Is the new Dell XPS 8500 good value?

ShadowHearth

EmilAndresen wrote: »

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

well i expected way more then that m8. for example now, my 1.5k ish pc * which was build mainly in november and some parts are way cheaper now ), got a score of 9500 3dmark.

thanks for coming back with result, at least you know, we are not hating dell, just because its fun to do, we just really hate how dell can bend over people and run away with their money by giving such horrible systems.

next time you building a pc, just come back here and we will give you a hand with it. you will get best pc for your money.

Tea_Bag

EmilAndresen wrote: »

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

its a hollow victory tbh. its never nice to see people getting ripped off. The angry responses weren't particularly aggregated towards you, just towards any defence of DELL, when anyone that hangs around here usually knows their ****, or at least enough to know dell is robbing you blind.

for the record, you could build a P10000 rig for the about the same price, but allot more upgradelable.

uberpixie

EmilAndresen wrote: »

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

If you find a game you cannot play at the settings you want: hop in a better graphics card. You just need to check how much room to play you have with the cpu....

You have already over paid, may as well make the most of what you bought.

Also don't worry too much about benchmark scores: all that matters is that you can play the games you want at the settings you want smoothly.....

john.martin

Specs have changed on the 8500 over the last month - better processor, graphics card ect - also last day for 10% off - total now €1424

What is the feeling on this build - is it any better value as unless you are prepared to build the pc yourself, this seems like the best value out there - can anyone correct me?

Thanks...


NEW XPS 8500
Date & Time: Tuesday 22 May 2012 1:59 PM




SYSTEM COMPONENTS
NEW XPS 8500 Qty 1

XPS 8500 Standard Base, English Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium (64 BIT) Unit Price € 1,549.01



Includes Adobe Photoshop and Premier Elements Upgrade Valid until 23/05/2012
Expires 24 May 2012




Includes McAfee Security Centre system 23/05/2012
Expires 24 May 2012




10% off XPS desktop over €999
Expires 23 May 2012
- € 154.90



Catalog Number: 5102 D00X8515
________________________________________
Module Description Show Details

Base XPS 8500 Standard Base
Processor:
3rd gen Intel® Core™ i7-3770 Processor (3.40GHz, 8MB)
Operating System English Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
Memory 12288MB (2x4GB, 2x2GB) 1600MHz DDR3 Dual Channel Memory
Keyboard UK/Irish (QWERTY) Dell KM632 Wireless Keyboard and Mouse
Monitor Display Not Included
Video Card AMD Radeon™ HD 7870 2GB DDR5 Graphics Card
Driver Dell 1703 Wireless Label
Hard Drive 256GB mSATA SSD + 2TB (7,200rpm) SATA Hard Drive
Mouse Mouse Included in Wireless Keyboard and Mouse option
Optical Devices 8x Blu-Ray ROM Combo (Blu-ray read only, DVD, CD read & write)
Sound Cards Integrated 7.1 with WAVE MAXXAudio 4
Speakers No Speakers (Speakers are required to hear audio from your system)
Wireless Networking Dell Wireless 1703 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth v4.0+LE
Cables 2 Meter Power Cord - UK
Shipping Documents EMEA3 MUI Docs - West/Swiss/MEA (Eng, Ger, Fre, Dut, Ita, Ara, Tur)
Gedis Bundle Reference D05X8515
Enhanced Service Packs 1 yr Next Day In-Home Hardware & Software Phone Support
Placemat Placemats (Eng, Swe, Fin, Dan, Nor)
Digital Photography Adobe® Photoshop® Elements + Premiere® Elements Bundle
Order Information XPS 8500 Order
Processor 3rd gen Intel® Core™ i7-3770 Processor (3.40GHz, 8MB)
Accidental Damage Support No Accidental Damage Support
Online Backup DataSafe Online Backup 2GB - 1 year licence
Optical Software Blu Ray PowerDVD Software
Microsoft Application Software Microsoft® Office Starter: reduced-functionality Word & Excel w/ads. No PowerPoint or Outlook
Additional Software XPS 8500 Resource DVD
Protect your new PC McAfee® Security Center 15 month subscription
Operating System Recovery Options OS Windows® Recovery Media Not included

ShadowHearth

At 1.5k mark you are looking at a power plant which will make green peace cry.

It's still bad value OP. it's a bad value in current performance/money value and it is even worse when you look in to upgradability in a lOng run.

