Dell's XPS 720 gaming machine reviewed
By Nilay Patel 
posted Jul 11th 2007 10:16PM
posted Jul 11th 2007 10:16PM
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[Thanks, mikemuch]
posted Jul 11th 2007 10:16PM
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I'm sorry, at 2007, no computer should cost (or deserve) to be 7000+ dollars. I don't care if it cures cancer.
Ill take five.
this is great and all, but where is the dell with vista and CableCard support?
For that 7000 dollars, you could easily build the same system at a fraction of the price.
but can it play doom? :-)
Those "but can it play doom?" jokes are getting old very fast when someone posts it in every other article just to get high ranked.
A NOTE TO EVERY ONE: those doom jokes are not funny any more.
Your not funny anymore!!!!!
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!
and...
Does it run Linux?
Somehow it's just not the same when you can't put "Obligatory" in the title of your comment.
@greg:
Lighten up.
@everyone else with even a modicum of a sense of humor:
1. Make $7K PC that can be built for much less (and easier to swap out power supply, etc. then the Dell proprietary junk (unless that's changed recently?))
2. ???
3. Profit!
But will it blend?
It can play DOOM at 1 billion frames per second and adds multilayered texturing, bump mapping, anti aliasing, and every other multi syllabic computer term to the game as well.
It basicaly makes DOOM look better than HALO 3.
It seems that greg's computer cannot play doom.
the fact that someone, somewhere would not only think they need something this ridiculous, but pay someone else far too much to build it for them, moderately disgusts me.
if you care enough about PC gaming to run SLI 8800s with a quad core, etc, etc at least invest enough time and interest to build it yourself.
/rant
Me want...
That price is ridiculous...
@Bachus
For the record, I built my own comp.
But I do see reasons to buy a prebuilt custom computer.
1) 100% compatibility between the parts. This is really fustrating when you buy all your components and it doesnt POST; then stripping and testing each piece of hardware.
2) Optimized and Stabilized
3) Everything from one place, if you want the cheapest prices for the parts, most likely you have to buy from different sites, such as a mobo from newegg, and the videocard from zzf. Mainly, people buy custom computers prebuilt because of convience (at least, those who know how).
But no matter what price-range computer Im building, I would build my own desktop, unless its less than $500, then its more economical to just buy a dell or HP (unless its a low low range gaming PC).
Also, as the price of the computer goes up, the difference between the price of a prebuilt vs your own built minimizes. IE. you would get more bang for the buck @
a $2000 own built PC
vs
Prebuilt than a $7000 own build PC vs prebuilt.
this is the water cooled version right?
wait, at $7000, I assume it has that nice 3007WFP?? If not, screw that!
'kay, that case looks really sweet in all its piano black glory but
a. where's the CD/DVD drive?
and
b. wouldn't it be embarrassing to have a Dell logo on your monster at a LAN party?
Just until everyone starts gaming, I think the embarrassment would wear off pretty damn fast after his buddies saw how well it performed.
Performance doesn't come from your computer, it's the skill in kicking ass that matters... just because a noob using a $7xxx computer, it doesn't give them extra skill... just prettier eye-candy..
Hmmm, yeah. The Dell-ness would wear off IF he was a good player and they saw the amazing graphics.
But, where's the CD/DVD drive?
cd drive is stealthed to look like the rest of the case. there are 4 drive bays, if you look closely enough you can see the eject buttons.
Wah?! Slot-loaders in a gaming case?
i'd love to see it benchmarked against some enthusiast's custom-built, watercooled overclocked qx6800 system.
voodoopc/hp will always be better then anything dell/alienware put out. hp has the largest r&d department in the world + voodoopc who have already proven to be the highest end pc builders(as per majority of pc mags) = unbeatable product and possibility of advanced innovations others can only dream of(or not!).
Of course you do know that neither OEM developer actually MAKES parts for PC's.. Everything is bought from somewhere such as some monitors are re-branded samsungs and some keyboards are just rebranded OEM's... Same with all parts....
Plus if you build yourself you get a much better warranty on some parts. Lifetime GPU anyone?
Anyways, Dell should stick to low end and make those cheap. I doubt anyone actually buy's these high end crappers.
I have a self built gamer myself. But my comments about hp/voodoopc are about components they are currently developing. yes they use all the other components available but they will be introducing many as well. There is also a case for build quality and cooling. No other high end computer dealer has come close to what voodoopc has accomplished. Their computers have been widely accepted as being pieces of art both inside and out. Personally, I would never be able to afford one and that is why I build my own.
