Dell's XPS 720 H2C Hot and Cool

[Whizzard9992]

but to say that it is better than the high end custom built of the system builders marathon is an insult to enthusiasts.

I think this really hits the nail on the head here. The point of the article, as made clear by the overview on the first page, is to pit a Dell against an enthusiast build. In the end, the authors are convinced that the dell is a better buy. To add insult to injury, they then attempt to convince you that the Dell is some sort of deal, being ~$7,500 as opposed to $9,000, based on metrics that were apparently pulled from the air.

Wow.

Wow.

The point I would like to make is that for $7,500, you don't need an overclocked system to acheive ultimate performance, so any points made about overclocking (including warrantys) are moot. An enthusiast-built XEON platform will deliver more bang for the buck at a lower price point without the need for overclocking.

It's painfully obvious that the point of this 'article' was not to point out the benefits and the flaws, but merely to point out the benefits of the system and promote the machine.

You see all the great coverage of components and how to articles, yet he feels one system review is enough proof that none of the other stuff matters.

I haven't read a 'great' article on this site in a long time. The only one that came close was the 'semiconductor 101' article, which was full of wrong information, as pointed out by members of the community. The reviews are, more often than not, biased, poorly written, or missing critical information.

I'm not saying all articles are garbage. It's been said that one bad apple spoils the bunch, but in a basket of bad apples, the good ones stand no chance.

 

[darklife41]

I'm actually very pro-Dell. 80% of our customers owned a Dell, HP, or Gateway computer before coming to us for their next system. These companies make us custom builders look good. God bless 'em.

Just because I don't see the lack of customer support, inflated price, 1 year warranty, and send the system back to the shop to fix it and wait 6 weeks for it to come back as attractive options, there's obviously a huge market for it. HP, Dell, and Gateway have been doing monster business for many years from customers that do find this strategy attractive. But all of these companies' best bang for the buck are their low end systems. You pay very little and get exactly what you pay for. Most people seem to think this is all they need, until they find out how limited the systems are.

As for the price of this system, a person can buy these parts retail and build it for considerably cheaper. "save a scant few $" :?: So imagine how a system builder who gets components at wholesale prices can save you a heap of cash on the same system. Better yet, imagine the markup that a huge company like Dell is making off this system.

 

[americanbrian]

Here HERE! I'll second that.

But I think enough is enough. Lets all just agree that Tom needs to make some money somehow, and that this article was greased heavily with cash.

The machine is a demon. It just is not high value for money.

Anyone with enough money to blow on this DELL, without knowing anything about DELL's history, "support" and kickbacks, deserves exactly what they get. A beast, that makes them feel good for a while until they realise that in 1 year they have an average machine and it wasn't worth it.

 

[inthere]

Sorry to spoil your burning-the-witch-at-the-stake-party boys. I actually bought the Dell system and I'm really enjoying it. I knew that Vista Home didn't support 4gb, so I checked the option for Vista Ultimate. One click. The system runs like a dream, and costs more than $800 less than an Alienware system with exactly the same specs. I really don't know why the guy earlier said his machine was loud, maybe he has superhearing or the machine he's talking about wasn't liquid cooled.

I didn't get the phys-X card because I felt 2 GTX's were enough. Again, only one click.

The only thing I can't figure out is why Dell would undercut Alienware by so much if they own the company?

This machine is the perfect choice for guys that have wanted overclocked machines for years, but have been unwilling or unable to do it themselves. My last machine went through 4gb of RAM because I found out too late that EVGA
motherboards were frying RAM with voltage settings of 2.3 or higher. I was able to RMA it, but when you overclock yourself, there's always the risk of something screwing up.

I welcome a new player to the table for high end machines because competition makes prices go down. Look at Nvidia; no competition from Ati, so they try to swindle us out of extra money with the Ultra.

