Dell Finally Delivered my Dell XPS 420.
Now its very rare for me to get a PC for myself. The last time was May 2004.
At the time (2004) a Pentium4 3.0 Ghz was considered speedy, but it doesn’t cut it in today’s world of multi core and HD content.
What I wanted was speed and a large form factor machine to accommodate multiple hard disks and full length video cards. It also needed to be relatively quiet.
Basically I needed a “Big Box” of a computer, out my available choices the XPS 420 is aesthetically one of the nicest. It has the “Piano Black shiny look” to it, like you find on Samsung LCD’s these days.
Some thought has been given to the design but lets be real its more evolution than revolution.
In the Speed department I could have got away with any Intel Dual Core CPU. The machine’s primary purpose is HD playback and any Dual Core CPU above 1.8Ghz can do it.
So when I saw an offer for a Quad Core CPU at a very enticing price point I jumped at the chance.
The Machine Shipped with Windows Vista Home Premium I am new convert to Windows Vista Media Centre so my initial intention was to stick with Vista.
However my first out of the box experience was marred by how Vista was performing on what I knew to be a powerful machine.
The first issue was all the Dell installed software: Adobe, Roxio, McAfee etc. I don’t want any of it. So I slowly remove these one by one hoping the performance I was expecting would appear.
I took all of 45 minuets to decide Vista had to go.
I know what I need this machine to do and all of it can be done in Windows XP. At this point I look at Windows XP as Lean and Mean. It does the job without any flashy stuff you don’t need.
Now here is the problem. Dell don’t offer Windows XP Drivers for the XPS 420. But its not rocket science all the parts are pretty standard: CPU Chipset, Network Card, Sound, etc.
I would lose access to the MiniView the display on the front of the machine, but I saw through the usefulness of that in my first half an hour.
This link here points you in the right direction for locating the Windows XP Drivers.
So reinstalling an operating system is no biggie for me. So about an hour later I have completed the Windows XP machine and I managed to get for the first time a glimpse at how fast the machine could perform.
What I am looking for is a machine that can cold boot and then be ready for use in a very short time.
The XPS 420 seems to linger in the bios screen for 5 to 7 seconds and my Windows XP build is totally usable 30 seconds later. This is something I would find very difficult to match in Windows Vista land.
Problems
This machine shipped with a ATI 2600XT and for some reason during HD playback it would blue screen with a watchdog.sys error. This is video card/driver related.
I am tight on time at the moment so I elected to replace the 2600XT for a 2600Pro that I know was rock solid on the driver front.
Observations
Operating System: Most people could live with Vista, I couldn’t for an easier but slower life stick with Vista.
Build Quality: Pretty high standard, very similar to Precision I use, nice and neat inside. The cables are managed properly.
Performance: In my scenario this performs amazingly well. I looked at the CPU usage while playing back HD. It idled at around 8%. This computer handles HD like older computer manage DVD, with ease in other words.
Other: Something I am not best pleased about is on the motherboard. The following capacitor being so close to the blue plastic release of the video card.
Replacing a video card is something an end user might do and Dell are asking for trouble placing a Capacitor in that location.
Summary: I am very pleased with my choice, Quad Core was a bonus. This machine now purrs relatively silently and handles all my HD requirements with ease.
Link: http://www.intel.com/products/processor/core2quad/specifications.htm
Link: Dell 420 Page
Office2007 User Interface
