Dell Studio XPS 9100 arrives with six cores, little fanfare
By Sean Hollister 
posted July 31st 2010 7:13PM
posted July 31st 2010 7:13PM
AMD had its turn in the high-end Dell desktop spotlight, but it's time for another Intel beast, as the company's quietly upgraded its tower lineup to support Intel's consumer-grade champion chip, the 3.33GHz Core i7-980X. While the new Studio XPS 9100 looks just the same as its predecessor on the outside and sports the same basic options and ports, internally there's a 525W power supply with enough juice for a Radeon HD 5970 2GB graphics card (a $580 option) and slots for up to 24GB of DDR3 memory. You won't be getting any of this pixel-pushing goodness on the $950 base model, of course, which has only a (respectable) quad-core 2.66GHz Core i7-920 and an Nvidia GeForce G310 512MB, but the machine looks like it could hold its own with low-end Alienware cousins if you get into $2,000+ territory. Call us crazy, but we think there's a configurator session with your name on it.
@sighclops
They look nothing like each other.
@sighclops
this looks nothing like a mac pro. def. not a ripoff. the mac pro has one of the best designed cases available. no you can't put any atx mobo you want in there, but c'mon guys generic cases are horrible. if you want to compare it to that thermaltake, fine, but the tt case is 800$. the new 12core mac pro is still cheaper than it's dell precision and hp z600 [another nice case] counterparts. it's true, go look it up... don't compare a mac pro to this thing or any other single cpu home computer, that's just bs. the mac pro will always more ... everything.
I always build my own. My current pc has the i7-980x, MSI XPOWER Big Bang Motherboard, EVGA GTX480, 12GB of 1600 DDR3 RAM, two 1TB HD's, 1250w Sparkle Power Supply and 9 fans :) Happy Gaming!
@bnekic
my system is bought directly from NASA, beat that.
@24hourpartypal
lol you got me
@bnekic
and what did that set you back?? i know the cpu and gpu alone are over 1500, no bs, and there's easily 600-700 more in components. it's not like you saved a bunch of money. and what happens when you have hardware failure in 1year and 1day after purchase.
alert, diy pc builders, you aren't saving that much money! did you realize most BSOD issues come from mismatched hardware. people just go buy whatever off newegg and automatically think because it plugs in it's compatible. wrong! these companies like dell, hp, asus and apple spend millions researching/designing components that play nice together. discount the validity all you want, but this is a fact.
This is crazy expensive. If you have the cash buy it, otherwise make it yourself and save some sweet $.
@delicatessen lama
Calculate how much time you spend building and troubleshooting it. Besides, building yourself is hardly any cheaper nowadays.
@delicatessen lama
yeah, save 120$ on a 2400$ computer. and now you have a cheap ass shitty case with 2000$+ of silicon in it. not really a good decision.
If I'm spending that much on a desktop there's no way I'm not building it.
It think this 6 core " thing " will last as much as the Tri-Core AMD chips did.
FTW.
@shugav
what does that even mean? AMD tri cores are still around in force.
you can bulid your own PC likie my pc below-
http://media7.dropshots.com/photos/684249/20100327/b_085246.jpg
http://media8.dropshots.com/photos/684249/20100327/b_085130.jpg
those better than dell crappy desktop..
@GAM3TAG I'm running a "crappy" Dell Studio desktop right now. Never had a problem. Dell's desktops have always been good for me.
I would expect the base model to come with a GTX260 or a GTS250 or something. Something to justify that price.
this chip is fast. it can only be run alone though :( gotta move to the xeon for the dual qpi. 12 physical cores and 12 virtual = 24 cores. and for those gamers and haters that simply don't understand why anyone would need this many cores ... its called parallel scaling and most rendering engines use it. i render 3d models and try to make them look real. graphics cards are totally useless for this. i need as many cores as possible. this is pro grade shit [aka, i get paid for it]. home users / gamers: move along, nothing to see here... go build yer home brew pc.
@movies
Encoding videos benefits from multi-core too. I'm dreaming the days when we can encode a full movie in single digit minutes.
ur crazy. Nobody in the right mind would buy a system like this and not build it.
Nothing good has ever come from my buying a Dell computer. It always ends badly, and it always ends far too soon. I have taken to avoiding Dell computers like Europe wishes to avoid another round of Black Death.
i have a dell xps m1330
I like that case a lot.
happy gaming
http://www.laptop-battery-chargers.com
I hope it doesn't rattle like my XPS 420 does.
No USB 3.0? Dealbreaker.
Dell, when can I buy an i7 PC for $400?