Dinarius

I'm coming to this thread a bit late, but I'd be grateful for some feedback.

I'm considering changing my desktop. I've had 3 Dells (I know, sacrilege here round these parts! ) and never had a problem with them. But, my desktop just can't keep up now.

I'm a photographer and need to be able to use Photoshop CS6 quickly and easily as well as moving around tiffs up to 1Gb in size without pause for breath.

So, a Dell like this would fit the bill.....

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=ie&cs=iedhs1&fb=1&l=en&model_id=xps-8500&oc=d00x8515&s=dhs&vw=icon

Fast graphics card (vital for Hasselblad Phocus software I use - as well as Photoshop, of course) and lots of RAM.

I get the VAT back, so the cost to me is €1194.

If I didn't go the DELL route, where else can I go for a similar spec?

Thanks.

D.

ps. Ideally, I'd like the HD in the above spec split into 2 x 1Tb, but that's another story. I've had HDs added to my existing DELL without a problem. It's biggest problem is the graphics card. Quadro FX 1700 with only 512Mb RAM. But, it's three years old.

Pps. What annoys me about DELL is that they've dropped FireWire (which I need) and they haven't adopted Thunderbolt, which I could possibly use a FireWire to Thunderbolt adaptor to run. For this reason, I'm considering switching to Apple for me next laptop. (I capture images to a laptop and process them on a desktop) The Macbook Pro comes with both, as well as USB 2/3. Connectivity-wise, DELL are crap, Apple are superb, albeit at a price!

theteal

Possibly better off starting your own thread, Dinarius. Copy and paste the questions from this post, add your answers and you'll more than likely be offered a number of different views that will ultimately leave you looking at a much better and more cost effective machine than any Dell

bartno12001

Hi Guys. I know you dont like dell but just wondering what you guys think of this one.

XPS 8500

3rd Gen Intel Core i7-3770 processor 3.40 GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 3.90 GHz

16GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1600MHz

XPS 8500, White Chassis w/19:1 media card reader

Blu-ray Disc BD-RE (Writes BD at 8x)

Integrated 7.1 with WAVE MAXXAudio 4

AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB DDR5

No Monitor (i already have a 24 inch)

Dell USB 6-Button Laser Mouse

Dell KB213 Wired Multimedia Keyboard, US-English

2TB SATA Hard Drive 7200 RPM + 32GB SSD SRT enhancement

McAfee 11, 15 Month

Power DVD 9.6, 3D

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit, English, No Media

Integrated 10/100/1000 Ethernet

Dell Wireless 1703 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth v4.0+LE

MPP XBOX Student Offer (i got a xbox 360 by paying $90 more-this is not included in the 1299 price)

I have already bought this computer for $1299 (this excludes the xbox 360) and now I just bought corsair GS800 power supply for $89.99 from memoryexpress. so around 1390.

would appreciate anyone's opinion.

Solitaire

Still terrible value

Dinarius

To be fair, if you can build a computer yourself, and you don't place a value on the time it takes to research, source and assemble the various components, (DELL's guarantee aside) then the DELL may represent a bad deal.

But, most people put a price on their time and this should be taken into account when deciding what is and isn't "terrible value".

D.

ShadowHearth

Dinarius wrote: »

To be fair, if you can build a computer yourself, and you don't place a value on the time it takes to research, source and assemble the various components, (DELL's guarantee aside) then the DELL may represent a bad deal.

But, most people put a price on their time and this should be taken into account when deciding what is and isn't "terrible value".

D.

took me 3 hours to build my very first PC, so 3x10eu lets say... 30eu +Awesome upgradable, faster, cheaper, better quality or dell..... hmmm....

Dinarius

ShadowHearth wrote: »

took me 3 hours to build my very first PC, so 3x10eu lets say... 30eu +Awesome upgradable, faster, cheaper, better quality or dell..... hmmm....

€10 an hour!? And no allowance made for research and sourcing?

D.

ShadowHearth

Dinarius wrote: »

€10 an hour!? And no allowance made for research and sourcing?

D.

its a hobby and a pleasure, i wouldnt be here so? research did not took that long too, even if you will buy a dell machine you will still need to do research too, because you need to know what you buying. So i dont know how you can charge for your time on research when you build it yourself, and when you buy it from dell.

if you buy PC, with no research or at least basic knowladge, then you are an idiot and you deserve to get your money taken of you. ( not aimed at you OP )

MikeMichael

I did my first build in years and it was a lot of hassle to be honest. Between delivery issues and making a few mistakes I lost a fair bit of time.
I will list all of my mistakes.

