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Dell XPS 730 H2C spotted in the wild
Ever since that XPS 630 went all mid-level on us we've been on the hunt for a new gamer desktop heartthrob, and it looks like we've found one in the XPS 730 H2C from Dell. This one was semi-announced at CES, and the official image (along with a shot of the innards) is after the break, but a friendly tipster just hooked us up with some spy sots from what we can only assume are the bowels of Dell. The desktop looks to be a worthy successor to the XPS 720, if perhaps a notch down in sexy, uses DDR3 memory, and is "at least" triple SLI ready. Obviously the H2C cooling will be a big draw for overclockers, but we're most excited about all those drive bays in front: floppy RAID here we come! No other specs or release info is available at the moment, but we're sure it'll spill out of Dell soon enough.
Dell XPS 720 specs, pics revealed
Well wouldn't you know it, we're just strolling down the street today minding our own business, when what do we happen to trip over but a field tech manual for Dell's upcoming XPS 720 and 720 H2C performance gaming rigs. According to the confidential, hundred-plus-page document, the pricier (but cooler, literally) H2C edition will sport a jet black bezel with a glossy black chassis, while the regular version will be offered with either jet black or formula red bezels and brushed aluminum chassis -- though you can rest assured that both models feature a number of seven-color LEDs to properly set the mood for your epic quests and/or murderous rampages. We'd already heard that these overclocking-friendly machines would rock your choice of Core 2, Core 2 Extreme, or Core 2 Extreme Quad processors and SLI-capable NVIDIA nForce 680i chipsets, but we didn't know that 800MHz DDR2 RAM (between 512MB and 8GB, with optional 1066MHz DIMMs from Corsair also available), RAID 5 and 0+1 HDD configurations, digital coax outs, and 300-watt graphics power sources would be on board too -- all improvements over the soon-to-be-dethroned XPS 710. Graphics options include the GTX and GTS flavors of NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 card, and you can also throw in any number of TV tuners along with a Creative X-Fi sound card, though the built-in 7.1 channel audio will probably suffice for most. Obviously these training manuals don't come with any sort of pricing or release info, but if you're curious about such things as replacing the 720's processor heat sink, let us know in the comments and we'll see what we can do. Keep reading for a larger pic...