 

[warezme]

Sorry to spoil your burning-the-witch-at-the-stake-party boys. I actually bought the Dell system and I'm really enjoying it. I knew that Vista Home didn't support 4gb, so I checked the option for Vista Ultimate. One click. The system runs like a dream, and costs more than $800 less than an Alienware system with exactly the same specs. I really don't know why the guy earlier said his machine was loud, maybe he has superhearing or the machine he's talking about wasn't liquid cooled.

I didn't get the phys-X card because I felt 2 GTX's were enough. Again, only one click.

The only thing I can't figure out is why Dell would undercut Alienware by so much if they own the company?

This machine is the perfect choice for guys that have wanted overclocked machines for years, but have been unwilling or unable to do it themselves. My last machine went through 4gb of RAM because I found out too late that EVGA
motherboards were frying RAM with voltage settings of 2.3 or higher. I was able to RMA it, but when you overclock yourself, there's always the risk of something screwing up.

I welcome a new player to the table for high end machines because competition makes prices go down. Look at Nvidia; no competition from Ati, so they try to swindle us out of extra money with the Ultra.

So how do you like your bios settings??, proprietary motherboard, cheap flimsy plastic front panels, dvd drives, proprietary PS?? (don't lose that power cable), in the words of the Dell dude "dude, you got scre**d"

 

[Whizzard9992]

Selling overclocked systems 'off-the-shelf' is no more than a marketing ploy. Consider this:


The quality of chips manufactured varies from wafer-to-wafer, chip-to-chip. To make selling the chips easier, they place them into performance categories (i.e. binning) based on factory performance testing. The clocks at which they're rated are 'safe', almost 'lowest-common-denominator' for the performance class. The point of overclocking is to squeeze that extra performance out of the chip that exists, but has been tucked away for whatever reason.

For the amount of time and effort it takes to truly tweak a system to acheive the maximum potential for the hardware outweighs the cost of simply buying superior hardware. Enthusiasts are more than willing to contribute the time and effort into tweaking their rigs to achieve the best performance for the lowest price. For those with deep pockets whose money is more valuable than their time, they're better off simply buying more powerful hardware.

Companies like Dell, Alienware,etc. sell overclocked PC's because OC'ing is very 'in' right now, especially since the market realized how much enthusiasts determine the direction of sales (AMD turning over the market in < 5 years largely due to enthusaist support).

It's a waste of money to purchase an overclocked system, barring mild OC's on the video cards. If you have more money than time, then buy a server platform. If you have more time than money, then you overclock. It doesn't matter if the Dell had a low-power nuclear reactor powering it. It doesn't change the fact that the cost for Dell to OC the system is greater than the cost of superior hardware.

These are all things the authors of this review left out. It'd be nice to see how the dell stacks up against a computer with similar specs. It's really stupid that the authors felt that pitting a dual-core against a quad-core with half the memory was a fair comparison.

 

[darklife41]

Not to mention that a factory overclocked system is typically a mild overclock.

While Alienware used to (not sure what they're doing since Dell bought them out) overclock fairly drastically and make sure the components were well matched in the process, this Dell system is something anyone could do without fine tuning anything. Its simply a matter of raising FSB and adjusting the RAM timing.

But hey, its your $. If you want to spend more to buy it from Dell rather than do it yourself or get it from a system builder who will take the time to match components and tweak the system AND then be there for support if/when you have problems, by all means go for it. I sincerely hope you don't have to RMA the system in a few months and be without it for weeks.

I deal with people every day who have found out the hard way that Dell/HP/Gateway support is a joke. As I said, god bless 'em. 🙂

 

[inthere]

So how do you like your bios settings??, proprietary motherboard, cheap flimsy plastic front panels, dvd drives, proprietary PS?? (don't lose that power cable), in the words of the Dell dude "dude, you got scre**d"

I already told you, I'm enjoying my system. Probably because I like getting 70+ frames in Vanguard at highest settings. I hate overclocking myself. Blue Ray movies are doing awesome also. Cheap flimsy plastic panels? They seem fine to me. Bios settings? I'm not overclocking dude, I'm leaving my system as is, so i'll rarely see it. PS? Come on, that's nitpicking, and how will the power cable get lost?? If you're not happy with a machine that powerful, you have other problems. Sell it and rid yourself of the headache. I can see it now, the pain of getting 100+ frames in just about every game you play, yet you're pissed off about the bios and the front panel. Geez.

