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Dell XPS 8300: High on Features, Low on Price

02.02.2011
That audible sigh you just heard marked the final death throes of a significant chunk of the systems that have been on our . And you can thank Intel's for that. The Dell XPS 8300 is priced at an eye-poppingly low $1399 (as of 2/2/2011). No pre-Sandy Bridge system can top the price-to-performance ratio of this inexpensive little powerhouse. But that's hardly where the story ends. Just how much more can Dell fit into this PC to truly earn the "Performance" title? Spoiler: Lots.

The XPS 8300 packs a brand-new 3.4GHz Intel Core i7-2600 CPU within its all-white casing. The chip is but a stone's throw away from being Intel's top-of-the-line part, as its bigger brother -- the i7-2600K -- adds an unlocked CPU multiplier to the equation (overclockers, rejoice). For all intents and purposes, the XPS 8300's processor shares the crown of best on the market right now.

Accompanied by eight gigabytes of DDR3-1333 memory, the Sandy Bridge (second-generation Core) CPU helps the XPS 8300 make short work of our WorldBench 6 tests. It earned a score of 162 -- you'd be hard pressed to find any rival in the XPS 8300's price range coming close, though systems based on overclocked Sandy Bridge processors do post higher scores (with higher prices to match). One contender: The $1700 earned a 202 on our WorldBench suite, though it's not as feature-filled.

The only real scuff mark on the XPS's benchmarks comes from our graphics tests. The system's aging AMD Radeon HD 5870 GPU is a very good one, but its average recorded frame rate of 120.7 on Unreal Tournament 3 (at 2560 by 2100 resolution, high quality) is hardly a category-leading mark. You'll still be able to crank the next-generation titles you throw at the XPS 8300, but its benchmarking results are among the lower scores of all the performance PCs we've tested over the past year.

A two-terabyte hard drive is an excellent addition for such an inexpensively priced desktop, as is Dell's inclusion of a Blu-ray combo drive. While these are generally standard add-ons in the performance PC category, we nevertheless appreciate that Dell didn't try to cannibalize features in order to keep its costs down. One feature that really stands out as something unique in this category is Dell's choice of wireless-N networking as a supplement to its existing wired gigabit setup. That's not a make-or-break element that will suddenly inspire millions to rush out and pick up an XPS 8300, but it does give the system just that much more versatility in one's home. Take that, wires.

And while we're on the subject of versatility, the XPS 8300 is stuffed to the brink with connection options for just about anything you throw at it, though the front of the case could stand a few more connections: It has two USB ports and a multiformat card reader.