Is the new Dell XPS 8500 good value?

Attlee

A few days ago Dell launched a new model of XPS and I was just wondering what you guys thought of it as a gaming PC. There are a few variants of it on the Dell website but I am particularly interested in the €1,479.00 model which comes with an SSD. I tried building something similar on Hardwareversand and came out with a fairly comparable price but maybe I selected the wrong components. The machine specs are as follows:

2nd gen Intel® Core™ i7-2600 Processor (3.40GHz, 8MB)
Integrated 7.1 with WAVE MAXXAudio 4
16384MB (4x4GB) 1600MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
AMD Radeon™ HD 7770 2GB DDR5 Graphics Card
256GB SSD + 2TB (7,200rpm) SATA Hard Drive
16x DVD +/- RW Drive (read/write CD & DVD)
http://www.dell.com/ie/p/xps-8500/pd.aspx

I don't mind paying slightly more than I would on HWV but I was just wondering if I got the above for €1,479 would be good value or are any weak components in it. I don't expect to play BF3 with maxed out settings at 60FPS but as a general gaming and work PC would it be okay? Can anyone come up with the same build via HWV at significantly less?

ShadowHearth

its horrible. for 1.5k you can buy a monster PC for gaming.

like all dells, this one is very inbalanced machine with almost zero to none upgrade path.

if you are looking for gaming PC, then you dont need 2600k, you can drop ssd to 128gb, and ofc 7770 in 1.5k machine looks just silly. In 1.5k build you can easily put in gtx 680, which is fastest Single GPU on the market ( sort of fastest in a cheeky way )

deconduo

The problem with that XPS is that its very unbalanced for gaming. Something like this would blow it out of the water gaming wise:

Item|Price
Intel Core i5-2500K Box, LGA1155|€188.78
Thermalright True Spirit 120|€22.58
ASRock Z68 Pro3 Gen3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€82.61
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9|€33.60
Sapphire HD 7870 OC 2GB GDDR5 PCI-Express|€309.54
Crucial M4 128GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5")|€132.29
WD Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 3 6Gb/s|€85.96
BitFenix Shinobi Midi-Tower USB 3.0 black, ohne Netzteil|€53.59
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W|€52.08
LiteOn iHAS122-18 schwarz SATA|€16.68
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit (SB-Version)|€77.61


Comes to €1,055.32 + €18.99 shipping.

The i5-2500k gives the same gaming performance as the i7-2600k. The XPS only has an i7-2600 which can't be overclocked, so the i5-2500k beats it by a lot.

No game benefits from 16GB of RAM over 8GB as far as I know.

The 7870 destroys the 7770 in gaming, and that particular model overclocks really nicely.

The 256GB SSD is not needed unless you have a massive amount of games that you play regularly. 128GB is plenty for most people.

The case is just a generic one, but you can go for a nicer or more expensive one if you want. For example if you wanted a silent build or something.

Skylinehead

Jesus, a 7770 in a 1500 build, you should be looking 7870 at an absolute minimum there.

BillyCom

Makes me wonder how much money I wasted buying an XPS gen4 back in 2005 :eek:

Inscrutable

There's a 10% off coupon code here which will reduce it to €1,335:

http://buy-ireland.com/dell-discount-coupons.php

smileyj1987

For that sort of money i would be wanting a 7950 , 7970 or a GTX 680 for the price .

EmilAndresen

I bought the 8500 which you're describing (the top model in the 8500 range, that is) and would have to say that it's lightning fast. I'm not a hard-core gamer but I've been playing Portal 2 and Call of Duty Black Ops at high settings and it has been fine.

Here's something objective you might find useful, the Windows Experience Index:

Overall: a very respectable 7.5 (out of a maximum possible score of 7.9)

Processor: 7.6
RAM: 7.6
Graphics: 7.5
Gaming graphics: 7.5
Primary hard disk: 7.9

I've always found there to be a lot of anti-Dell comments which make their way onto forums and I've come to suspect this is largely about prejudice against Dell. Bear this in mind when you hear people saying it's a 'horrible' system.

You might find this site useful too: http://www.weishare.net/ - I just used it to compare the i5 processor recommended in another response to the i7 in the Dell (guess what, the i7 is significantly better).

uberpixie

EmilAndresen wrote: »

I bought the 8500 which you're describing (the top model in the 8500 range, that is) and would have to say that it's lightning fast. I'm not a hard-core gamer but I've been playing Portal 2 and Call of Duty Black Ops at high settings and it has been fine.