A beast, that makes them feel good for a while until they realise that in 1 year they have an average machine and it wasn't worth it.

An absolutely ridiculous statement. Come on, that can apply to every single computer ever bought. Next year, I'm buying a new computer, it's going to be the fastest thing out and I'll still consider this one worth it.

Better yet, imagine the markup that a huge company like Dell is making off this system. Smile

Not as big as companies like Alienware have been making off their machines for years. Go figure, a company is trying to make a profit.

I'm screwed for enjoying an extremely fast system?

Darn.

 

[darklife41]

Better yet, imagine the markup that a huge company like Dell is making off this system. Smile

Not as big as companies like Alienware have been making off their machines for years. Go figure, a company is trying to make a profit.

Nah, you've missed the point. The bigger a company is, the more components they buy at bulk, and the more components bought at bulk the cheaper the components are. Thus, Dell has always gotten components for cheaper than Alienware has. But I agree that Alienware products have always been overpriced too.

Making a profit is one thing. Making 50% profit from each system is greedy. I've priced these components from my own suppliers in AU. I can build this system for roughly 70% of what they're charging and we don't get anywhere near the price break on components that Dell does. My profit is a couple hundred dollars, where Dell's profit is a couple thousand dollars. It takes me about an hour to put this system together from scratch, and another hour to install the OS, install software, and run my Windows Updates disc (all automated). It takes a few minutes longer to put a top of the line SLI system together than a basic system. We give a 2 year in house warranty, and Dell gives a 1 year return to base warranty.

I'm happy that you're happy with your system. If and when it fails, and if its still under warranty, I'm pretty sure you won't be nearly as impressed with Dell's customer service. If you didn't pay dearly for that, then the extra cost must have been to save you an hour researching a better price and warranty from somewhere else for the same system. This is the point that others and myself are making. You could have gotten the same system from a custom shop for less money and better customer support. Dell systems are no bargain any way you slice it.

 

[inthere]

No, you're missing the point. The overwelming majority of people that would buy this system are not system builders or overclockers, and they rarely go into their bios. They also don't read these forums. For them, the article is accurate. They couldn't care less if Dell is making a bigger profit than the competition, as long as they're undercutting them.

You're saying that a guy who pays $1200 for a designer suit and gets an awesome looking girlfriend while wearing it should be pissed off because the designer is getting a huge markup on inferior material, when he could have gone to a tailor and gotten superior quality material and gotten excellent followup CS.

The fact is, he's already spent his money and he's getting awesome looking women. He's happy. I'm getting super frames in my favorite games, I'm happy.

Better customer support? I'll take my chances. I had a Dell laptop a few years ago and the turnaround was days, not weeks. And my system now has home customer support, and I can call Dell 24 hours a day.

The list of big companies that make a huge profit are endless. You want to get pissed off at all of them for making a huge profit while simultaneously undercutting the competition, be my guest, but remember that whoever is responsible for it is putting their job on the line, and their replacement can say "why undercut the competition by $800 when we can undercut them by
$50 and make an even bigger profit?"

 

[inthere]

You could have gotten the same system from a custom shop for less money and better customer support. Dell systems are no bargain any way you slice it.

I have never found a custom shop that can reliably put together a liquid cooled, overclocked system that will give me in home service. If you can, show me, I'm in the New York/New Jersey area.

You act like these places are on every street corner. They are very hard to find.

 

[darklife41]

They couldn't care less if Dell is making a bigger profit than the competition, as long as they're undercutting them.

And that's my point, which you missed. I would sell this system for much less than Dell does and still make a healthy profit. Dell isn't undercutting anyone on this system.