-Bought a pci wireless card but thought I needed pcie as I was a bit tired and my video card blocked the pci slot. Ended up buying one again for a few quid!
-Installed 32 bit windows and had to re do all driver installs when I realised my mistake.
- ssd lacked a sata cable and I didnt have enough so had to buy one.
-system wouldnt boot and I thought it was because of my hdmi cable, had to source a rgb cable and test it but it was my video card . I would set the system up minuse the video card and do that after.

Tea_Bag

thats why you ask here first

bartno12001

hi. I know a decent bit about computers and I also go to different websites such as nvidia, Radeon to figure out what the video card is like. I still think its a reasonable price. I dont know how to build my own computer but I was thinking of getting it build through memory express. Was costing me $200 more for the parts itself (extra $40 for assembly). Yeah I would got a better case, better motherboard (sli options), better fan but I dont even think its that necessary. I keep my case open so its perfect for ventilation and cooling and I dont even think I would have ever used sli or dual video cards. Overall the intel chip is decent, RAM are more than enough for me, i checked the fps of devil may cry 4 running radeon 6870 and far stronger than my nvidia 560 in my old computer. playing arkham city right now and its runing perfectly fine. Blue ray writer, good hard drive, yeah sound card is missing (but again really not necessary in my case), decent power supply. All of this for $1400. I am in Alberta Canada so if you can find me better parts and a better deal than this I would be surprised.

also i got a xbox 360 for $90 so overall i saved $100 there.

uncle_sam_ie

bartno12001 wrote: »

hi. I know a decent bit about computers and I also go to different websites such as nvidia, Radeon to figure out what the video card is like. I still think its a reasonable price. I dont know how to build my own computer but I was thinking of getting it build through memory express. Was costing me $200 more for the parts itself (extra $40 for assembly). Yeah I would got a better case, better motherboard (sli options), better fan but I dont even think its that necessary. I keep my case open so its perfect for ventilation and cooling and I dont even think I would have ever used sli or dual video cards. Overall the intel chip is decent, RAM are more than enough for me, i checked the fps of devil may cry 4 running radeon 6870 and far stronger than my nvidia 560 in my old computer. playing arkham city right now and its runing perfectly fine. Blue ray writer, good hard drive, yeah sound card is missing (but again really not necessary in my case), decent power supply. All of this for $1400. I am in Alberta Canada so if you can find me better parts and a better deal than this I would be surprised.

also i got a xbox 360 for $90 so overall i saved $100 there.

Keeping your case open is not a good idea. PC cases are designed around air flowing through the case. Keeping it open creates stagnant air pockets and poor cooling. PLus, you will get a lot more dust on everything.

bartno12001

ahh these sales. with christmas coming close computers are going on sale again. have a look at this one. i just built it on memory express. oh well. this would be better than my computer for sure and $70 more only.

Velocity Aurora FTC Gaming Case, Black

× 1

$79.99



Intel Core™ i7-3770 Processor, 3.40GHz w/ 8MB Cache

× 1

$304.99



Corsair Air Series A70 CPU Cooler

× 1

$34.99



Asus P8Z68-V / Gen 3 w/ DDR3 1600, 7.1 Audio, Gigabit Lan, CrossFireX / SLI

× 1

$129.99



Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR3 1600MHz CL9 Quad Channel Kit (4 x 4GB), Black

× 1

$94.99



WD 3TB Caviar Green 5400rpm SATA III w/ 64MB Cache

× 1

$149.99



LG 14x Internal Blu-Ray Writer

× 1

$79.99



LG SuperMulti 24x DVD Writer, SATA, Black, OEM

× 1

$19.99



eVGA GeForce GTX 570 HD SuperClocked 1280MB GDDR5 PCI-E w/ Dual DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort

× 1

$229.99



Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCI Sound Card

× 1

$49.99



Corsair Gaming Series GS800 Power Supply

× 1

$89.99



Memory Express Assemble Hardware

× 1

$40.00



Logitech Desktop MK120, Retail (keyboard and mouse)

× 1

$19.99



Belkin 10/100/1000 Network PCI Card

× 1

$22.99



Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium x64 (64-bit) SP1 DVD - OEM

× 1

$119.99