Dell XPS 710 H2C or build equivalent

Flaccus

A bit of advice on the H2C, as I had one. It's a nice chasis though a little plasticy at the front, but very quiet...a single 120mm fan for gpu's, another for the cpu, and a 60mm fan for the hard drives. It's built like a battle ship with 2mm+ aluminium all round and weighs about 60lbs fully loaded!!

It has limited overclocking based on the Nvidia 590i chipset. You can set a quad core to 2.66, 2.93 or 3.2ghz in the bios. This has the effect of upping the multiplier but also the voltage which you have no control over. The vcore on the cpu goes from 1.35v to 1.53v at 3.2ghz. However the cooling more then copes, and with the H2C it is generally about 9 degrees cooler then aircooled regular version. You can also use a program called ntune to increase the fsb and get further overclocks, but the 590i is even more limited then most newer 680i boards on the frontside bus, and generally only 290mhz is all you get. So bottom line you are limited to around 3.4-3.6ghz with a H2C and you are paying way over the odds. Also, it can only take a maximum of DDR2 800mhz, and memory voltage on the motherboard is limited to 2.1v which will also limit your overclocking. Regarding the watercooling/tec module, it is a bit noisier then the standard 710, because you have the noise of the fan, and the pump gurgling away.

If you are keen on it as I was, you might be better of buying a regular 710, and then buy the quad core cpu, and the H2C cooling system from Dell spare parts. It costs around 500 euro for the cooling system. The 750w psu on the normal 710 (a 1kw ships on the H2C version) is more then enough power. Also, please bare in mind if you do go for the H2C the 1kw PSU has a problem where either the coils are not wound tight enough or a capacitor is acting up. This results in a loud electrical sparking noise when the system is under load. Not good.

Also the psu on the XPS 710 while standard atx size unforunately uses 1 proprietry cable. Instead of an 8pin EPS cable it uses a 20pin aux cable (as well as the 24pin atx cable). The motherboard is also BTX, a dead standard and while Dell will allow you to buy the upgraded 680i motherboard (launched with the XPS 720 in a few weeks), you are stuck after that.

Personally I would either wait for the XPS 720 H2C, out in a couple of weeks and supports the 680i mobo and DDR2 1066mhz ram. But like I said above you won't be able to upgrade the motherboard beyond that as Dell or noone else will be supporting BTX after. Or else build your own. It will be way cheaper. Or if you are still not decided wait till after summer for the XPS 730 H2C which will be a standard ATX mobo and fully upgradeable.

€>sense

Thx for the considered opinion Flaccus.

Can I ask what you did with it? If you "had" it, its not out that long, you couldn't have had it long, why did you get rid of it so quick?

Its the very quiet bit that mostly appeals to me - my last build was very noisy and I know a lot of Dells from work and friends and all were so quiet you have to put your ear to them to hear anything! When you say a bit noisier than the std. 710, how much? intrusively noticeable

I also was warned off the raptors? do they make a racket? this machine will also be used for work for long periods and my last build drove me nuts with the noise.

I'm hoping with this on the floor beside my office chair, that I'd hardly be able to hear it? Am I dreaming? Could I achieve that better with a similar spec machine by building my own with air cooling? If I have to use water cooling the price comes too close to the H2C I think.

I was aware of the limited overclocking, but is not that great an issue for me as I'm only a periodic gamer. I'd hardly notice the few % gain in overclocking from the 680i and faster RAM. When its coming to the end of its life, I would still have some upgrading options from Dell or I could just play some older games until I save for a new system. (as I'm doing now!)

I am keen on it: like the look of it, hoping its quiet, massively convenient over sourcing the components, and the dell warranty. I'm not sure about buying the regular and upgrading - I saw some issues with doing that on the boards, I think there might not be a connector on the mobo to enable the TEC unit, and anyway I saw a H2C on the outlet store that made me make up my mind not to buy the H2C but to chance on one coming up again. No point in paying full price for the same thing.

I missed the last one on the outlet in literally a few minutes as I costed up a basket of matching components. If one doesn't show in another week or so, I'll give up and go the build route.

I am worried about the sparky PSU - saw it on the forums too, do all of them show this behaviour? did yours? or can you be just unlucky? will Dell replace them?

