Dude, where the f*ck is my Dell?

MooZilla · Post by **MooZilla** » September 6, 2006, 7:46 pm

Some of you may remember me wanting to build my own rig from scratch last month. Well, scrap that. I figured out that i could get some pretty sweet discounts from Dell through my aunt, who works for Boeing. I ordered the XPS 700 because it looked like a pretty sweet system...until...

I chcked out the Dell forums and it seems like there are some shady issues going on with the hardware. The X-Fi soundcard doesnt support DTS and Dolby 5.1 Surround on the hardware level, the RAM seems to be super cheap value stuff at DDR2-667, the motherboard is some weird nforce 590/4-ulta mix that is missing a bunch of features. The only nforce 590 features it truly supports is true 16x SLI and some other really small things (No Teaming, Dual-Gig, or First Packet..). Of course, no BIOS level overclocking. Only through ntune. I can live with those things. Of course most good 5.1 speaker systems come with their own hardware 5.1 and DTS decoders, as well as a bundle of other audio decoders.

The RAM is actually at the proper speed for the E6300 I ordered. A MAX CPU overclock on ntune only goes up to 332 on the FSB from what i've seen in screens. Does this mean that if i raise the clock speed on the RAM that i can raise the FSB even further? I really want to bring up the E6300 to 3.0ghz or more if i can, but it seems like Dell has some way of limiting this.

Onto my REAL question. The machine has been in "pre-production' ever since i ordered it on saturday. <a href="http://support.dell.com/support/order/d ... 4043">Link to order</a> When should i start to complain? I have an est. ship date of Oct. 10, but i know people who have ordered the XPS 700 systems, and received them within two weeks. I hate waiting!

cadalano · Post by **cadalano** » September 6, 2006, 7:48 pm

uh..... can i get a "told you so" ?

Boogahz · Post by **Boogahz** » September 6, 2006, 8:02 pm

Well, you did order over a holiday weekend, but I also know they have people working on the holidays building systems.

Also, just because your estimated ship date is October 10th doesn't mean it will take that long...then again, it doesn't mean it will ship by then either. It's estimated. The good news is that I have heard of more instances of them shipping early rather than late

MooZilla · Post by **MooZilla** » September 6, 2006, 8:47 pm

Boogahz wrote:Well, you did order over a holiday weekend, but I also know they have people working on the holidays building systems.

Also, just because your estimated ship date is October 10th doesn't mean it will take that long...then again, it doesn't mean it will ship by then either. It's estimated. The good news is that I have heard of more instances of them shipping early rather than late

Exactly what i've heard to. Dell must be setting later ship dates, so they won't have to catch flak from late deliveries. Under-optomistic dates, i would say.

My hopes are that it'll go into kitting/production by this weekend and it should be shipped out before then. I'm just itching to get my hands on the system. I've been using this old beatup P4 2.4B 533 FSB w/ 512 of PC1000 RDRAM and a GF4 Ti4200 for the past 4 years. I can't wait to set it all up and see how much performance i can squeeze out of my system.

Does anybody have a definate answer on weither i should be able to push my memory speed up from the DDR2-667? Like I said, i know i should be able to get a stable OC on the processor up to a 332 FSB speed, but i really want to go higher. The Dell franken-board doesnt support DDR2-800 out of the box, but something gives me a hunch that that might be volt limited and if i can get a few good sticks of DDR2-667, that i should be able to push them to DDR2-800 w/ decent timings, and run a 400 FSB.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » September 7, 2006, 4:07 am

When I ordered my monitor from dell, it's shipping status was 6-8 days and it showed up on my doorstep in 2 using basic ground UPS.

Don't trust the dates.

It's not the momment. It's not the deed itself. It's anticipation that makes things great!

Deward · Post by **Deward** » September 7, 2006, 3:56 pm

You're gonna wish you had built your own. We use DELLs at the office here and frankly I would never want one for home use. The graphics cards on them usually suck. In addition, the cases are so small that you can rule out doing any internal upgrades.

masteen · Post by **masteen** » September 7, 2006, 6:21 pm

Yeah, I was messing around with the Dell's in my buddy's office, and those cases couldn't be shittier if they tried. I hope you ordered EVERYTHING you could possibly need already installed.

Kelshara · Post by **Kelshara** » September 7, 2006, 7:33 pm

I have a Dell as one of my boxes that I got for free. That one is quite excellent, plenty of space for upgrades etc. Also was pleasantly surprised when I ordered two LCD monitors from them, they arrived very fast.

MooZilla · Post by **MooZilla** » September 7, 2006, 10:57 pm

Deward wrote:You're gonna wish you had built your own. We use DELLs at the office here and frankly I would never want one for home use. The graphics cards on them usually suck. In addition, the cases are so small that you can rule out doing any internal upgrades.

It's not some crappy home or office computer. It's their "flagship" system. Check it out..It's pretty impressive for Dell. They market it as their gamer and enthusiast machine, but it can fall short in a few places, as i've pointed out.

<a href="http://www.dell.com/content/products/pr ... s=dhs">XPS 700</a>

Sueven · Post by **Sueven** » September 12, 2006, 8:58 pm

When should i start to complain? I have an est. ship date of Oct. 10

My answer'd be October 11.

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » September 13, 2006, 1:33 pm

I have an XPS gaming sytem from Dell too. Plenty of upgrade space. I've added 3 hard drives since I've owned it. I may end up swapping out the video card one day too. Are you guys talking about business PCs or something? Mine is case is great.

My friend has the brand new XPS gaming laptop and that fucker screams. Furthermore, he could throw it out a window and Dell would send him a new one tomarrow.

sarlen · Post by **sarlen** » September 13, 2006, 2:02 pm

MooZilla wrote:
Deward wrote:You're gonna wish you had built your own. We use DELLs at the office here and frankly I would never want one for home use. The graphics cards on them usually suck. In addition, the cases are so small that you can rule out doing any internal upgrades.
It's not some crappy home or office computer. It's their "flagship" system. Check it out..It's pretty impressive for Dell. They market it as their gamer and enthusiast machine, but it can fall short in a few places, as i've pointed out.

<a href="http://www.dell.com/content/products/pr ... s=dhs">XPS 700</a>

I work in I.T. in a fortune 500 company and as most do, we use Dell as well. GX520/270/260's for desktops and D610/D400 for laptops. The small cases are intended as a business application of a desktop. They do have the same models with the big cases. The crappy video card performance is a result of the guy who ordered them with that specific card in it not a reflection of all Dells. If you have ever seen the corp ordering web site Dell has for its big customers the options are nearly endless for almost all models. If that sounds a little fanboi, I cant help it. We use to be a IBM/Toshiba shop and from a corprate fleet stand point the Dell is by far a superior machine and service.

As for the ship time of Dells, well it sucks. We can order a "stock" D610 and not get it for 3 weeks, and thats with priority shipping from a company that spends 7 figures a year with them.

*~*stragi*~* · Post by ***~*stragi*~*** » September 13, 2006, 7:34 pm

buy from insight!