Dell XPS 730

Dell’s premium gaming brand is still big bright and shiny, but does its latest machine actually perform?

Reviewing a Dell machine is always an odd prospect. It’s not that they’re hard to review, but criticising something from Dell always seems like too easy a proposition for one thing (let’s face it, even they know they are not the top of the performance heap), and for another each configuration of machine they send us is simply just one of many ways that a buyer might configure it.

The XPS 730 we looked at in our labs was a modestly specced system with a pair of workman-like 8800GTs in SLI, for instance, but that can easily be switched out in favour of a couple of 1GB Radeons. Some PC vendors offer carefully crafted, gourmet-grade machines. Dell is more of your generic, but infinitely configurable pizza joint. Mmm… pizza…

And like any pizza –we’ve never met one we don’t like – there’s a lot to like about this machine, though there are the usual tell-tale issues that stop the XPS from truly reaching the kind of must-have status for your average PC enthusiast.

On the like side of the equation, it’s a pretty good overall bundle, with a 24in monitor of Dell’s usual high quality, the aforementioned 8800s (which is still a good card, even though it’s now looking rather old) and a quirky case with a lot of nice touches, like backplate lighting, a mess of 120mm fans and the usual thick aluminium construction. There’s even a Fatality series sound card from Creative, so anyone with a good sound system will be pleased. With a mess of USB ports in front and back, plus e-SATA in the rear, it’s an eminently connectable machine, too. The 730 also features a Blu ray drive, which combined with the soundcard and large monitor makes this quite the entertainment system.



Internal cabling isn’t up to the usual Dell standard, though, but there are some thoughtful touches to offset the rat’s nest. Another three HDD cables are already run into the drive bays, so adding more drives will be a cinch in the future.

It’s a good thing the case is well ventilated and doesn’t lack in fans, though, because the Dell engineers have chosen a rather poor placement for the soundcard. It sits on the slot directly above the top 8800, within a half centimeter in fact, and nearly completely obscures the fan intake for the cards cooler. If you’ve ever been in doubt about the importance of clear airflow, trust us when we say it matters; this upper card was considerably hotter than its more fortunate brethren.

And, of course, Dell has featured our usual bugbear of more RAM than the 32-bit version of Vista can address. The 730 features 4GB of lackluster Elpida DDR3; that’s a total of 5GB when you include the two VGA cards, so that’s 2GB too much. To illustrate, we ran our benchmarks with both the full RAM count and with two 1GB sticks removed. Results were identical.

But at least those results were pretty solid. In 3Dmark06 the XPS 730 ran in a solid 15,625, which is not bad given the cards installed. Crysis testing was similarly respectable, hitting an average fps of 18.59 with all settings maxed at 1280 x 1024 resolution. But if you’ve a nagging feeling there’s something rotten in Dellmark...



You’re getting some good gear in the 730, but when you look at the specs of some of the machines in last month’s gaming PC roundup, especially the NRG Tornado, the 730 suddenly seems like a more expensive proposition for less performance. Sure, Dell offers excellent support and back-up, and will even pick up and recycle your old machine (which, let’s be honest, is a great service in this day and age), but is it worth the extra cost to you?

Dell always split opinions in the Atomic HQ. The company is at least making efforts in the enthusiast gaming space, but try as hard as it might its machines never quite seem properly specced. Similarly, the proprietary case design is sleek to some, and teeth-gratingly bad to others. Essentially, the real value in a Dell is in the superior product support. If you like the idea of onsite replacement and installation of faulty parts, then it’s doubtless the right choice for you. But if you’re at all capable of your own tech support, there are better performing and cheaper options on the market.