Three years ago at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Mark Vena, a long-time Compaq honcho and all-around good guy, asked me to visit him in a non-descript room in the bowels of the convention center to talk about a new product he was thinking about introducing to the market. Dell had (wisely) hired Mark away from Compaq to then head up their Dell Dimension (desktop) division. The prototype Mark wanted me to see was a proposed “super gaming computer” from Dell which they had given the code name “XPS”. I liked the idea, as most desktops then were pretty similar in performance. There were a few boutique companies like Falcon, Voodoo and Northwest making really ultra-high performance models, but these were custom built, tweaked, and quite expensive. Mark wanted the XPS to be competitive in all respects with these machines, but more importantly, to offer Dell reliability (i.e.: no overclocking or other potentially damaging tweaks) and at a much lower cost. A year later, the XPS and was such a hit that Gateway and Compaq followed with similar models.
Most people know that computer gaming is perhaps the most demanding of all PC uses, and gamers are obsessive about their machines’ speed. However, there are many other applications like Photoshop and video editing that are also extremely “power hungry” and they too, profit from a very fast machine. Now Dell has just introduced its latest fourth generation XPS, a direct descendant of the first machine, which raises the performance bar again.
The new XPS is Dell’s first home desktop to offer Intel’s new 3.46GHz Extreme Edition processor (1066MHz FSB), 80GB SATA HDD and 512 MB DDR2 533 memory. What this means is that you can run the most intensive applications without waiting and saying in frustration, “Hurry up, machine”.
The new XPS case is the most expandable Dimension chassis ever offered. It supports up to three 400GB hard drives, two PCI Express slots and three 5.25-inch drive bays for the highest levels of scalability with an innovative cooling design that runs quietly in a home, office, or den. This is a good thing. Dell has always been careful to engineer long-lasting, cool-running machines, but I personally felt earlier generation XPS models produced a bit too much fan noise.
As the most powerful desktop in Dell's consumer line, the XPS can also be used for digital entertainment along with traditional productivity applications. With the new Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, you can easily store, access, and manage your favorite music, photos, recorded TV and video all from your XPS. Your digital content can be shared anywhere in your home by connecting the computer to a remote Media Center Extender.
The Dimension XPS system is available starting at $2,759. Importantly, from the start all XPS systems came standard with dedicated XPS technical support to meet the unique needs of power users. This means that you get a special number to call if you need help, with a dedicated Dell XPS support technician on the other end. If you ever have a problem, this alone is almost worth the price of admission, since you get a quick response and will be speaking with a top-line tech, well-versed in the XPS.
You can custom order an XPS to fit your specific needs, be it for gaming, photo applications, video editing, or now a media center. The power options available are mind-boggling, so if you are interested in “the King of the Hill”, check out the Dell website at: www.dell.com/xps_gen4 or call Dell (1-877-886-3355) and, if you do, be sure to tell them you want them to build you “Mark’s machine”. They may not understand, but you will!
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