Opinions Dell XPS 8300

[taranaM]

I am planning to get a myself a new PC. Basically the PC will be used for some home movies -video editing, photo editing & for programming with ASP.NET & WPF.
I am not into gaming of any sorts.

Currently I have a Dell Dimension & have been very happy with Dell desktop. I added internal hard drives & memory without any problems. I am looking at something that can last me for anther 4-5 years. The price of $999 fits my pocket.

1. Will Dell XPS 8300 be a good fit for me or is there any other brands of Dell /other manufacturer that will better suit my needs.
2. Does Dell have any deals on XPS? Or free shipping etc?
3. Has any experienced any problems with XPS series?

 

[Hastibe]

Could you post the specs of the Dell XPS 8300? If we know what it is, there's a better chance that you'll get good advice. Also, have you looked on Dell's website, or gone to Buy.com or Amazon.com (or PCMall.com, or whatever), to see if there are any deals for it?

 

[taranaM]

Specs of Dell XPS 8300:
Intel® Core™ i5-2400 processor(6MB Cache, 3.1GHz)
Memory 8GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 4 DIMMs
Video Card ATI Radeon HD 5450 1GB DDR3

Note: I need a PC with Intel processor. Should be able to run Visual Studio at a good speed along with SQL Server, IIS etc running in the background.

 

[AstroTC]

I agree with malmental..prebuilts are usually a waste of money for what they give you, your better off building one yourself

 

[taranaM]

you do not want to build yourself.?
ever thought about a barebones kit and upgraded/completed it.?
there are even Dell XPS 8300 kits..

I have thought about it. I am capable of it! BUT, would not want to spend time in getting the various peripherals etc. I don't even knowwhere to start. I am not even sure if I will save anything after all! Another issue I am worried about is the compatibility with various parts. Is there a site for beginners?

 

[Hastibe]

It's really not too hard, and the guides here might help start you off on the right path: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/288241-31-read-posting-buyer-guides-troubleshooting

 

[joelmartinez]

I recommend if you build a new system you do at least a weeks worth of research read all the guides Hastibe posted, make a forum post in the new build section for help with choosing parts then read the guides on how to put them together and troubleshoot them. If you aren't willing to put in this much effort then buying a DELL would be a better choice.

benefits of building:

1. Cheaper
2. more balanced
3. learn
4. more upgradeable

 

[kitaware]

Since this is the pre-built forum I'll address your questions...rather point out advantages of building your own...

Dell's XPS series is Dell's best desktop...8gb of RAM is plenty, plenty

There are similar XPS refurbished units at Dell for under $1000...I've heard that there's a 15% coupon out for Dell, so do a search for it...

The 5450 is fine for casual use, (I have the 512mb version on my i7-860 and it works great with Photoshop CS) but many prefer the 1 gb 5750 card...but since you're buying a prebuilt, I recommend trying the basic card first and only then decide if you need a faster and more powerful card WITH SOFTWARE THAT WILL ACCESS GPU MEMORY...MOST DON'T (as for Photoshop, only CS4 and later versions do)....

The only other point I'd make is to get a 2nd HDD for virtual memory, scratch disk, and for safekeeping of your files....get the smallest HDD for OS, and get a 2Tb 7200rpm or faster HDD from Newegg or your retailer of choice (not Dell)....

 

[taranaM]

Since this is the pre-built forum I'll address your questions...rather point out advantages of building your own...

Dell's XPS series is Dell's best desktop...8gb of RAM is plenty, plenty

There are similar XPS refurbished units at Dell for under $1000...I've heard that there's a 15% coupon out for Dell, so do a search for it...

The 5450 is fine for casual use, (I have the 512mb version on my i7-860 and it works great with Photoshop CS) but many prefer the 1 gb 5750 card...but since you're buying a prebuilt, I recommend trying the basic card first and only then decide if you need a faster and more powerful card WITH SOFTWARE THAT WILL ACCESS GPU MEMORY...MOST DON'T (as for Photoshop, only CS4 and later versions do)....

The only other point I'd make is to get a 2nd HDD for virtual memory, scratch disk, and for safekeeping of your files....get the smallest HDD for OS, and get a 2Tb 7200rpm or faster HDD from Newegg or your retailer of choice (not Dell)....

Yes I plan to use Photoshop. Also since I was planning to use this PC for WPF developement, I do pefer a powerful video card. I am not sure if I can buy this PC without the extra Video card or if 5750 is an available option. I will look into that.
I do plan to get a 2nd Hardrive no doubt. Maybe at a latter time. I am a Hard drive hogger anyways. I usually partition the drive & keep the OS on a smaller partition.

 

[taranaM]

It's really not too hard, and the guides here might help start you off on the right path: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/288241-31-read-posting-buyer-guides-troubleshooting

Thnaks for the link. I will look into it. I am tempted but a little nervous. Guess I will not have anyone to blame if somethink Konks.

 

[joelmartinez]

@malmental I don't remember you telling me before (though it's entirely possible) I was pretty sure that the AMD chipsets don't have native support for SLI built in if i'm wrong please correct me on this one.

