

Adobe Photoshop CS5 image-processing test (in seconds) Gamers in particular should understand, though, that with a few minor tweaks, you can get a bet on system with great electric potential from Velocity Micro ( and elsewhere ) for a few dollars more than this XPS 8300.

We ‘ll grant that Velocity Micro does n’t normally offer the lapp aggressive discounts that Dell does, so it ‘s possible you ‘ll find this XPS 8300 shape for a great price, and if then, we would recommend it more powerfully. The gaming-inclined could leave off the Wi-Fi card and settle for a 1TB hard drive and a standard Blu-ray player and come in at just $ 50 more than the Dell. For that price, Velocity Micro includes an overclockable kernel i7 2600K ( compared with the locked Core i7 2600 in the Dell ), equally well as a beefier might supply, a second graphics card slot, and superscript physique quality by way of expertly routed and bound inner cables. The difficulty for the Dell is that if you go to Velocity Micro ‘s eminently functional Z40 configurator, you can match the XPS 8300 ‘s specification for $ 1,829. Velocity Micro will besides overclock the CPU, which gives the Z40 ‘s Core i5 chip a crude clock travel rapidly advantage, but the Dell ‘s Core i7 check hush offers advantages due to the HyperThreading engineering that efficaciously doubles the Core i7 ‘s four processing threads. We would credit the Dell ‘s graphics menu adenine well, but Velocity Micro is using an overclocked interpretation of the GeForce GTX Ti menu, which gives it an edge over the Dell ‘s typically faster Radeon HD 5870. Compared with the Velocity Micro system above, Dell has advantages in its system memory, its hard-drive capacity, and its Blu-ray burn capabilities. We ‘re more or less quenched with the relative value offered by the XPS 8300. We ‘re besides glad to see Dell adopt USB 3.0 ports on this system, by way of a single larboard on the front gore and another around the bet on. Dell has n’t moved to the convenient front-access hard-drive bays that we ‘ve seen from Acer, Gateway, and many boutique vendors, but the appliance tray on the crown of the system is convenient, as are the USB 2.0 and audio ports dotting the buttocks edge of the tray. Dell has used this character for the last year or two, and the white, black, and red purpose offers a welcome alternative to the sea of all-black desktops out there. Purchasing confusion away, we like this system well adequate, even for $ 1,615. Reading: Dell XPS 8300 desktop review: Dell XPS 8300 desktop
