Dell XPS 9000?

[lyric1]

Since my XPS 700 has died & is beyond Dell's ability to fix it they are going to replace it with the 9000.(THANK GOD I GOT THE EXTENDED WARRANTY). At this point I am not sure what variant they will be sending. So I was wondering who has this model PC & what thoughts they have on it.

[skribetm]

the $900 set-up has these specs.

Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit, English
Intel® Core™ i7-920 processor(8MB L3 Cache, 2.66GHz)
3GB DDR3 Tri-Channel SDRAM at 1066MHz - 3 DIMMs
500GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive
16X DVD+/-RW Drive
ATI Radeon HD 4350 512MB
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
Dell USB Consumer Multimedia Keyboard
Dell Studio Optical Mouse
Integrated 10/1000 Ethernet


what i see from the specs is that the gpu is the weak link.
i'd get the gtx260 gpu instead if you are gaming at resolutions higher than 1440x900.

[Dragon]

Lyric, maybe you can ask them to send the middle model?  Includes a better graphics card, more ram and bigger hard drive.  I'm sure they will send the cheap model though.

[lyric1]

Well I am hoping for the top of the line 9000 when I purchased the 700 I packed it full of every option Dell had for it at the time spent close to 4K. I have been playing phone tag as well with Dell still not sure what is on the way? They are supposed to call me Saturday.

[skribetm]

is it there yet?

[lyric1]

is it there yet?

Nope it is almost the Classic AHII line 2 weeks.

[lyric1]

Well the XPS9000 arrived today just as I was about to leave for work, only 14 business days late. It is a rather disappointing looking machine compared to the 700 series & they fell way short of packing it with equal parts as my 700 has I guess I will be on the phone with India all night trying to understand how this XPS9000 is equal to my old XPS700 when I get off work.

[Ack-Ack]

Well the XPS9000 arrived today just as I was about to leave for work, only 14 business days late. It is a rather disappointing looking machine compared to the 700 series & they fell way short of packing it with equal parts as my 700 has I guess I will be on the phone with India all night trying to understand how this XPS9000 is equal to my old XPS700 when I get off work.

My girlfriend bought a XPS 700 last year and about 5 months or so later the motherboard died.  Going through the nightmare that is Dell support and trying 4 replacement motherboards and video cards and going on 3 months of no computer, Dell decided to send out a replacement computer since they couldn't fix her existing one.  3 weeks later, she gets the replacement computer and we were both very suprised to see that they had upgraded her to the AlienWare Area51, which was about $1,500 more than her fully loaded XPS 700.

ack-ack

[lyric1]

My girlfriend bought a XPS 700 last year and about 5 months or so later the motherboard died.  Going through the nightmare that is Dell support and trying 4 replacement motherboards and video cards and going on 3 months of no computer, Dell decided to send out a replacement computer since they couldn't fix her existing one.  3 weeks later, she gets the replacement computer and we were both very suprised to see that they had upgraded her to the AlienWare Area51, which was about $1,500 more than her fully loaded XPS 700.

ack-ack

Yeah I think it is luck of the draw with Dell. It will be my last Dell PC done with them.

[Ack-Ack]

Yeah I think it is luck of the draw with Dell. It will be my last Dell PC done with them.

Yeah, even though they did do right by my girlfriend in the end and also sent us some other goodies, we are not going to be using Dell in the future or recommend to anyone that they purchase a Dell.


ack-ack

[Chalenge]

It should have an Ati Radeon 5870 (1 GB memory) which is not a totally bad card considering just about all of your gaming is AHII. The only downside I can see is onboard (integrated) sound and what I would consider marginal power in the PSU. It is probably an i7 system with a quad-core processor and X58 chipset so not bad after all. I think they also use Blu-Ray DVD players as standard these days and of course 6 GB of 1066 Mhz DDR SDRAM and 2x1TB hard drives. It should play AH very well.

The reviews however are not good...

[Spikes]

It should have an Ati Radeon 5870 (1 GB memory) which is not a totally bad card considering just about all of your gaming is AHII. The only downside I can see is onboard (integrated) sound and what I would consider marginal power in the PSU. It is probably an i7 system with a quad-core processor and X58 chipset so not bad after all. I think they also use Blu-Ray DVD players as standard these days and of course 6 GB of 1066 Mhz DDR SDRAM and 2x1TB hard drives. It should play AH very well.

The reviews however are not good...

Not totally bad?? It's one of the best out there!

[lyric1]

Not totally bad?? It's one of the best out there!

My unit came with the nvidia board. So far I am it seems to be holding up quite well in the game.

[Chalenge]

Not totally bad?? It's one of the best out there!

Not totally true Spikes. Part of the problem I have always had with Ati has been lag in driver support (for one) but you should know that people are looking at this card because of its multiple monitor support (something Ati failed to support previously and cost them in a class action) but the 5870 comes with a 256 bit memory bus versus the 512 bit memory bus of the Nvidia cards. Will this be a problem for everyone... NO. You might ask to see it working at high resolution on multiple monitors before you buy though.

While everyone is touting this is the top of the line card... Im not buying it primarily because I dont trust Ati or AMD either one. Also EVGA doesnt make this and they are my 'go-to' company for MBs and video cards. I own two 295s and guess what? The 295 does use a lot of wattage and it puts off a ton of heat but it also smokes the 5870:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlL4aombWyo

[715]

The 295 is a dual GPU card (like the 5970).  The 5870 is the fastest single GPU card by all benchmarks I've seen.