Dell's new XPS Line!

[Jake_Barnes]

Dell is introducing their new Dimension XPS (for gamers) line this week (see attached link). A couple of obervations and questions:
1. Why would a 460 watt PSU placed at the bottom of the case make it cooler? Doesn't heat rise.
2. 256MB of DDR400 RAM - kinda like, not enough ...? What brand?
3. 1 60GB hard drive for a Raid0 and 1 board? Don't you need 2 HD's for any raid configuration.
4. ATI's 9800 Pro graphics card - didn't this card come up short in reviews?

Link to article: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,110456,00.asp

I'd be interested in any other opinions/observations of Dell's new rigs.

But Officer, I wasn't speeding - I was qualifying ...
If I'm a Newbie - do I get a discount ...? (How does one get promoted?)

 

[Twitch]

256 Megs of DDR 400 is definitely not enough.

I doubt the placement of the power supply makes a lick of difference. Isolating it and running air ducts (something Dell usually does) can help though. And the system does have a lot of fans, which should help. It's comical anyway, since overclocking is a fantasy on most Dell systems.

One of the nice things about Intel's new motherboards is you can add a second hard-drive later and easily transform your existing hard-drive into a two-disk RAID. The RAID capability is in the chipset. Dell might brag about it, but any computer using the 875P chipset with ICH5R southbridge has native support for RAID 0.

And ATI's 9800 PRO is the best gaming graphics card money can buy for the time-being.

<font color=green>The Netherlands is where you go when you're too good for heaven.</font color=green> :tongue:

 

[Guest]

Do yourself a big favor and stay away from Dell (been there). Just spend some time on their various tech support forums and read about all the problems people are having with Dell's award winning tech support and service.

Reviews of ATI's 9800pro card against what? The ATI 9800pro card did very well with cards in it's class, right on top as a matter of fact. Asus's 9800pro card was neck and neck with it. See this months issue (Feb)of CPU magazine.....Vista

<b>"A politician should do two terms-one in office & one in jail"</b>

 

[Guest]

Dell is garbage..........

<b>"A politician should do two terms-one in office & one in jail"</b>

 

[chillwolf]

I purchaced one of these systems, and I can say I am very happy.

I have had years of building my own systems and this time around I just did not have time to fuss with it. It came down to an Alienware machine and the new Dell XPS systems.

The day before I was going to click the order button on Alienware, Dell launched some aggressive free upgrades.

I went with Dell and I am very pleased. The only issue I had was for some reason my Radeon 9800pro was underclocked. It was an easy adjustment to clock it to the right speed.

Just the opinion of one user