Dell XPS 8300 Performance Desktop PC

Jun 21 2011 - Dell's XPS 8300 desktop offers a solid level of performance for those that might not be as interested in PC gaming and more into processor intensive tasks such as desktop video and graphics. It is a very affordable system that can be equipped with the new Core i7-2600 quad core processor that lets it power through applications. With a Blu-ray drive, it also is an excellent high definition media station. The big downside is that the graphics are not as well suited for PC gaming as the more expensive XPS 9100 or other gaming centric desktops in the over $1000 price range.

Jun 21 2011 - Dell's XPS 8300 performance desktop comes in a surprisingly wide range of pricing and features. This mid-grade performance system may not have as many features as their top tier XPS 9100 but performance wise, it can compete pretty well. Today, I'm looking at one of their more expensive models priced at $1100 the offers a surprising level of performance.

The big feature of the XPS 8300 model is the Intel Sandy Bridge or second generation desktop processors. This new processor boosts some impressive performance over the first generation of processors. For this version, it comes equipped with the high end Core i7-2600 quad core processor with HyperThreading support. This combined with the 8GB of DDR3 memory offers it some outstanding performance that will top the XPS 9100's base i7-900 series processors in many tasks. This is the clock locked version of the processor, so no overclocking is going to be possible.

Storage features on the XPS 8300 are quite good. The hard drive is a more modest one terabyte size which should provide plenty of space for most users but still not quite as large as newer systems that can come with two or even three terabyte drives. At least it spins at the full 7200rpm rate unlike some systems that use green drives that detract a bit from performance with their variable spin rates. Dell does include a Blu-ray combo drive for dealing with optical media. This allows the system to be used for watching high definition Blu-ray movies. It also has the ability to playback or record CD or DVD media.

The graphics system does suffer a bit more compared to many other similarly priced systems. It relies on a previous generation AMD Radeon HD 5670 graphics card with 1GB of memory. This will provide some decent performance for 3D gaming with support for most games at modest detail levels up to a 1920x1080 resolution without filtering. The downside is that this system can't really be upgraded much when it comes to the graphics. There is only a single graphics card slow, so it won't be able to support CrossFire setups. In addition, the 460W power supply is insufficient to run the power hungry top of the line cards from AMD and NVIDIA.

Speaking of expansion, the Dell XPS 8300 comes with an odd mix of peripheral ports. It does feature an eSATA port which is nice for high speed external storage but it lacks the newer USB 3.0 ports. In addition, there are only six USB 2.0 ports available for peripherals which is frankly a very limited number when it comes to a performance oriented desktop system. At least Dell includes an 802.11b/g/n wireless networking adapter on this version for easy integration into homes that already have a wireless network.