Dell's going after the gamer in no uncertain fashion. Today sees the release of its XPS 710 H2C SKU - and this is overclocked at the factory. Yes, really, Dell is overclocking!
The magic takes place in and around the CPU. Dell's developed a two-stage cooling system that uses a front-mounted radiator to keep the liquid flowing to the thermoelectrical cooler, well, cooler.
The contraption is a self-enclosed unit that's good enough, Dell reckons, to guarantee an overclocked speed of 3.2GHz for Intel's quad-core Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (2.67GHz native) and 3.46GHz for the dual-core Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93GHz native).
Dell also adds in two default-clocked GeForce 8800 GTX cards that are run in SLI on an NVIDIA nForce 590 chipset-based motherboard (680i was too late for Dell to qualify it, apparently). Keeping it a top-notch affair all round, there's lots of high-speed RAM, a couple of 160GB/10,000rpm drives in RAID0 and a 1kW PSU.
Production systems won't ship with side windows, which is a shame, but the base specification includes a 20in monitor and pricing starts at $5,549.
It was difficult to gauge the quietness of the cooling on a show floor with high ambient noise levels but as best as we could tell, the system was quiet for a high-end rig.
UK launch is scheduled for tomorrow and we'll be taking one for a comprehensive review spin in the very near future.
The UK's specialist system integrators' lives have just become that little bit more difficult.
Head on over here for more info.
