Dell XPS 625 Mainstream Gaming Desktop PC

Feb 7 2009 - The concept behind a more affordable XPS gaming system by using the AMD platform in the Dell XPS 625 is an admirable one. The problem is that the prices for the system just don't reflect real world pricing for the AMD components. As a result, the system is just too expensive for what users end up receiving. They would really be better off either building their own AMD system from scratch or spending a little more for the more powerful Dell XPS 630.

Feb 7 2009 - Dell's XPS 625 is supposed to be an affordable XPS desktop system because it uses the AMD processor platform. This is certainly a good idea by Dell to try and ride out the tough economic times, but their pricing doesn't hold well with the general market.

The best example of this is the processors themselves. The system doesn't even start with using Phenom processors but the AMD Athlon X2 5600+ Black Edition. It is a decent processor, but something that would be found traditionally in a budget system costing under $600. Dell offers a possible to upgrade to the high performance Phenom II X4 940 for $375. Current street price for that same processor is $250. Dell even offers the Studio XPS with Core i7 or XPS 630 with its Core 2 Duo for roughly the same price yet with much better performance.

Since the system is designed as a low cost gaming platform, graphics are important. The Dell XPS 625 comes equipped with the ATI Radoen HD 4850 graphics card. This is a good budget graphics card that offers decent performance for those looking to play games. Expect to be able to play most of today's games up to the 1680x1050 resolution. Higher resolutions are possible in some games but not all. It would have been nice to see Dell offer the higher performance 4870 or NVIDIA GeForce based cards as an option but they are not.

One thing that Dell does so right with the Dell XPS 625 is their Windows XP Professional downgrade. In many tests, the older XP platform does perform better for PC gaming than the newer Vista operating system. Of course, consumers are paying for Vista still and also for the XP downgrade.

The Dell XPS 625 does use the same well thought out and designed case as the XPS 630 uses. This makes it very easy to upgrade after purchase.

Read/Leave Comments