Geforce7900Gs
Latest
Core 2 Duo-powered Dell XPS 410 and HP Pavilion d4600y desktops announced, reviewed
If there's anything better than killing two birds with one stone it's killing four of them, and thanks to a pair of early looks from Cnet, we're able to cram two product announcements and their corresponding reviews into one tidy little post. Even though they were just unveiled today, the tech mega-site was already able to take Dell's XPS 410 (pictured, left) and HP's Pavilion d4600y (pictured, right) Core 2 Duo-powered desktops out for a spin, and both machines come across as very capable performers. The two rigs share the same 2.4GHz E6600 CPU and 2GB of 667MHz DDR2 RAM -- meaning that they throw down almost identical benchmark numbers, with the HP enjoying a slight but ultimately inconsequential edge -- but the Dell's nVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS graphics card with 512MB VRAM makes short work of the ATI Radeon X1600XT-sporting Pavilion in the all-important gaming department. Dual 320GB hard drives also put the XPS 410 on top when it comes to storage capacity (although the d4600y still offers a very reasonable dual 250GB HDD array), and both towers seem equally well-suited for multimedia applications with their on-board dual-tuner TV cards and plethora of connectivity options. In the end, each $2,000 system earned a Very Good score of exactly 7.2 from Cnet, with the Dell obviously getting the nod for gamers, while the cheap-looking but feature-filled HP sounds like a better choice for the all-around user who wants greater expandability. Luckily, the hot new dual-core processors in both PCs means that you'll be getting one of the fastest machines on the market, no matter which model you choose.Read- Dell XPS 410Read- HP Pavilion d4600y
Dell to offer overclocked XPS 700
It looks like Dell is intent on keeping up its in-house rivalry with Alienware, upping it's top-of-the-line XPS 700 gaming PC to include overclocked Intel Core 2 Extreme CPUs -- but still no AMD processors, overclocked or otherwise. The desktop is also getting a significant upgrade on the graphics side of things, with the highest-end option now hitting up two Nvidia GeForce 7900 GTX cards operating in SLI mode, replacing the earlier single GeForce 7900 GS card. Availability appears to be dependent on Intel actually delivering the goods, but Michael Dell himself says that the system will be available the second Intel announces that it's good and ready. Exact pricing hasn't been announced, but we're guessing it should come in somewhere below $10,000. Just how far below 10k is yet to be seen.
