I haven't been using a desktop computer at home for the past 6 years. The last one I had is a self-assembled PC with an ancient Pentium D processor, which still chugging along back home. For home use, I was content on using an older laptop as a static desktop connected to my display and other stuff.
SPECS and PERFORMANCE
Then I got this Dell XPS 8920 desktop a month ago, and things changed a bit. Compared to the "laptop/desktop" setup which had a 4th gen. Core i7, NVIDIA GPU and 256GB SSD, this desktop showed some good signs of improvement. It is fast - with its 7th gen Kaby Lake Intel Core i7 CPU and 16GB DDR4 RAM most task works in a breeze. The storage part is quite interesting - it has a 1TB SATA HDD, but it is "turbocharged" by a 16GB Intel Optane memory unit connected via the M.2 slot. The idea is to get some part of the storage data (the OS I guess) to be cached in the Optane memory unit, and attain "almost" RAM-like performance in terms of read/write speed and latency. This is the first time I have used a system like this, and frankly the only difference I felt is that compared to the old-school HDD, the speed boost is very noticeable. Windows 10 boots up really fast, and large programs run quite smoothly once started. I ran some simulation software (MATLAB-like stuff) which are necessary for my work and found them to be quite fast compared to the work computer of my office (which is a Dell Optiplex, but a couple of years old). I can’t say anything from gaming perspective, since this one only has the Intel HD 630 graphics. But compared to the HP Spectre x360 laptop (which has a Kaby Lake i7 CPU, 16GB RAM, and NVMe SSD), which performance difference is not that huge - at least for my day-to-day usage. However, I get more confidence in running resource-intensive tasks on the Dell desktop compared to the HP laptop (obviously due to the incessant whining of the CPU fan in the laptop when it gets taxed).
EXTERNAL DESIGN
The casing design is very neat and I find the silver metal front end to be very cool looking. It has a minimalist feel to it, with the four USB ports, audio in/out ports, the SD card slot, and the DVD-burner blending quite perfectly. The overall dimension is quite small compared regular towers with similar hardware specs - its not mini-ATX and such, but I'm surprised to find a full ATX motherboard housed inside which chasis.
INTERNAL DESIGN
The most useful feature of a desktop that appeals to me is the scope of upgradability, and in that point the Dell XPS is solid. The chasis has a screw-less design to get to its innards - the left side panel is very easy to unlock, and then the power supply unit swings out of the way to get your hands on the motherboard/HDD parts. There's a standard HDD bay at the bottom that takes in regular sized internal HDDs via SATA connectors. All the PCI-express slots are also readily accessible along with the open RAM slots. The cooling fan is horizontally mounted on the top side which makes the motherboard even more easy to meddle with. All of these make it very easy to make an upgrade yourself - such as getting a dedicated graphics card, a second HDD, or add additional RAM in the future (even if you are not an expert).
PERIPHERAL CONNECTIVITY
In terms of ports and connectivity, the Dell XPS gets all the necessities covered. As I mentioned there's the 4 regular-sized USB 3.0 slots in the front, along with 4 more in the back. There's also a USB-C type port (also USB 3.0) which I feel is forward thinking. Two more USB 2.0 ports are there (apparently they are preferred ports to connect the included wired keyboard and mouse). There are 2 ports to connect your display, and an HDMI (which I'm using to connect my HDTV) and a DisplayPort. You also get your regular Gigabit Ethernet port and three more 3.5mm audio ports. You also get an Intel Wireless AC adapter for WiFi connection along with Bluetooth.
PROBLEMS
Now comes some of the downsides of desktop that I personally faced. I like to point out beforehand that I think most of them are software/driver related, and some of them have been mitigated now. Still I find them worthwhile to list them below:
- Right after setup, the system started having hiccups: the system stopped responding a couple of times along with Intel Graphics driver crashes. The WiFi connection was very, very spotty with frequent drop-outs. Running diagnostics showed no hardware errors, so I went ahead and manually downloaded all the drivers from the Dell and reinstalled them (which was a bummer since getting online was difficult - I used another PC for that). This was NOT a good experience out of the box and needed time and a bit of troubleshooting experience.
- Though most of the issues have been solved, the WiFi issue still persists albeit intermittently. So at last I contacted Dell support and they gave the obvious suggestion of getting an updated driver or getting the machine swapped out. I also found some forum posts with the same complain, and people have stated that the problem was still there even after getting a new machine. For now I'm keeping the machine and opted to get a wired connection to my router.
- I get a rather weird error message during Windows shutdown from Google Backup & Sync (previously known as Google Drive), even after reinstalling a couple of times. This is not creating any particular problem - syncing is fine, but the thing is annoying to see. I didn't see any similar error in my other 4 machines (all running the same build of Windows 10), so I'm not sure what's the cause of it. This most probably has nothing to do with Dell, but I just wanted to mention it nonetheless.
- The last one is a very minor issue - the placement of the USB ports on top of the DVD-burner tray. If you have USB cables dangling in the front, they may get caught up when you are opening/closing the optical drive tray.
So overall, despite some (software) hiccups, the Dell XPS 8920 desktop is a very nice machine to use. I'm enjoying using it as my everyday home computer, and from the look and feel this is definitely seems like a piece of tech. Hopefully the WiFi issue gets fixed eventually which will make it almost perfect.