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 User Experience
The performance of the Dell Studio XPS 7100 is mostly an amalgam of known quantities; we've run some cursory benchmarks but performance generally falls in line with what we know of the Phenom II X6 and the Radeon HD 5870. Suffice it to say, if you're going to be doing any gaming or media work, the XPS 7100 in this configuration is more than up to the task.
Well, almost. It may very well be the SB750 attached to the single Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 drive, but the system just doesn't feel as snappy as a machine with a faster storage subsystem might. Anand is a major proponent of using an SSD for the system drive and a large mechanical drive for storage and that's probably a wise investment here. Also consider that for heavy video work, it's extremely wise to use two separate drives anyhow: one to render from, a scratch drive, and one to render to, a project drive. The storage subsystem remains the slowest component of the modern PC, and anything you can do to mitigate that will help.
What's a nice change of pace from not too long ago is the lack of bloat the XPS 7100 ships with. Windows 7 already does a great job of obscuring bloat (between hiding icons in the system tray and just plain running well), but there's very little here to obscure. The included Dell software is mostly useful, offering driver updates, online support, and use of Dell's “DataSafe” online storage service. If there's an odd outlier it's Dell's dock software. The dock offers sets of shortcuts at the top of the screen not totally dissimilar to the dock in Mac OS X. It's attractive and was probably more useful when Vista was shipping, but the revised taskbar in Windows 7 renders it somewhat redundant.
There are really only two troublesome apps that come bundled with the XPS 7100. The first is, ironically, Dell's own update software. Dell's software is certainly useful, but it has a habit of just randomly popping up whenever you're doing something else, right in the middle of the screen. So if you're, say, running benchmarks all day, you might find your run completely ruined by this random interloper. Likewise, the bundled McAfee Security Center isn't at all unusual to see in factory machines, and remains one of the most obnoxious and least useful PC security suites on the planet. It nags you to complete the setup and register it just to be able to uninstall, though you can force-kill via task manager and go into the Control Panel for the uninstall process.
Overall, the experience of using the Dell Studio XPS 7100 was surprisingly a joy. The system is definitely high performance, the factory install was very clean, but most importantly and probably best of all, it just runs coolly and quietly. One might expect a factory computer to be fairly noisy – especially given the 125W Phenom II X6 processor and the 187W ATI Radeon HD 5870 – but even under load the XPS 7100 is actually remarkably quiet.
To give some sense of just how wonderfully quiet the XPS 7100 is, consider this: I have my own custom built desktop running in an Antec P182 case. I use an Intel Core 2 Quad Q9650, overclocked, under a Xigmatek S1283 cooler. Hanging out below that is an ATI Radeon HD 5870. All the fans in my case are on low and the processor cooler is configured in the BIOS to run silently and only spin up under extreme load. My case produces the softest of hums, and that hum actually drowns out the XPS 7100. Some reviews – including our own – suggest the Radeon HD 5870 is pretty loud, but I honestly haven't heard it.
Of course, none of that would matter if the insides of the XPS 7100 were marinating in their own succulent juices, but lo and behold, the card and processor run surprisingly cool. Just putting your hand under the bottom vent on the face you can feel a quiet intake fan, and the clean cabling and spacing inside the case likely contribute to the excellent thermal characteristics.
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aoskunk - Wednesday, July 7, 2010 - link
I'm not sure what you meant your dissapointed about? it turned out i had done nothing wrong, seeing as how once i got working parts everything was perfect. bios was far from complicated to setup. just select the proper xmp profile which it explained right in the directions that came with both the ram and motherboard. slecting right boot config. in fact i dont think there was really anything else to change other than the timing to skip Asus' own quick access OS. Aside from core multipliers etc. (I am now perfectly stable at 4GHz!)Unfortunatley at least where I live the cost of going to a repair shop would likely end up costing as much as say, my videocard. But like I said there was no error on my part, just some bad luck. I paid extra for good shipping from a carrier that doesn't subject your packages to falls from as high as 12 feet. I agree that there is a lot of misinformation posted in the reviews on newegg. They do often have some of the best pricing and pretty good RMA service though.
BernardP - Wednesday, July 7, 2010 - link
Each time I look at the possibility of configuring a Dell system, I run into a couple of things that keep me from proceeding. One is the limited possibilities for adding hard drives. No experienced user wants to run a single 1 TB HD with everything on it. My preferred combination is one system drive and 2 data drives, one mirroring the other. No can do here.The other thing is that Dells no longer ship with a true Windows install DVD. There is a basic configuration already on the HD and you have to burn your own disc image of this in case of an eventual reinstall. It's not possible to format the drive and do a clean Windows install from an OEM windows DVD.
Don't try to partition the drive either, as the partinioning software will wreac havoc with the hidden Restore Partition.
However, a basic pre-built is certainly a great option for the casual user (like my parents) who are happy to just surt the web and send email.
seapeople - Wednesday, July 7, 2010 - link
Did this just change? My Dell Inspiron from April shipped with a Windows install disk. It was simple to do a reformat and fresh Windows install. Partitioning is fine to do as well. Of course, the partitioning does kill the Factory Restore functionality, but why would I want to go back to the factory state anyway when I have a Windows install disk?DominionSeraph - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
With Dell it's always questionable what you're going to get. I've gotten disks that restore it to factory state, ones with OS + applications so you can just install the OS, and straight Windows disks.BernardP - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
Yes, it's a new policy effective April 1 2010:http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/deskto...
seapeople - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
Wow, I was lucky it seems!harbingerkts - Thursday, July 8, 2010 - link
Long story short - with their windows 7 systems Dell's using a recovery partition and telling users to create recovery disks. I had to request the OS and Application disks through a form on their site.damianrobertjones - Wednesday, July 7, 2010 - link
"The dock offers sets of shortcuts at the top of the screen not totally dissimilar to the dock in Mac OS X."I'm sure that I had a Windows 95 machine way back in the past that had various menus at the top of the screen from oems and other etc.
I don't think we'll ever have any article that doesn't mention apple now. People want to know about the damn machine and most won't even know or BOTHER to realise that shortcut icons look like the ones in OSX.
cknobman - Wednesday, July 7, 2010 - link
That coupled with the gimped chipset ruin a otherwise decent build for the price (from a cookie cutter manufacturer anyways).With only 460 Watts say goodbye to overclocking or expansion.
Powerlurker - Wednesday, July 7, 2010 - link
Overclocking is probably the last thing on the mind of someone who is buying a computer from Dell.