I could buy a Mac Pro with 30" Cinema Display and still have change for that. Not to mention it would flog the pants off the Dell when adding the same graphics cards.
Uh... right.
Nice to see you're talking out of your butt.
Since you seem to have no clue, allow me to edumahcate you:
While the Mac Pro may have *four* PCI-E slots available on the board, here's the kicker:
THERE ARE ONLY A TOTAL OF 26 LANES AVAILABLE FOR USE ACROSS ALL FOUR SLOTS.
If the above didn't make it clear, maybe this will:
2 PCI-E x16 Video cards require (and here's the difficult math) 32 lanes.
WHOOPS.
So much for your statement about "flog[ging] the pants off" the Dell.
(Oh, and here's a screencap of the Expansion Port Utility Apple uses to allocate lanes:
http://www.amug.org/amug-web/html/amug/reviews/articles/intel/macpro/expan-large.jpg
)
Thanks for coming out.
You, sir, have been PWNED.
I'm not sure what config they were running to get a 7k price tag, unless they got the 30" monitor, but when I just configured one with the mentioned specs with no monitor it came out to $5,550
I decided to check newegg for some prices, just to compare.
GF 8800 Ultra - $700 x2 = $1400
Core 2 Duo 2.93Ghz - $400
4GB Ram - $400
Intel D975XBX2 Mobo - $200
Ageia PhysX card - $200
150gb raptor 10k rpm - $200
we're up to $2,800 so far, so unless you're going to spend $2,700 on a case, keyboard, mouse, and monitor then you can definately save some cash building this machine yourself.
Even if you add in the $1,200 for the 30" monitor then you would still save at least $1,000
This also has a liquid cooling system that probably costs near 1000 dollars, plus that fact that it is probably using some ridiculous extreeemeee gamer ddr2 800 ram. That would tack another 400 bucks on to the the cost. Still not on the mark, but getting close.
Forgot to mention an extra terabyte of storage too. This is incredibly good value for such a high spec system. It's just so expensive that it's difficult to comprehend.
I'm pretty sure it also has like 18-20x DVD DL drives, maybe Blu-ray too. And I'm pretty sure they use Corsair Dominator RAM...
if they cover OC'ing and/or if the Dell BIOS will let you OC... that would be one sweet rig.
Paul, you missed a few components in tallying your $2800 total from Newegg.
The 720 uses the 2.93GHz QX6800. Read that again. That means quad core. It's not the much cheaper Core 2 Duo. Another point worth noting is the custom CoolIT cooling system. You also missed the 1TB backup drive, an extra 160GB Raptor, and other components listed by previous replies.
Still though, is it worth the $2-3k premium over building it yourself from Newegg? Answer left to the tester...
Computers still reach the $7,000 marker?
Just how expensive IS that extended warranty they got with it?
7k - for a computer to play games? A computer, that if not regularly upgraded, will not be able to play current games in just 2 years?
Wow. There are some people with priorities WAY out of whack!
The computer I use for work (a graphics based job) cost me 5k, which is a lot too - but it makes me 10X that a year.
Besides a failed social life in the real world, what would that Dell do for you? Pretty sad.
Spend a quarter of this and get a PC with 90% of the performance.
Then there's the added idiocy of someone who would actually waste thousands of dollars paying Dell to build this thing when they could buy the components themselves and take half a day putting it together themselves.
The only people who'll buy this are those whose normal occupation pays more than the savings to be gained from DIY, literally thousands of dollars a day, and/or those who are extremely stupid.
$7k?... with this price i can buy a decent pc, a xbox360, a ps2 and ps3 and a wii... and even a ds and psp.
OK OK but does frogger run on it?
@anthony2
Couldn't agree more. The more expensive the system, the wider the gap becomes between building it yourself and buuying it pre-built.
Hahahahaha
I'm about to build a computer with almost EXACTLY the same specs (two 3ghz procs instead of one) and the parts cost EXACTLY half the price of this XPS.
I'm sure this dell comes with a blu-ray drive and such which alone costs 500$ or so at the egg... LG Blu-Ray burner = 499$
Does the 7k include tax + shipping? Also interesting what RAM they use. The case if you buy a similar would cost in the hundred fifty, and the water cooling gear maybe 4-5 hundred if you know where to go.... The PSU is I believe a PCP&C 1K which is quite expensive. Maybe this rig isn't as overpriced as it seems but just includes a bunch of crap no one needs.
I'm leaving to have sex with a real woman. PLay your little games...LOSERS!