Still, given the price of this system, we’d rather see a real 128GB solid-state drive paired with a traditional hard drive for even speedier performance. There’s also a 2TB hard drive here, paired with 32GB of solid-state cache, which speeds up boot times and the speed of commonly used programs.
But if gaming isn’t all that important, or you don’t mind dialing down resolutions, you can certainly skip the graphics card upgrade and still have fun gaming on the base configuration. Our review system sports a $100 upgrade to the more powerful GTX 660 – a card better suited to playing today’s games at 1080p. In the $1,550 base configuration, you’ll get a dedicated Nvidia GTX 650 Ti graphics card. You get Intel’s new Core i7-4770 CPU, which represents the high end of the company’s new 4th-Generation Core (Haswell) processors. Inside, the core components are mostly well chosen for a balance of power and relative affordability. Getting inside the XPS 8700 is as easy as popping off a thumbscrew at the back of the case and tugging on a raised lip on the rear of the steel side panel. It feels more comfortable in the hand than many high-priced gaming rodents we’ve wrangled in the past. If you type a lot, you’ll probably want to replace the keyboard. A button behind the wheel lets you adjust mouse sensitivity on the fly, with white LEDs along the top that illuminate to indicate cursor sensitivity – a handy feature for making those precise in-game sniper shots. Sure, it’s covered in glossy black plastic, but there’s an extra button on each side, along with the two main mouse buttons and a clickable scroll wheel. The mouse, on the other hand, is, surprisingly, pretty darn good. The mouse feels more comfortable in the hand than many high-priced gaming rodents we’ve wrangled in the past. With its flat, squishy keys, the keyboard isn’t great, but it is roomy and has dedicated media control keys. But that’s not entirely the case with the XPS 8700.
If there’s one thing that we’ve come to expect from big-box PC makers after years of reviewing their products, it’s that bundled peripherals are usually not great, especially when they’re of the wired variety. It sports a dedicated 600 Ohm headphone amp, two optical audio jacks, and connectors for 5.1 channel analogue speakers. Still, if you have a high-end set of speakers or headset, the sound card is a nice bonus, which should deliver excellent audio. But the integrated audio circuitry on most motherboards has improved over the years, and sound cards have become pretty rare. Dedicated sound cards used to be very common. A blast(er) from the pastīelow the graphics card sits another surprise, this time in the form of a Sound Blaster Recon3D sound card.
That’s definitely more generous than usual. There are four more USB 3.0 ports and two extra 2.0 ports here (for a total of 10), as well as an Ethernet jack, and a quartet of video connectors on the graphics card.
And a four-slot card reader sits at the top of the tower, waiting to devour your digital images.Īround back, the port selection is a bit sparse by performance desktop standards, but there is one eyebrow-raising surprise. A headphone and mic jack are also here for easy access.Īn optical Blu-ray reader drive (that also burns CDs and DVDs, but not Blu-ray discs) occupies the upper bay, while a lower drive bay sits empty, ready for a second optical drive or another bay device.
The design is also functional, with two blue USB 3.0 ports up front and a pair of USB 2.0 ports up top in a recessed tray that’s meant for storing, say, a charging cell phone. The XPS 8700’s glossy plastic front face isn’t going to win any awards for innovation or standout style, but with the honeycomb grille on the bottom and a bit of chrome bling, the tower does exude a bit of performance-forward class. Do you want a system that can grow with your needs, rather than being replaced every couple of years when the sealed battery stops holding a charge? If so, the traditional desktop tower still represents a great value.Īnd while it’s far from inexpensive in our $1,650 test configuration, Dell’s XPS 8700 Special Edition is a well-balanced performance desktop with a powerful brand-new Intel CPU, oodles of RAM, and a graphics card that will keep all but extreme gamers happy.īut aside from its (mostly) well-chosen components, does the Dell XPS 8700 Special Edition set itself apart from other towers, or blend in with the slew of other systems aiming for your computing dollar this back-to-school season? To find that out, of course, we’ll have to dig a bit deeper. Sure, Ultrabooks and convertibles are the hot new PC products on the block, but if you want the maximum amount of performance for the least amount of money, you may want to look elsewhere.