Good From the Factory? The Dell Studio XPS 7100
by Dustin Sklavos on July 7, 2010 4:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Systems
- Dell
- AMD
- Radeon
- Studio XPS 7100
Dell Studio XPS 7100 Conclusion
Dell's Studio XPS 7100 is by many accounts a winner. So far, nitpicks are minor, and the overall design of the machine allows it to run the most powerful configuration Dell offers for it without causing it to overheat or produce obnoxious fan noise. That leaves us with the price tag. Building your own system with the same components would put your build cost more or less right in line with Dell's pricing for the configuration we reviewed. Frankly, $1,150 for a largely tricked-out Studio XPS 7100 is neither an absolute, skull-crushing steal nor a penny overpriced. We priced out a system with similar components—obviously the case, PSU, and motherboard are different—and came up with a price on Newegg of $1200. Dell currently lists a discount of $279, and without the discount the Studio XPS 7100 is a tougher sell, but Dell traditionally has such "sales" on a permanent basis.
For the price, you get the benefits of a consumer-grade factory machine along with the drawbacks. You don't have to put it together, it comes pretty well balanced overall, and frankly it's one of the few factory machines that doesn't beg for a reformat when you first power it on just to get rid of all the bloat. Dell has produced a lean, powerful, user-friendly system and placed it in an attractive, quiet housing with a reasonable price.
The drawbacks are that the system is balanced for the shipping configuration and not future upgrades. The power supply is from Delta Electronics and should do fine for the load of the Phenom II X6 and Radeon HD 5870, but you're not going to stuff a GTX 470 or 480 into the case. Beyond adding a PCI card and a couple of hard drives you're probably nearing the limits of what you want to run off a 460W PSU. Likewise, you do have to deal with McAfee, and 36 complimentary months wouldn't be enough to have to put up with that obnoxious memory hog, especially when there are superior free alternatives available. Our biggest complaint is the use of the older 785G + SB750 chipset, and that's hardly a deal breaker.
Looking at alternatives, Dell's XPS 9000 with similar components but an i7-920 processor bumps the price up substantially: $1759 with the same 1.5TB hard drive and 5870 GPU! For just $50 more, you can move to the Alienware Aurora and similar parts, presumably with a better PSU (but without a keyboard and mouse standard). Newegg sells a pre-built i7-860 CyberPowerPC with minor changes to the HDD and RAM for $1400. The entry quad-core i7 parts generally split the benchmarks with the X6 1055T, with gaming favoring Intel's Turbo Boost but heavily threaded content creation going to AMD. Considering the price difference, AMD definitely has a lot going for it.
Ultimately, as a build-it-yourself die-hard even I walked away from the Studio XPS 7100 feeling impressed. You definitely get your money's worth from it, and it's worlds away from the Dell of a few years ago that loaded its machines with bloat and stuck them in hideous (if fairly easy to service) boxes. Known quantities like the Phenom II X6 and the Radeon HD 5870 can make it hard to stand out from the crowd, but Dell pulls it all together in an attractive package that is easy to recommend, particularly if you don't want to get your hands dirty.
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JarredWalton - Wednesday, July 7, 2010 - link
Dell stopped using proprietary PSUs and cases (other than the BTX models) about 3-4 years back. Previously, you needed an adapter to use a standard ATX power supply with a Dell motherboard, but that has not been the case for some time. I believe I even mentioned this when I did a Dell system review in 2006... yes, here it is:http://www.anandtech.com/show/2081/4
wilmarkj - Wednesday, July 7, 2010 - link
Buddy, you are missing my point - unless there is a commitment from Dell that it wont use not standard parts in desktop computers - connectors (all types needed by the enthusiast), voltages, cables, etc, your point is moot. And its not just about the power/mb cnx. You are merely saying that in this case... or it has been the case in systems you've worked with. They took a decision in the past to do this and the easily can again, or have or will, in some cases etc. Its a risk, one i wont take as an enthusiast to end up with an oversized brick. I SAY AGAIN - Dells have to be significantly cheaper for a level playing field. Parts you buy from ASUS, Gigabyte, from newegg, TigerD etc will always be standard and interchangeable - with one of the other 8 computers i have here. Google some key words like Dell Non standard parts etc and you will see this issue is still alive and well.LokutusofBorg - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
You may not be able to compare Dells to DIY, but I certainly can. It's a subjective comparison. You don't seem to get that point.I've been building my own computers for more than a decade. I also have built computers for family members and friends. Guess what family members and friends get nowadays? Dells. Guess what my own computers still are? Self-built.