Neither game is very graphically intensive by PC gaming standards.
ARMA 2 or BF3 or the Witcher 2 are better bets when testing a gaming pc as they are much more intensive.

EmilAndresen wrote: »

I've always found there to be a lot of anti-Dell comments which make their way onto forums and I've come to suspect this is largely about prejudice against Dell. Bear this in mind when you hear people saying it's a 'horrible' system.

Many people have been burnt by Dell: Dell (like most major OEMs) have a bad habit of making PCs with non standard connections on the motherboard/power supply and give you the bear minimum required power supply. This becomes an issue when you decide to upgrade your graphics card down the line, realise the power supply is too weak, then go to replace the power supply and then realise the new psu you did get won't fit the case or Dell decided to use non standard power connections on the motherboard and you then need to get a "dell" power supply form somewhere.

OEM PCs are never designed with to be upgradable: they ship the bear minimum required to get the sale as most of their market will NEVER touch the insides of their PC with a screw driver. Any extra money spent adding an upgradeable feature to an OEM PC is money wasted by DELL.... So usually they don't bother and you then find you have purchased a dead end pc and end up building any way

EmilAndresen wrote: »

the i7 in the Dell (guess what, the i7 is significantly better).

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-cpu-review-overclock,3106.html

"CPUs priced over $230 offer rapidly diminishing returns when it comes to game performance. As such, we have a hard time recommending anything more expensive than the Core i5-2550K, especially since this multiplier-unlocked processor can be overclocked to great effect if more performance is desired. Even at stock clocks, it meets or beats the $1000 Core i7-990X Extreme Edition when it comes to gaming."

i5 2500K is more than enough for gaming, in fact it is current sweet spot between cost and performance. An i7 in a games machine is a total waste if all you intend to do is game...... Better to pump the extra money saved into a much better graphics card which will have an actual impact on your gaming performance, unless of course you wish to inflate your e-penis and get better benchmark scores......:D


TL/DR: the Dell PC is ****e value for money and is very badly balanced for gaming paring a weak gfx card with an i7 CPU ( an i5 2500K will perform the same in games and is cheaper).
Chances are Dell will have also fcuked you on the powersupply which will make fitting a new gfx card in the future very difficult.

ShadowHearth

As above. Dells are very unbalanced, overpriced, and have unique connections which make then unupgradeable.

We don't hate dell as company, a lot of us use dell monitors which are great value for money, dells laptops can be a not bad value to with good sales, but we hate rubbish desktops, which are marked as high power gaming machines and in the end those machines are only good for office work, because the imbalance is horrible.

Newer ever buy Alienware and dell desktops.

Tea_Bag

EmilAndresen wrote: »

I bought the 8500 which you're describing (the top model in the 8500 range, that is) and would have to say that it's lightning fast. I'm not a hard-core gamer but I've been playing Portal 2 and Call of Duty Black Ops at high settings and it has been fine.

Here's something objective you might find useful, the Windows Experience Index:

Overall: a very respectable 7.5 (out of a maximum possible score of 7.9)

Processor: 7.6
RAM: 7.6
Graphics: 7.5
Gaming graphics: 7.5
Primary hard disk: 7.9

I've always found there to be a lot of anti-Dell comments which make their way onto forums and I've come to suspect this is largely about prejudice against Dell. Bear this in mind when you hear people saying it's a 'horrible' system.

You might find this site useful too: http://www.weishare.net/ - I just used it to compare the i5 processor recommended in another response to the i7 in the Dell (guess what, the i7 is significantly better).

You're new to boards so I'm trying not to be mean, cause it would be great if you do stick around.

most of what I wanted to reply is covered already, but I'm curious to ask how much you spent, and the exact components of the rig. Maybe its because I'm on my mobile, but I cant see what GPU, SSD, HDDs, psu etc you have.

with a specific list of components, I could find a genuine argument for why or why not to buy Dell, instead of cheap jabs.

uncle_sam_ie

EmilAndresen wrote: »

I've always found there to be a lot of anti-Dell comments which make their way onto forums and I've come to suspect this is largely about prejudice against Dell. Bear this in mind when you hear people saying it's a 'horrible' system.

.

Yeah, you'll wont get any Dell love here. We're under no illusions.