I deal with Dell's customer support almost every week. Your expectations must be a lot lower than mine or my customers'. A few days ago, their "help" desk had one of my customers making software adjustments for a broken DVD tray (wouldn't open or close). I wouldn't have gotten this customer had Dell's help desk known what they were doing.

I have never found a custom shop that can reliably put together a liquid cooled, overclocked system that will give me in home service.

I can't speak for your neck of the woods, but we're exactly that type of custom computer builder based in Adelaide, AU. We'll build anything a customer asks for and provide a 2 year in home warranty on all our systems. We have tremendous competition in our area.

Hopefully someone in your area will reply with a few recommendations.

 

[emp]

inthere, it's good that you're happy with your system and nobody can take that away from you, but most people here know how dell works and they get worked up because this site didn't use to put this kind of crap selling this "dream system" like it was the best deal.

I just went on Dell.com myself and looked for an XPS 720 H2C, compiled a nearly maxed out list for $9500 not the $6k-7.6k advertised (there was no Crucial Ballistix PC8500 mem unlike it was stated in the article) and after that I took the time to check newegg.com (I checked QX6700 on the dell system because i couldn't find QX6800 on newegg) for the same or better components (I looked for crucial ballistix tracer ram, better sound card, and better speakers) and my list ended up being about $7400-7500. Hell I could've cut down that price tag to $7000 if I had checked 8800GTXs KO ACS3 and not 8800 ultra (clocked at about the same, and it's so simple to overclock to ultra anyway...)

And this is with a PCP&C 1kw PSU and P190 case (which brings dual PSUs that should be able to power dual GTXs without even the need to buy a new PSU). Now if I can get a better system for about $7k (and that's from retail) Imagine the kind of insane profit dell is getting since they buy in bulk from distributors.

The point being is that there's no reason to advertise something as the best when it is clearly not for people who are looking for information not confusion, this is just plain misleading and irresponsible in my opinion.

 

[darklife41]

Well this should give a pretty accurate idea of the markup Dell is quoting and how their systems are not top of the line by any means.

The XPS 720 is not currently supplied in AU, or hasn't been added to their website. The XPS 710 is listed. I updated this system as near as I could to the 720 with Dell's options from their AU website. Then I did a quote on our own system with upgrades to make it much better, and still came out considerably cheaper.

The QX6700 is the best CPU they offer.
OS = Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005
Support = 3 yr 24/7 technical support ($300AU for this option which we include free) Another $60AUD for in home support, which I added as well.
2 x 1g DDR2-667 RAM
1 x Geforce 8800GTX 768mb
did not include Physics Accelerator as its basically useless
1.44 floppy drive + 13-in-1 card reader
Dell's "enhanced" multi-media keyboard
Razor Diamondback Chameleon Mouse
24" Wide Screen LCD Monitor
2 x 250g Hard Drives with NCQ (RAID 0)
DVD-RW 16x (only drive Dell offers)
Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme Music
24 month McAfee Internet Security
Dell's price: $7739.60 AUD

Our system:
Upgrade motherboard to GA-N680SLI-DQ6
Upgrade video cards to 2 x Geforce 8800GTX 768mb
Upgrade RAM to 2 x 1gig DDR2-800
Upgrade card reader to 16-in-one
Upgrade Mouse to Logitech G5 or G7 (if end user prefers wireless or not)
Upgrade Hard Drives to 4 x 150g 10,000 RPM WD Raptors (RAID 5)
Upgrade DVD-RW to 18x
Upgrade AV to AVG 7.5 Internet Security (24 months)
Our Price = $6700.00 AUD, including in home setup, full in home 2 year warranty and 24/7 support.

We've thrown in another vid card and converted the system to SLI, provided the same storage space with a RAID 5 array which has backup as well as performance, bettered many components, and our profit and support are included in the price. We come out $1000 AUD cheaper for a much better system than Dell offers, and aren't far from the XPS 720. I'm confident that we could easily beat the XPS 720 for price and system performance as well.

