Beauty Meets Brawn: Unleashing the New XPS Desktop

[Operandi]

Uck.....1990 called and wants its computer case back.

Its boring but its better looking then a lot of the tasteless TG everywhere and unicorn vomit "gamer" cases that make up majority of whats out there. And the airflow at least looks decent on this with proper (functional) ventilation.

This is nothing new. They have been using proprietary parts since their inception, such as power supplies, motherboards, front panel connections, etc.
My first experience was trying to upgrade the motherboard within a Dell case back in the Pentium II days, where the front panel connector was not standard.
Second time was needing to upgrade my power supply from 200w to 400w due to a new graphics card in a Pentium 4 machine. Luckily, PC Power & Cooling had specific power supplies for Dell. After that, I decided to build my own PCs.

Big OEMs have been using proprietary stuff since forever because ATX no longer works. Not that the OEMs are doing brilliant things on their own but at least this one looks like everything is accessible, the cooling and airflow looks decent (idk why they are using a fan that powerful though), and heatsinks with actual surface area on the VRM (who would thought it possible!?!?). I like what they are doing with that GPU support too and putting a fan right in front of the card looks nice.

I'd say its pretty well though out and designed, you can't blame Dell or anyone else for making something propriety when there is no good standard for them to follow.

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Stretch on all points

 

[RandallFlagg]

Its boring but its better looking then a lot of the tasteless TG everywhere and unicorn vomit "gamer" cases that make up majority of whats out there. And the airflow at least looks decent on this with proper (functional) ventilation.

I was going to say this but you beat me to it.

Big OEMs have been using proprietary stuff since forever because ATX no longer works. Not that the OEMs are doing brilliant things on their own but at least this one looks like everything is accessible, the cooling and airflow looks decent (idk why they are using a fan that powerful though), and heatsinks with actual surface area on the VRM (who would thought it possible!?!?). I like what they are doing with that GPU support too and putting a fan right in front of the card looks nice.

I'd say its pretty well though out and designed, you can't blame Dell or anyone else for making something propriety when there is no good standard for them to follow.

Higher end OEM desktop models have some nice characteristics these days, many very compact and a good bit of innovation in their case design, airflow, and port layouts - way better than what I see on most DIY cases. A lot of people here haven't looked.

Unfortunately saying something nice about an OEM setup in a forum on a DIY centric site like this is kind of like talking about how well done a Honda Goldwing is in a forum that caters to custom Harley Davidsons.

 

[Operandi]

Unfortunately saying something nice about an OEM setup in a forum on a DIY centric site like this is kind of like talking about how well done a Honda Goldwing is in a forum that caters to custom Harley Davidsons.

I literally LOL'd at that.

 

[5 o'clock Charlie]

(idk why they are using a fan that powerful though)

Probably to compensate as there is no other case fan (minus the fan on the radiator). I've seen this trend with Dell desktops I had spanning two decades where only one case fan is used but has a high RPM.
At least there are two fans in total with this model. They build desktops with least number of parts for the budget they set. It is not bad, but not great. For business centric work, should be enough (unless they stuff it in a cramped corner under a desk).
The shroud for fan #2 reminds me of those shrouds in the BTX era.

 

[Arjai]

The year 2000 called, it wants it's DVD player back.

 

[xorbe]

TPU front page is going the way of Sharky Extreme, it's like a Facebook feed for computer related ads.

 

[trsttte]

An ugly box with a ton of proprietary and non user replaceble motherboard parts. Kudos Dell.

It's amazing how much engineering effort went into this machine being as mediocre and un-serviceable as possible.

That's a bit of an exageration, I see the same socketed components as any other computer. You get a bit screwed on the GPU because the PSU is likely multi rail and "wastes" half the power allowance on the CPU capping the max power GPU you can upgrade to, but they even give you a m.2 wifi board, 2 m.2 storage slots, and extra pcie 1x and 4 slots of ram. Not terrible upgradability or repairability.

No, wrong connectors, this is some Dell special.

Worse than the connectors that can be easily changed is the likely multi rail that caps the GPU that you can put in the system. Still, it's a prebuilt for office spaces, it's good enough for it's purpose

 

[eidairaman1]

Uck.....1990 called and wants its computer case back.

Better than rainbow vomit

The year 2000 called, it wants it's DVD player back.

I still prefer ODDs

TPU front page is going the way of Sharky Extreme, it's like a Facebook feed for computer related ads.

Havent heard that name in some time, just like 3Dgameman...

 

[ThrashZone]

TPU front page is going the way of Sharky Extreme, it's like a Facebook feed for computer related ads.