ShadowHearth

uncle_sam_ie wrote: »

Yeah, you'll wont get any Dell love here. We're under no illusions.

not true, i have love for dell. for their awesome monitors

uncle_sam_ie

ShadowHearth wrote: »

not true, i have love for dell. for their awesome monitors

Indeed, they do make great monitors. But, their pre-builds aren't great.

ShadowHearth

uncle_sam_ie wrote: »

Indeed, they do make great monitors. But, their pre-builds aren't great.

not great? wrong word , bud. fecking horrible

EmilAndresen

So I've run PCMark and 3DMark on the XPS 8500 machine. What do you reckon it got?

luyolo

EmilAndresen wrote: »

So I've run PCMark and 3DMark on the XPS 8500 machine. What do you reckon it got?

What you got is you wasted €1500+ on an overpriced POS. Therefore no one needs to guess as all you're doing is trying to justify that price to yourself.

Tony

deconduo wrote: »

The case is just a generic one, but you can go for a nicer or more expensive one if you want. For example if you wanted a silent build or something.

Don't mean to hijack the thread but what would you recommend case wise for a silent build (for my next project) Thanks to you and the guys here I've got a great office pc set up now.

uncle_sam_ie

Tony wrote: »

Don't mean to hijack the thread but what would you recommend case wise for a silent build (for my next project) Thanks to you and the guys here I've got a great office pc set up now.

http://www.quietpc.com/products/pc-cases/fd-definer3

deconduo

Tony wrote: »

Don't mean to hijack the thread but what would you recommend case wise for a silent build (for my next project) Thanks to you and the guys here I've got a great office pc set up now.

Any of the Fractal Design Define range (Mini, R3, XL) depending on how big a case you want.

ShadowHearth

EmilAndresen wrote: »

So I've run PCMark and 3DMark on the XPS 8500 machine. What do you reckon it got?

Go for it. Just for shots and giggles. We will see how good it will stack up.

My current rig after upgrade would be same value. 1.5k ish.

aN.Droid

EmilAndresen wrote: »

So I've run PCMark and 3DMark on the XPS 8500 machine. What do you reckon it got?

Doesn't matter as we already know you probably paid 30% or 40% more than you should have to get those scores.

Tea_Bag

well, I just went to go configure the xps 8500 on dell's website to get accurate specs, and well, dell has stopped selling it. already. seriously?

anyway, im fairly sure the €1500 option had an i7 2600, and while i couldnt find a GPU spec, cause dell has pulled all the tech spec, i found that the highest configuration option, which cost far more than 1.5K, has a 7870. so i went with that.


going by 3D mark scores, the highest is P7200, but im going to guess you get closer to P6500, maybe even as low as P6000. Am I wrong?

aN.Droid

Tea_Bag wrote: »

well, I just went to go configure the xps 8500 on dell's website to get accurate specs, and well, dell has stopped selling it. already. seriously?

I did the same so went hunting for specs, gave up after finding out it cost $1999 when it came out.

Tea_Bag

Limericks wrote: »

I did the same so went hunting for specs, gave up after finding out it cost $1999 when it came out.

yea. maybe they're catching fire?

maybe EmilAndresen isnt replying cause its crashed already? oh the possibilities.

EmilAndresen

luyolo wrote: »

What you got is you wasted €1500+ on an overpriced POS. Therefore no one needs to guess as all you're doing is trying to justify that price to yourself.

Whoa. Why the anger? Calm down fella. Are you 12?

Tea_Bag

im dying of anticipation here on those results btw...

Bloodwing

Tea_Bag wrote: »

im dying of anticipation here on those results btw...

Aren't we all??

luyolo

EmilAndresen wrote: »

Whoa. Why the anger? Calm down fella. Are you 12?

Not angry, I just don't want you promoting that overpriced dead end XPS.

And you still haven't posted your results.
You saw on the first page of this thread that people were saying this is overpriced and you still went ahead and bought it.

Jaafa

Not op technically but the point still stands.

EmilAndresen

It got a 4889 for PCMark and P3229 for 3DMark. Gutted. I guess you live and learn, and that this lessons sunk £1070 of my hard-earned. Just wish I'd seen the forum before I'd bought.

I don't tend to upgrade anyhow so I'll wait 3 years and go to Mesh or someone. Such is life.

All the best,
E