 

[Whizzard9992]

Building is even cheaper.

I'm sure > 80% of XPS owners love their machines, but that's not the point.

My main gripe is about the article; for many reasons mentioned previously. It's old news that Dell systems are overpriced and under-featured. There's no point in arguing over it.

 

[inthere]

The point being is that there's no reason to advertise something as the best when it is clearly not for people who are looking for information not confusion, this is just plain misleading and irresponsible in my opinion.

At no point in the article did they say it was the "best" system, they only asked the question "is it competitive?"

Dell isn't undercutting anyone on this system.

Dell is undercutting Alienware, Falcon, and other "name" system builders with this system.

after that I took the time to check newegg.com (I checked QX6700 on the dell system because i couldn't find QX6800 on newegg) for the same or better components

What about for people that won't put together their own system? Will someone please find one of these mystery "custom shops" that are supposed to be on every street corner? And please, I don't want to fly all the way to Australia to find one.

I know you can put together an overclocked system for cheaper if you do it yourself. But what if you don't want to do it yourself??

Our system:
Upgrade motherboard to GA-N680SLI-DQ6
Upgrade video cards to 2 x Geforce 8800GTX 768mb
Upgrade RAM to 2 x 1gig DDR2-800
Upgrade card reader to 16-in-one
Upgrade Mouse to Logitech G5 or G7 (if end user prefers wireless or not)
Upgrade Hard Drives to 4 x 150g 10,000 RPM WD Raptors (RAID 5)
Upgrade DVD-RW to 18x
Upgrade AV to AVG 7.5 Internet Security (24 months)
Our Price = $6700.00 AUD, including in home setup, full in home 2 year warranty and 24/7 support.

Is the X-fi, the liquid cooling and the 24 inch monitor included?

I paid about $6500 USD for my system, with 4gbs DDR 800 corsair RAM and dual gtx's. but I didn't take the monitor(I have an Apple 30") or the keyboard/mouse( I have a Logitech desktop) . I can't remember if the 4gb of RAm was standard, but the dual gtx's and the blue ray dvd was. That also includes Vista Ultimate.

My experience with "custom shops" haven't been pleasant. One system I bought at one had a bad Ati 9800 card. I took it back to them and they said they didn't have any in stock, so I had to wait for a replacement. After
no response, I went back to the store after 2 weeks and they'd closed down. I got no notification that they were closing and kinda nice of them to offer a warranty, wasn't it?

The custom shops you're talking about with your level of quality are nonexistant to me, except in Australia, so please when you talking to me about saving money on a system, refer to a complete build from a known company.

 

[darklife41]

At this point I bow to Whizzard9992's wisdom. Its obvious to me now that Inthere refuses to see that he's spent much more on his system than he needed to. It's pointless to put figures in front of him as he has no clue that the exchange rate makes his system $2000USD more than mine, even though I laid out a superior system, and the price doesn't change much for what he got and didn't get for components.

I'm betting that if and when Inthere needs support, he'll jump ship on Dell as fast as he got on it. But then that just goes to show why I'm a bigger fan of Dell than he is. They've created my bread and butter. And UCC isn't going anywhere. 😉

 

[inthere]

It's pointless to put figures in front of him as he has no clue that the exchange rate makes his system $2000USD more than mine, even though I laid out a superior system, and the price doesn't change much for what he got and didn't get for components.

My system would cost roughly $7930 Australian dollars. I travel to a different country every other weekend of the month for work, I'm pretty familiar with exchange rates. I have a portable exchange converter on my PDA and use it frequently. I told you how much I spent and I made it a point to put it in US dollars, then you assume I'm comparing it to the price in Australian, GJ. If I wanted to do that I would have took the "US" off don't you think?

Its obvious to me now that Inthere refuses to see that he's spent much more on his system than he needed to.

Why did I say this then?:

I know you can put together an overclocked system for cheaper if you do it yourself. But what if you don't want to do it yourself??

