Dell XPS 710 H2C

Editors' Note: We updated this review on May 4 with the results of the new SYSmark 2007 tests. The updates are marked below.

I've seen all manner of cooling systems in PCs: liquid nitrogen quick-shot monsters, "silent" water-cooling solutions, and simple yet loud air-cooling solutions. Dell's latest XPS 710 H2C ($6,988 direct, $7,138 with wireless speakers) intelligently mixes technologies to create a high-performing yet quiet gaming PC. The H2C addresses some of the older cooling technologies' shortcomings while delivering a high-powered gaming experience. This rig is for the well-heeled gamer who wants to be on the cutting edge of tech and have the reassurance of buying from the largest PC maker.

The XPS 710 H2C is built into the now-familiar XPS 700 chassis, with its love-it-or-hate-it styling. The black outer casing is exclusive to the H2C (lesser XPS 710s are silver with black or red face plates). It is a big, heavy box of metal and plastic, and though I think it has a lot more character than some of the more blocky PCs out there, it does take up a lot of desk or floor space—and what's with that lean forward? The lights on the front, reflecting off the ribbed front panel, kind of evoke a waterfall from some angles, but the system can't avoid looking like a big metal tube from others. Thankfully, this hulking metal tube has lots of space for components, including the cooling shroud for the actively cooled quad-core Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 processor, three hard drives, and twin nVidia GeForce 8800GTX graphics cards. There's room for one more hard drive, one more PCI x4 card, and another PCI card (maybe for a tuner?), but the rest of the system's expansion room is spoken for. At least the stuff that's already here is quality. The internal cables are nicely routed and wrapped to improve cooling airflow.

Speaking of cooling, the system's new H2C (which stands for "hot to cold") cooler, nicknamed "Black Ice," uses a two-stage liquid cooling system to keep noise down while providing the thermal capacity needed for high-performance overclocking. The system comes overclocked to 3.2 GHz (up from the default 2.66 GHz) from the factory, and users can use the included nVidia nTune program to push the system even further. Like previous water-cooled systems, the H2C system uses a thermal fluid to draw heat away from the CPU instead of the simple block of metal with fins that service air-cooled systems. Stage one is a small radiator, like the ones we've seen on countless water-cooled systems. The H2C's Black Ice solution differs by using a second "radiator" with a Peltier cooler embedded in it. Peltier coolers use a thermoelectric process to cool surfaces. The drawback of using one directly on a CPU is that unwanted water droplets may condense from the air onto the top of the chip. The two-stage process (using both the radiator and thermoelectric components) drops the temperature of the coolant close to room temperature, avoiding condensation.

I like the covers Dell installed over the "extra" DVI ports on the secondary GeForce card as well as the motherboard's audio ports. These ports are redundant, thanks to SLI and the Creative X-Fi card, respectively. Covering them up will likely reduce tech-support calls from users who plugged a monitor or speakers into the wrong port.

Since the internal cables are neatly routed and the H2C cooler has its own branding and internal lighting, I wish that Dell had offered a windowed case door. Sure, windowed cases are kind of 2004, but since Dell put in the effort to make the H2C cooler pretty, the company should have given you the option of showing it off. (For the record, Dell had an XPS 710 H2C with a windowed case at CES 2007. It was probably a one-off, but that doesn't stop me from wanting one).

The H2C has a whopping 1TB+ of storage, including 320GB of it on a speedy (10,000-rpm) RAID array. This is plenty of space for games, home videos, and other data. My review system lacked a digital media card reader, but you can add one on Dell's site for $20.

All of this stuff would mean nothing if the XPS 710 H2C didn't perform, but it does so in spades. The H2C got our fastest 3D numbers in Vista testing (so far), and though you'll experience a slight performance hit when you switch from Windows XP to Vista, it's a relatively minor one. Dell will be shipping current systems with Win XP preloaded and a Vista-upgrade coupon. OpenGL performance on our Prey benchmark tests is stellar and playable at all resolutions, but Company of Heroes will tax the H2C at the highest 2,560-by-1,600 resolution. It's playable at both this resolution and 1,280-by-1,024, but there will be times at 2,560-by-1,600 when the game play may be jerky for brief periods of time. Notably, I got significantly faster 3D test numbers running Win XP rather than Vista. This is mostly because Vista graphics drivers are still a work in progress, particularly for dual-card graphics solutions such as nVidia's SLI and ATI's CrossFire. I'm sure that graphics performance will improve with future driver revs. With its nVidia GeForce 8800GTX graphics cards, the H2C is ready for DX10 3D gaming later this year, though at this juncture, DX10 games are still a few months away. Other performance vectors are similar to other overclocked quad-core systems such as the Gateway FX530XT Vista. Both systems will breeze through multimedia tasks such as Adobe Photoshop and Windows Media video encoding.

UPDATE (May 4, 2007): Compared with a mainstream system like the Dell Dimension E521, the XPS 710 H2C has a lot more specialized hardware, all of which require drivers that have the potential to affect performance. While the final word is still out since Vista drivers are updating weekly, results of the SYSmark 2007 Preview tests indicate that the extra hardware (and their required drivers) aren't quite as efficient as they could be at this time. The XPS 710 H2C's overall score in Vista (172) lagged behind that of the system's score in XP (189) by about ten percent. The biggest performance hits were on the Video Creation (12%) and the Office Productivity (16%) scenarios. I surmise this is because the VC scenario is more drive intensive (the XPS comes with a RAID 0 array) and the OP scenario uses less of Vista's Super Fetch caching technology since Office tasks are so disparate from moment to moment. Ideally, you'd want the system's performance to be on a par with XP before moving to Vista. Thankfully, most XPS 710 H2C systems are shipping with XP instead of Vista.

Compared with its primary rival, the FX530XT (Vista), the XPS 710 H2C comes out ahead in 3D performance. So if gaming (and paying for the highest performance) is your wish, the H2C is the best choice. Unlike Gateway, Dell has a 30-inch panel in-house, so you can one-stop shop with the H2C. (The H2C I tested was configured with such a display.) If you want primarily a multimedia powerhouse, the FX530XT is a much better value, offering similar multimedia performance for a couple thousand dollars less (granted, the Dell includes a 30-inch panel for its price versus Gateway's 24-inch one). But since gaming is this system's raison d'être, I'd have to give the overall advantage to the XPS 710 H2C. I can't wait to see what the folks at Falcon Northwest, Overdrive PC, and Voodoo PC send me in the near future: All three are likely to be somewhat faster than the H2C, but a lot more expensive.

Among the two major PC makers still building gaming PCs in-house, this round goes to the Dell XPS 710 H2C (Alienware and Voodoo are technically separate entities in Dell and HP's repertoire). The H2C's unique styling and nVidia GeForce 8800GTX SLI graphics cards trump the FX530XT, with its more pedestrian styling and ATI X1950XT CrossFire graphics cards. Sure, you'll spend the equivalent of a house payment (or two) for the XPS 710 H2C, but if you can afford it, you'll gain bragging rights over your peers in this rare air.

Benchmark Test Results
Check out the Dell XPS 710 H2C test results.

SYSmark 2007 Preview Benchmark Test Results
Check out the Dell XPS 710 H2C's SYSmark 2007 Preview test results.

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