Dell XPS 8300 (X8300-7008NBK)

With a Core i7 processor and AMD Radeon GPU, the Dell XPS 8300 (X8300-7008NBK) ($999.99 list at Best Buy) is equipped to handle all of your home productivity and multimedia task, and enough graphics chops for some casual gaming too. Connectivity ports are plentiful and built-in Wi-Fi in on board, but this system lacks niceties such as USB 3.0 connectivity and a Blu-ray drive.

Design and Features
On the outside the X8300-7008NBK is identical to the ($699.99 list, 3.5 stars). Both use the same black mid-tower case sporting a glossy black front panel with silver trim around the edge. The tray at the top of the case is ideal for holding small peripherals, such as cell phones and thumb drives. There are also two USB ports so you can keep your portable devices connected and charged, as well as headphone and microphone jacks. At the top of the front panel are four card reader slots and below them are two optical drive bays and a sliding panel with two USB ports behind it. Unfortunately, none of the USB ports on this machine use high-speed USB 3.0 technology.

Rear mounted connections include four USB ports, six audio jacks, an SPDIF audio output, a gigabit Ethernet port, and an eSATA port for high speed data transfers between the PC and an external hard drive. In addition to wired networking, the X8300-7008NBK comes with built-in Wi-Fi ,so you can connect wirelessly without using up an expansion slot. Video connections are plentiful; the discrete AMD Radeon HD 6770 graphics card gives you two DVI ports, one HDMI port, and a DisplayPort.

Access to the interior comes by way of a removable side panel held in place by a single thumbscrew. There's not much room inside for expansion as the video card takes up two slots. There are two unoccupied PCIe x1 slots, but one of them is crowded by the graphics card. All four of the memory slots are occupied. A roomy 1.5TB, 7,200rpm hard drive occupies one drive bay and there's room for one additional hard drive and a secondary optical drive. With its beefy graphics card, this system screams for a Blu-ray drive, but alas, it comes with a DVD multi-drive instead. The power supply is rated for 460 Watts, which means you'll be limited to a mid-tier graphics solution unless you upgrade to a power supply with more wattage.

The 1.5TB drive offers plenty of storage for music, video, and photos. It comes with Windows 7 Home Premium, Dell's Stage multimedia suite, a trial version of McAfee Security Center, Roxio Creator Starter Edition, and Creative's TruStudio audio software. The X8300-7008NBK comes with a standard one-year warranty that may be supplemented with one of Best Buy's add-on plans. For $149.99 you can bump it up to two years or opt for a four-year plan for $259.99.

Performance
The combination of a 3.4GHz Intel Core i7-2600 processor, 8GB of system RAM, and AMD's Radeon HD 6770 with 1GB of video RAM provided the X8300-7008NBK with plenty of productivity horsepower and some decent gaming chops. It's PCMark 7 score of 3,148 was only 10 points shy of our Editors' Choice, the ($1,299.99 direct, 4 stars) (3,158), and topped the Dell X8300-4004NBK (2,531) by more than 600 points. On our Cinebench R11.5 CPU test the Dell X8300-7008NBK's score of 6.87 led the pack, narrowly edging out the HP h8-1050 (6.82) and its sibling, the ($899.99 list, 3.5 stars) (6.86).

The X8300-7008NBK also did well on our Handbrake and Photoshop CS5 multimedia tests, completing them in 1 minute 13 seconds and 3 minutes 11 seconds, respectively. The HP h8-1050's Handbrake score was identical, but its Photoshop CS5 time (2:57) was 14 seconds faster.

The AMD Radeon HD 6770 isn't a high-end graphics card, but it offers enough GPU power to satisfy all but the most demanding gamers. It managed 110.8 frames per second (fps) on our Crysis DX10 gaming test while running in medium quality mode (1,280-by-720 resolution) while the HP h8-1050 turned in a score of 98.9 fps. In very high quality mode (1,920-by-1,080 resolution) the X8300-7008NBK managed only 20 fps compared with the HP h8-1050's score of 27fps (both scores are unplayable). On the more demanding DX11 Lost Planet 2 test, the X8300-7008NBK pumped out 59.3 fps in middle quality settings and 19.3 fps in high quality setting. The HP h8-1050 and its more powerful Radeon HD 6850 card gave us scores of 77.6 fps (at middle quality) and 29.6 fps (at high quality).

The Dell XPS 8300 (X8300-7008NBK)'s Core i7 CPU and discrete graphics card make it a good choice for those seeking a powerful home desktop system. It will make short work of your productivity and multimedia tasks and handle moderate graphics duty as well. The lack of USB 3.0 technology is troublesome, however, and a multimedia desktop in this price range should include a Blu-ray drive as standard issue. If you have an extra $300 to spend and want a more feature-rich system, the HP Pavilion Elite h8-1050 offers USB 3.0, a Blu-ray drive, a TV tuner, and faster graphics, which is why it remains our Editors' Choice for media desktops.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS

COMPARISON TABLE

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