 

[joelmartinez]

If i change my sig to "AM3 doesn't support SLI (excluding crosshair iv with lucid hydra)" will you be happy?

 

[joelmartinez]

There ya go malmental

@OP I'm sorry for wasting posts with this discussion between malmental and me. I will continue to help you if more help is needed.

 

[joelmartinez]

Congrats on reaching expert malmental!

@OP decided to go for build your own yet?

 

[kitaware]

Yes I plan to use Photoshop. Also since I was planning to use this PC for WPF developement, I do pefer a powerful video card. I am not sure if I can buy this PC without the extra Video card or if 5750 is an available option. I will look into that.
I do plan to get a 2nd Hardrive no doubt. Maybe at a latter time. I am a Hard drive hogger anyways. I usually partition the drive & keep the OS on a smaller partition.

Just wondering how you fared.....

 

[pnmhos]

I just built a Dell XPS 8300. Here are the specs:

XPS 8300 Intel Core i5-2400 processor(6MB Cache, 3.1GHz)
8GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz - 4x2GB
ATI Radeon HD 5870 1GB GDDR5
1.5TB Serial ATA 2 Hard Drive 7200 RPM
16x DVDRW Drive
Windows 7 Pro
Office 2010 Business
Two Year Warranty


Total cost: $1,502.06 (taxes included)

I have been pricing new rigs and pre-building them at NewEgg and a comparable system as above came in at $1,275.89(shipping included). I could have went with the absolute cheapest parts and saved about $100.00 more, but cheapest is not always the best route. So for this exercise the $226 more I spent, I saved time and incompatibility issues by going with Dell, plus a 2 year warranty if anything fails. I have a 1TB network raid storage box so I was not worried about extra drives with the build. The 1.5TB drive was the smallest for the build so I stuck with it. Overkill if you ask me, but it is what it is.

It will become my main gaming rig but also my home office pc. My youngest son will take reigns of the AMD Phenom X3/2GB DDR2/GTS250 system I am currently using. He's the only other gamer in the house anyway

 

[pnmhos]

Also 0% interest for 18 months was a no-brainer.

 

[BioTurboNick]

you do not want to build yourself.?
ever thought about a barebones kit and upgraded/completed it.?
there are even Dell XPS 8300 kits..

Where are these XPS 8300 kits?

 

[BioTurboNick]

No, I've got an old Dell Dimension 8400 that I've been upgrading over time. I was considering getting the new XPS 8300, but realized that I've got a perfectly good graphics card, and sound card, and BD-ROM drive and burner, hard drives, and power supply... all I'd really need is the case, motherboard, processor, and RAM. I'm assuming that's what an "XPS 8300 kit" might have? I'm sorry if I'm misunderstanding what you meant.

 

[BioTurboNick]

I'm in the U.S.

I think my CD-RW drive might be PATA (haven't looked in a while), but those are cheap if I need to replace it. Everything else (BD-ROM, 3 HDDs) is SATA.

 

[Hextech]

I know this post is a couple months old. But thing I tend to do is look for a PC that has an upgrade factor specifically the CPU. I use to build my own PC but got tired of doing so much research and finding the best compatible parts and technology changes so fast these days it's hard to keep up. So i'm pretty lazy when it comes to building my own. So I look for the best PC I can get for my small budget and one that can give me a huge upgrade later (plus I have dell credit card 0% financing for 6 months) I looked at the XPS 8300 and found it to be the perfect match for my needs for under $1,000. And this is what I got:

XPS 8300 Intel Core i5-2400 processor(6MB Cache, 3.1GHz) (which I will upgrade to the i7 for future upgrade as they drop in price)
4GB DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz-4X1GB (upgrade later)
ATI Radeon HD 5450 1GB DDR3 (I'm not a big gamer but his can be upgraded easily)
1TB Serial ATA 2 Hard Drive 7200 RPM (gonna add my larger HD)

The rest is pretty stock standard. But all this was only $867.71 with tax and shipping.

The sweet thing about this PC is that it uses the latest second gen Intel Sandy Bridge set with socket LGA1155 which can be upgrade to the i72600k (which is the overclocking version) in the future. Great room for a good video card(even for a gamer). My only concern would be maybe having to replace the power supply later(which is cheap to replace). But with this PC I can afford it right now and make it better later since i'm on a budget.. Yes I know I could have built one cheaper for maybe $250 less but this was easy and right now I'm lazy. Just my 2 cents.

 

[BioTurboNick]

I ended up doing the exact same thing as you, though stock with 8 GB RAM and 1.5 TB hard drive stock for just abotu the same price since they were having a sale that weekend. I transferred over my graphics card Sapphire Radeon 4870 Toxic, though it barely fit--the 8300 chassis is smaller and less expandable than I expected. Since my GPU is a 2-slot design, there were only 2 PCI Express x1 slots available and that's taken up by the USB 3.0 card (one slot in the back, links to one slot in the front) and then the last slot is my X-Fi sound card. And there's only two hard drive mount locations. I guess I should have waited for a Sandy Bridge version of the Studio XPS 9100. It's not bad, but I was expecting a bit more expandability.