Hi,
What ever pays the bills
At least there's no google double click lol

 

[phanbuey]

That's a bit of an exageration, I see the same socketed components as any other computer. You get a bit screwed on the GPU because the PSU is likely multi rail and "wastes" half the power allowance on the CPU capping the max power GPU you can upgrade to, but they even give you a m.2 wifi board, 2 m.2 storage slots, and extra pcie 1x and 4 slots of ram. Not terrible upgradability or repairability.

Custom non-standard power supply with custom connectors to a custom non-standard motherboard, and custom front panel hookups.

It uses core PC components sure... but you cant even reuse this beautiful case in another build if you wanted to.

 

[trsttte]

Custom non-standard power supply with custom connectors to a custom non-standard motherboard, and custom front panel hookups.

It uses core PC components sure... but you cant even reuse this beautiful case in another build if you wanted to.

Were you expecting to? I understand the feeling and agree that more reuse possibilities is good but in a prebuilt like this (it's not even the "gaming" product line, it's a bare office desktop) I think expectation need to be tempered.

And talking reuse, if you look closely at this and other Dell models you'll see that internally they're reusing tons of the same tooling across products, the differentiating bits are the outside injected plastic, I just wished the savings were passed along to customers but of course they're not.

 

[phanbuey]

Were you expecting to? I understand the feeling and agree that more reuse possibilities is good but in a prebuilt like this (it's not even the "gaming" product line, it's a bare office desktop) I think expectation need to be tempered.

And talking reuse, if you look closely at this and other Dell models you'll see that internally they're reusing tons of the same tooling across products, the differentiating bits are the outside injected plastic, I just wished the savings were passed along to customers but of course they're not.

I'm just saying all of those changes are not nothing - it takes a lot of effort and talent to do this. And the end result (to the consumer) is a board and power supply that's generally inferior to even very basic retail offerings.

 

[trsttte]

I'm just saying all of those changes are not nothing - it takes a lot of effort and talent to do this. And the end result (to the consumer) is a board and power supply that's generally inferior to even very basic retail offerings.

Oh absolutely, but they also save millions simply doing the custom board that they do instead of buying a regular ATX board from anyone. The question becomes why is their board different instead of using a standard ATX layout? Most likely same awnser - this layout is cheaper and uses cheaper parts

 

[maxfly]

Whats sad is that proprietary case likely allows for much better gpu cooling than 90% of the cases sold today. At least their trying to find alternate cooling solutions. Even if their obviously taking a page out of early 2000 case design, they just need to add an 80mm or two to the door to complete the look!

 

[Operandi]

I'm just saying all of those changes are not nothing - it takes a lot of effort and talent to do this. And the end result (to the consumer) is a board and power supply that's generally inferior to even very basic retail offerings.

Thats kinda what you get though when the "standard" hangs around for too long. You (Dell, HP, ect) start making small little changes to make manufacturing cheaper and the product more reliable here and there and after two decades there isn't anything of the standard left. Most of the changes are to drive costs down, and to save time in assembly but some of it just better. We also really don't know how that board or PSU performs; its probably not super awesome but it could be pretty good.

 

[Gmr_Chick]

Put the cover back on! Put the cover back on!

 

[kapone32]

I wonder how a 140MM rad is going to do with that chip?

21% cooler under load than the lava temperatures of the previous generation still equals a HOTBOX and I still didn't believe they added a front intake fan.

They did, for the GPU.

 

[AsRock]

An ugly box with a ton of proprietary and non user replaceble motherboard parts. Kudos Dell.

The PSU in for sure on that list, to the point if that fails it's pretty much trash.

No, wrong connectors, this is some Dell special.

Yep same crap GN was on about in a video not to long ago.

 

[Ferrum Master]

If you look closely you even cannot put a 120mm fan on the back...

 

[seth1911]

1. Step use standardized Maiboards

 

[plastiscɧ]

Sorry folks, but I have to take up the cudgels for DELL:

a mid-range PC (not hardcore gamer) which is located in a price range of 850€ - 1750€ in total.... and the graphics unit alone is already at about 800€ time value has your comments far from deserved.
If you would consider the price range of the individual components, your verdict would have to be at least a bit milder. price performance is the priority here.
And as long as WINDOWS itself has a function (since WIN7) to "save" the operating system with a DVD, a DVD drive still has a right to exist!

The aluminum style can be discussed again separately......!

 

[sepheronx]

Dunno why the hate. I like the design. Simple. No RGB. And like what @eidairaman1 said, ODD is still nice to have.

 

[PLAfiller]

Gamer's Nexus also trashed some of Dell's pre-builds, and I guess as every company some products are not as successful as others. During the years though, I've had the least problems with Dell's stuff. I am not defending anyone, it's just personal observation for my very minuscule experience in the tech world.

 

[maxfly]

Use case is rarely taken into consideration when we hammer away at pre builds haha. Its much more fun to nit pick them rather than point out the positives afterall!