Can I call you buddy too?
wilmarkj - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
Sure you can call me buddy. I supposed you love the 'standard' mounts for hard disks in your dell XPS, or the short psu cables, and these compare very subjectively well what you'd get with Antec etc - right.LokutusofBorg - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
I'm pretty sure you don't know what subjectively means. It means I put my own value system on the judgment, so it is completely isolated to my situation. There is no reason to talk about comparing Dells to DIY *objectively* because every decision like this (what computer to buy) is a personal one.Dell fits parts of the market very well. Lots of us that consider ourselves system builders quite happily buy Dells in certain circumstances. This was a great article from one of my favorite sites on the merits of a certain Dell model as well as the current trend of Dell to target mainstream segments with competitive pricing.
DominionSeraph - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
Try getting an i7 or DDR3 to fit on your 440BX motherboard.The simple fact is, incremental upgrades are rarely worth it, and nothing has ever been future proofed nor been universal.
AMD and Intel come out with a new socket practically every year. Server and consumer parts are rarely compatible. Multiprocessor systems can be a nightmare. RAM changes constantly, motherboards are finicky about what type/speed and in what configuration you place them, and we won't even get into buffered/ECC.
I've got a box I originally put together in '99. With a total of ~$3000 invested, it's now up to a Pentium III 700 with 384MB, a Geforce 2 GTS, and a 60GB PATA HDD. Great investment, no?
Hey, I've got an idea. Why don't you buy this epitome of an enthusiast machine from me for, say, $1,149.99?
wilmarkj - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
I think you are in the wrong place - upgrades to a large extent mean Changing out: mb+ram+cpu OR graphics OR ps OR case OR monitors OR storage or any combination of these. It seldom makes sense to CO just the CPU or RAM, or the MB. Those guts (mb+cpu+ram) usually finds its way into another system (your own or sold), etc. Stuff you bought in '99 isnt likely to be worth anything really unless its an antique. Just a little primer in upgrading.DominionSeraph - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
You just disproved your own point with "another system."If you have two computers, you have two computers. Putting some new parts into an old case and transferring old parts to a new case is not somehow more efficient than leaving the old system together and buying an entirely new one. Your brain might be fooled into thinking that buying two halves for two different computers is somehow less than buying one entirely new computer computer, but it's not..
wilmarkj - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
As i said you seem to be in the wrong place. When you change out the MB/CPU/RAM to the current technology - for most practical purposes you have a 'new' system. The only other thing you may want to look at is what you video card is capable of. Other than that the other parts you are likely to put in an entirely new build will most likely perform just a well as the old parts (old for me means about 6mths to 1 year). Allowing you to take the core of the system you just upgraded to improve the performance of another even older system. This way just buying a single MB/CPU/RAM or even a new video card allow you to upgrade several systems. Theres no fooling here of the brain here - you will get measurable performance improvements commensurate with the upgrades. There, you got another lesson.GamerDave20 - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
Dominion,Your point about upgrades made me think back to the mid-1990's. Subjectively, most upgrades apparently ARE worth it to the upgrader.
I tend to want a completely new system after 2 to 4 years rather than upgrading my current system that I am usually quite tired of.
This may also stem from some of my past experience such as: buying a $4,000 P90 system in 1995 with a Diamond Stealth with 2MB VRAM! only to upgrade in 1996 to a Matrox Millenium ($419) and adding an Orchid Righteous 3D ($300) 6 months later.
Eventually, I swapped both out in 1998 for a $200 Diamond Stealth II which absolutely smoked my then favorite game - Soda Off-Road Racing.
Shortly thereafter, I built a P200MMX system and used the Stealth II and put the P90 back to stock and sold it at a garage sale for $200. :( (don't remember what I did with the $700-worth of video cards though).
Anyways, from this stemmed a rule for me to never by a single computer component (for a new system or as an upgrade) for more than $200 and that it's more fun to just start over - although hard drive upgrades have kept me going for another year several different times.
But, to me, nothing beats a brand new system (unless you buy it and then research all the components to find out that the vendor used all of the least expensive of everything (like my P90)!
Anyways, having hating Dell in the past due to their anemic stock RAM loadouts (256MB for WinXP in the early 2000's), this system sounds worth a look. I only periodically look at Dell's laptops (with there current lack of great video cards in their XPS laptops) and have not noticed this system or any desktop of Dell's.
Also, in the past 6 months, I haven't been able to price pieces for a system to build that satisfies me for less than $1,200 and that includes an HD 5770. So this isn't too bad.
Dave (GamerDave20)