Again, and this is my LAST time saying it. I KNOW YOU CAN PUT TOGETHER A CHEAPER SYSTEM WITH SUPERIOR COMPONENTS



You're refusing to acknowledge that there are people out there that don't assemble their own systems and don't have access to custom shops that will overclock and assemble their systems for them with full warranty

Now, i fully expect there won't be an answer for this question but I'll ask anyway.......for the person that doesn't assemble their own system and doesn't have access to a custom shop, what better option is there?

 

[inthere]

For those coming late here's a synopsis:

Consensus: You can put your own system together for much cheaper than Dell.

Inthere: I bought a Dell system and I'm happy with it. Getting super FPS in every game I play.

Consensus: You're dumb for being happy with your Dell system because you spent too much. you could have put your own system together for cheaper.

Inthere: agreed, but what if you can't put your own system together?

Consensus: no answer, but you refuse to believe that you can build your own system for cheaper.

Inthere: No, I Do believe you can put your own system together for cheaper, but what if you don't know how to or don't have the time to put your own system together?

Consensus: no answer

new guy: You can find a custom shop that will put your system together for much cheaper than Dell.

Inthere: I couldn't find a decent custom shop, so i bought the Dell.

Consensus: Inthere spent far too much on his computer when he could have spent much less and he doesn't even know it.

Inthere: No, I DO know i could have spent far less on my computer, but i don't assemble it myself and I couldn't find a custom shop.

New guy: My custom shop does better components than Dell for a much lower price

Inthere: Where is your custom shop?

New guy: Australia

Inthere: I live in New York

New guy: price for better configuration than Dell computer: $6500. Dell's price for cheaper components: $7900. you see? You can get it for much cheaper than Dell if you go to a custom shop!

Inthere: I know you can get it for cheaper from a custom shop, but I don't know a custom shop that will do it.

Consensus: Building your computer is even cheaper

Inthere: I know it's cheaper, but I don't build computers.

New guy: Its obvious to me now that Inthere refuses to see that he's spent much more on his system than he needed to. It's pointless putting figures in front of him.

Inthere: .......................................

 

[darklife41]

You're on an enthusiast forum where most of the people do build their own systems. So what do you expect?

And um.. you're the new guy. 😉

 

[inthere]

I expect people that are able to build their own systems to have decent reading comprehension, I didn't expect to have to repeat myself in every post.

 

[darklife41]

Poor you.

 

[poisondeathray]

You guys are basically saying the same thing. You can put together a similar system for probably $1000-1500 USD cheaper

I dislike Dell like most posters on here. However:

1) Very few boutiques (if any) offer massively overclocked quad core systems under warranty (you can extend to 4 years for $200)

2) Dell has cherry picked components allowing an OC of 3.73Ghz. I dare any of you to get >3.6Ghz on high end air cooling, watercooling or TEC with a retail quad core (non-ES), on a 680i (SLI capable motherboard) that is 24/7 stable. Unmodded phase change units barely even reach 3.6GHz 24/7 on this mobo. (A modded phase change unit costs close to $1000.) If any of you actually overclock, you would know there is as much luck with the CPU as it is will "skill." You might have to go through 7 or 8 CPUS to find the golden one. There is no guarentee when you overclock - Dell is providing you this. Fiddling around takes time and $$$.

3) However, I agree with Whizzard9992 that you could get a better cost/benefit ratio - i.e. who cares if you get 80 vs 90 fps? is the benefit worth $1500? (obviously yes to 'inthere')

4)

The point I would like to make is that for $7,500, you don't need an overclocked system to acheive ultimate performance, so any points made about overclocking (including warrantys) are moot. An enthusiast-built XEON platform will deliver more bang for the buck at a lower price point without the need for overclocking.

I disagree. This article and discussion is about an overclocked system so "overclocking" should be relevant to the discussion. An overclocked system is necessary to achieve "ultimate" performance. A 4Ghz quad will outperform a 3Ghz quad in all applications. PERIOD. BTW, a XEON system would not be a good choice, because server boards do not have proper BIOS functions to overclock. A better bang for the buck would be to selected components and go for a mild overclock.