I'm still massively undecided, €3000 for a 710 H2C on the outlet is the best value I've seen, couldn't possibly match that building, and would be worried about noise with all air cooling. Have decided not to pay full price for H2C 710,720,730 unfortunately getting too much sense, but I've got this bonus burning a hole in my pocket, so I won't wait long.

BTW where did you hear about the 730 and the dropping of the BTX in favour of ATX?

Once again, greatly appreciate your help Flaccus.

Flaccus

A mate bought the case/mobo/psu/fans etc... from me. I kept the memory/cpu/g80's/drives etc.. See the sig below for what I am building now I wanted a Silvertstone TJ09 case and the ability to overclock the balls out of my quad core. To be honest if the motherboard chipset did not have issues overclocking past 3.3ghz I would have stuck with it.

Regarding noise - the pump is quietish as far as pumps go so not too bad, especially if you keep the pc under the desk but its still louder then the regular 710 because there is a fan and a pump. About 20% louder I would say. The H2C cooling is only making a difference of 9 degrees over air. Not worth the premium. The regular version does the job quieter.

Also the electrical frazzling noise from the 1kw psu is unbelievably loud and worrying. Not everyone seems to have this problem or say they don't, but I have come accross at least 3 710 H2C's with it. Even the regular 710 750w psu buzzes a bit, sounds like a wasp Personally I can live with it, but not that racket from the 1kw - it's terrible. What happens is the sound oscillates. Click an icon on the desktop while running Prime95 and the psu goes from a light buzz to an electrical frazzle. Open 3dmark06....the same result while it is reading your system spec, then stops being noisy, then starts the noise again when you actually start the benchmarks. In Vista more so then XP. Because Vista pushes the system more. The PSU issue is a capacitor issue and is being worked on...replacing the psu you could be lucky, but I am convinced they all make this racket eventually once you go over about 400watss load. That's what I have seen and tested. A H2C brings on the PSU noise quicker as it is using 50watts extra under load. The only fix is to muffle the capacitor noise so it's not a fix at all. Those that don't have the issue may have rev1 of the 1kw psu, so the issue might only be occuring in rev2 and above. It is a known problem. And because the psu has a proprietry 20pin connector to replace the standard atx 8pin eps connector it's not like you can go out and buy a replacement. My advice again is not to take the risk with the H2C/1kw psu. Get the regular 710 with the 750w psu. I suggest buying the regular version and sourcing your video card, cpu etc from somewhere else. Add another card later if you have a 24inch or higher screen. The 750w can handle it easily.

To answer some of your other queries. All 710 boards are the same despite what the manual says. They do have a TEC connector. know this because I bought the H2C kit for a mate from dell spareparts which is actually a uk etailer and installed it myself. Was simple to do. You can upgrade any part on the Dell (including adding a H2C kit later) and your warranty will be intact except you need to keep the cpu it shipped with and the memory if it has to go back. All parts are standard, except the BTX motherboard and unfortunately the PSU, which is strange becuase the Dimension 9200 system uses a standard atx.

Any day now the 720 is out, and this has the 680i motherboard and faster memory support. You can actually adjust the cpu voltage, memory voltage multi and fsb in the bios so it's a proper overclocking board. But if you don't want to oveclock, a cheapish 710 would be fine.

Yes..I have seent the 730...fully atx. Out after Summer.

€>sense

Couldn't resist flaccus!

Went and picked one (710 H2C) up on the outlet for €3072 incl vat.

Everything is exactly as you described incl the buzzing!

I've not tested with prime 95 so it only buzzes when gaming - during everything else it is ok. The buzz is a little annoying - but the rest of the system is only a barely audible under the desk and a perfect PC for me would only have to be 10% quieter with no buzz.

I'm still deciding whether I can live with buzz and a few other issues are irritating me see this post.

Excluding 720 / 730 was decided by the facts:

that I agreed that new they were overpriced,
but then how long would I be waiting for one in the outlet,
and how long & how much would it take to build an equivalent of the 720/730
the best price I managed was €3200 but that was taking considerable risk of extra VAT on components from the states.

As an intermittent gamer - I was not convinced that I'd really notice the difference for a couple of years in the slower memory and mobo.

I could be wrong - if I am please let me know before the 7 day cooling off period is up!

Thanks for all your help! Everyone!