Dell XPS 720 H2C

6/6/07 – Dell took some major flak with their initial release of the XPS 700 line of gaming desktop PCs. They finally ironed out many of these problems with the release of the XPS 710 that updated much of the components that were outdated once the 700 models started actually shipping. Now the 710 series is starting to age and Dell has decided it was time to do a major update with the new XPS 720 series. Let's see what Dell has to offer in their latest performance desktop ...

Processor: Pretty much all of the performance desktop systems on the market use either the Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800, QX6700 or QX6800. Each of these offer a strong amount of performance with either a dual core or quad core configuration. Since they have unlocked multipliers they are also very popular for overclocking. Dell has one upped many of the other companies by offering to factory overclock these processors higher. For example, the QX6700 is typically overclocked to 3.2GHz but Dell takes it up to 3.46GHz. All of this is possible thanks to Dell's H2C liquid cooling system.

Memory: One of the big drawbacks to the older XPS 710 was slower memory modules. Dell now users PC2-6400 or 800MHz memory standard with the XPS 720 H2C. Because they factory overclock the processors to high levels, they also take the standard 800MHz memory and push it up to 1066MHz speeds improving performance. The standard configuration comes with 2GB of memory and users can choose to increase this to 4GB of non-overclocked or Corsair overclocked memory.

Hard Drives: Hard drives have increased in size dramatically thanks to perpendicular recording. Dell's basic drive configuration includes the tried and true Western Digital 10,000rpm hard drives with their limited 160GB hard drive space, but they also offer either the 750GB or new 1 terabyte hard drives from Hitachi. Users can select to either have these configured into a RAID 0 array for performance or a RAID 1 array for security. Additional smaller Seagate storage drives can also be added onto the system ranging from 160GB to 750GB but most will probably avoid doing this.

CD/DVD Drives: Ever since DVD burners have reached 16x recording speeds, the market has been much more focused on extra features as performance increases don't reduce recording times much. On the other hand, high definition storage formats based on the HD-DVD and Blu-ray standards have begun to work their way into PCs. Dell offers users a Blu-ray drive with their XPS 720 H2C drive for those looking to either view or record to the new Sony storage format. It also supports DVDs and CDs. If you don't need this high definition format, you can save some money by going with a two 16x DVD dual layer burner setup.

Graphics and Display: The NVIDIA GeForce 8000 series of graphics cards were the first to offer Direct X 10 support. In addition to this, they also provided the best performance for games using the ubiquitous Direct X 9 games. Dell uses a pair of GeForce 8800 GTX graphics cards in an SLI configuration to offer some spectacular performance. Those willing to spend a bit more can elect to use a pair of 8800 Ultras instead but the performance increases are not proportional with cost. Dell also offers a wide range of their critically acclaimed UltraSharp widescreen LCDs with the 720 H2C. The standard setup uses their 24” 2407WFP LCD panel.

Audio: Don't expect much in terms of choice when it comes to audio with the XPS 720 H2C. Users will get a Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeMusic audio card installed with the PC. This is certainly a good deal better than the integrated 7.1 audio solutions but it would be nice to let users have a bit more choice for either higher end models of the X-Fi or the integrated parts. Speaker selections are also limited with the 10W stereo speaker bar for the LCD panel standard and options for a Dell branded 2.1 or 5.1 speaker setup with wireless surround speakers.

Software: Users can opt to purchase the Dell XPS 720 H2C either with the Windows XP or Vista operating systems. Since the system is geared towards gaming and Direct X 10 graphics, it doesn't make much sense for users to go with Windows XP. The Windows Vista Home Premium edition is standard with an option to upgrade to the higher Ultimate edition. Also included is a McAfee Security Center security software subscription. Productivity and entertainment software is purely optional but has a wide range of selections.

Impressions:

6/6/07 – Dell's XPS 710 was certainly a good performance system but it was behind in some of the technology that made up the system. Most notable of these was the chipset that was on the motherboard. The 710 models used an older NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI chipset. Most of their competitors had switched to the newer and more feature rich nForce 680i SLI chipset that offered greater performance. This is the primary technology change behind the XPS 720 H2C model.

The big surprise with the XPS 720 series is how much it directly competes with the high end performance desktop PCs offered from the Alienware division of Dell. The main reason that Dell purchased Alienware was to increase their presence in the performance market. This wasn't too much of an issue as Alienware offered the very high end. But now the XPS 720 H2C is pushing the performance boundaries beyond what Alienware offers.

The area where Dell's XPS 720 H2C surpasses the Alienware desktop systems and many of its competitors is in overclocking. This is a common practice by many of the manufacturers to push as much performance out of their systems as possible. Dell is looking to push their overclocking levels to a higher percentage over the stock processor speeds than most companies. While Alienware overclocks the processor about 20% with their ALX systems, Dell has pushed the overclock to 30% in the liquid cooled 720 H2C.

This is where the price of the XPS 720 H2C system comes into question. It is certainly the most expensive desktop system from Dell. Users purchasing the older XPS 710 can still get high performance gaming with a wider range of options and save a lot of money. On the other hand, if they instead look at going with a similarly equipped Alienware Area-51 ALX that also features liquid cooling but a slightly slower overclocked processor, they can save a good amount of money.