4) This system is for rich folk (like inthere I'm guessing) who don't like/want/need to fiddle with their computer & BIOS settings and want the best.

 

[inthere]

If any of you actually overclock, you would know there is as much luck with the CPU as it is will "skill." You might have to go through 7 or 8 CPUS to find the golden one. There is no guarentee when you overclock - Dell is providing you this. Fiddling around takes time and $$$.

This has pretty much been my experience with overclocking. Everything will seem totally stable for testing; a few hours, even a few days..........but within a week something usually has to be RMA'd. It doesn't matter the quality of the components-top rated fans, MB's, RAM, RAM cooling, I always run into problems. I've even tried after a stable test taking my CPU/RAM speeds down a bit to insure long term stability and still had my system die.

Now the same may happen with my Dell system-I've only had it for little over a week, but at least I'm rid of the headache of overclocking myself. For the guys here that can overclock successfully every single time with every CPU they try, more power to you, but that's not me. This machine is running like a dream and I'm having a ball.

 

[Whizzard9992]

4) The point I would like to make is that for $7,500, you don't need an overclocked system to acheive ultimate performance, so any points made about overclocking (including warrantys) are moot. An enthusiast-built XEON platform will deliver more bang for the buck at a lower price point without the need for overclocking.

I disagree. This article and discussion is about an overclocked system so "overclocking" should be relevant to the discussion. An overclocked system is necessary to achieve "ultimate" performance. A 4Ghz quad will outperform a 3Ghz quad in all applications. PERIOD. BTW, a XEON system would not be a good choice, because server boards do not have proper BIOS functions to overclock. A better bang for the buck would be to selected components and go for a mild overclock.


That's my point (see italics in quote). A XEON doesn't need to be overclocked. A XEON quad-2.66 X5355 is ~US$1,200. You can drop 2 of those in a computer and the CPU performance would crush an OC'ed X6800, without overclocking the XEON at all. The Intel X5000 chipset supports x4 and x16 PCIe slots, which is more than adeqate to feed a crossfire setup. Plus, you get PCI-X, which gives you access to seasoned server-based hardware.

For example, a system with 2 X5355 chips and 4GB FB-DIMM RAM, Vista Ultimate, 2 15k SAS Drives in RAID 0, rang up on dell for $5000 before any discounts. Add a couple of video cards and you're at about US$6,300. You'll get stellar performance from that, which will embaress the XPS.

That's what I mean when I say that selling an OC'ed computer is simply a marketing ploy. The cost to OC is greater than the cost of upgrading to a XEON platform. The above price is a built computer, without all of the fancy discounts Dell has so often. After all is said and done, the XEON would come in at about the same price as the XPS, but with stellar performance.

I do agree that small botique shops generally have poor support, though I'm sure there are exceptions. The problem is that with system builders, the margin is so slim, there's little to no money to be made. Most people with adequate skills will get a job that pays really well; something that a botique shop can't provide.

I also agree that if you don't want to build your computer, however you want the 'best of the best', that Dell, Alienware, and the like are really your only options.

That being said, the Dell should have been pit against one of its competitors for the article to have been at-all effective. As much as I dislike FNW's bloated prices and questionable marketing, I hear they have much better support than Dell. Considering how much 'effort' has been put into the FNW articles here, one would think that unbiased journalism would spur a battle between Dell and FNW's flagship machines. Unfortunately, THG doesn't work like that.

I hate to beat a dead horse, but it all comes back to information missing from the original article. I'm sure they spent a lot of time running the benchmarks and such, but it's like building a house on the sand. It doesn't matter how nice the house is or how long it took to build: the idea is fundamentally flawed.

The article is misleading in that it was benchmarked against an inferior machine. It also fails to provide any contrast against its competitors. The only thing it provides are some benchmarks, which unless you have a comperable machine, are generally useless.