Customer Ratings & Reviews

Product was everything we expected and more. Would buy this item again.

I like my new pc, its both perfect for school and gaming.

Good product for it's price. Let see how it performs during the time

Received quickly and easy set up! Great addition for my business.

Great system! Super fast computer! I love it! Dell is the best!

Not happy with mine. It will randomly cut off when I am in the middle of task and say it has a problem. Then a screen comes up saying no hard drive recognized. I have had these issues from the beginning of my purchase but it only happened a couple of times to start out. Now, it is happening frequently. Not sure what to do.

Great desktop, great price. A&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&.

Pleased with this purchase, Good bang for the buck!

FABULOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Dell XPS 8960 Desktop is a powerful and versatile computer that is perfect for gamers, creative professionals, and anyone who needs a high-performance machine. It is powered by a 13th Gen Intel Core i7 processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card, which can handle even the most demanding tasks with ease. The XPS 8960 also comes with 16GB of DDR5 memory and a 512GB SSD + 2TB HDD storage, so you will have plenty of power and storage space for all of your needs. In addition to its powerful hardware, the XPS 8960 also features a sleek and stylish design. The case is made of brushed aluminum and has a minimalist look that will complement any home or office décor. The XPS 8960 is also very quiet, even when under heavy load, so you can enjoy your games or work without being interrupted by loud fan noise. Here are some of the gaming benchmarks for the Dell XPS 8960 Desktop with a 13th Gen Intel Core i7 processor, 16GB of memory, and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card: • Unigine Heaven: 400 fps • Tom Clancy's The Division 2: 80 fps at 1080p, 60 fps at 1440p, and 45 fps at 4K • Grand Theft Auto V: 90 fps at 1080p, 75 fps at 1440p, and 60 fps at 4K • Red Dead Redemption 2: 60 fps at 1080p, 50 fps at 1440p, and 30 fps at 4K These benchmarks show that the Dell XPS 8960 Desktop is capable of playing most modern games at high settings and frame rates. However, it may not be able to max out all of the settings at 4K resolution. When ray tracing is enabled it can significantly reduce frame rates. In some cases, it can reduce frame rates by half. This is because ray tracing is a very demanding technology. It requires the graphics card to do a lot of calculations to simulate light in a more realistic way. If you are interested in playing games with ray tracing, try the following to get the best experience. • Enable DLSS if your graphics card supports it. DLSS is a technology that uses AI to improve performance in games with ray tracing enabled. • Lower the graphics settings in games if you are experiencing performance issues. • Use a high refresh rate monitor. This will help to ensure that you get a smooth gaming experience even with ray tracing enabled. NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card supports DLSS. DLSS is a technology that uses AI to improve performance in games with ray tracing enabled. It does this by rendering the game at a lower resolution and then upscaling it to the native resolution of your monitor. This can significantly improve performance without sacrificing image quality. DLSS is available in a number of games, including Control, Cyberpunk 2077, Metro Exodus, and Red Dead Redemption 2. To enable DLSS, you need to have a GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card and the latest drivers installed. You also need to make sure that the game you are playing supports DLSS. Once you have enabled DLSS, you should see a significant improvement in performance in games with ray tracing enabled. You may also notice a slight improvement in image quality. Here are some of the benefits of using DLSS: • Improved performance: DLSS can significantly improve performance in games with ray tracing enabled. This is because it allows the graphics card to render the game at a lower resolution and then upscale it to the native resolution of your monitor. This can free up resources on the graphics card, which can be used to improve performance. • Improved image quality: DLSS can also improve image quality in games with ray tracing enabled. This is because it uses AI to upscale the image, which can result in sharper details and less blur. • More games: DLSS is available in a growing number of games. This means that you can enjoy the benefits of DLSS in more games. If you are looking for a way to improve performance and image quality in games with ray tracing enabled, then DLSS is a great option. It is a free technology that is available on a wide range of games. Overall, the Dell XPS 8960 Desktop is an excellent choice for anyone who needs a powerful and versatile computer. It is well-built, powerful, and stylish, making it a great option for both home and office use.

I guess mostly my problem is with the sales person, Whom didn't tell me I needed speakers, DVD player. Also its been very hard to transfer files, and screens changes and Icons disappear. I got this because I wanted more hard drive for storage not knowing One Drive only lets you have so much. It was a waste of money if I can't us the 2 T, hard drive.

Great unit, however sometimes it is hard to wake up the unit when it is in sleep mode

Worst experience I’ve had in a long time. I won’t be buying a dell again. I’ve been fighting a freeze up issue for months now, a known issue with dell at this point. Can’t return it, have to buy a different one now because my business is crippled by a computer I have to hard crash every 4-5 minutes. $1500 and countless hours wasted for a piece of junk. The 14 year old dell that I replaced with this one worked flawlessly. I think dell quality has gone down the tube. Never again.

Bought this a few months ago and very unsatisfied. Unsure if there is a hardware issue between the Intel and NVIDIA chips/processor but have to deal with multiple daily blue screen shutdowns. Have updated drivers, been online with Microsoft support, etc. It mainly seems to occur while browsing a webpage and certain ads are displayed or are changing between ads. Any way, incredibly frustrating and no solution in sight. Can not recommend this Dell desktop.

My trusty old Dell desktop computer was retired many years ago and we haven’t had a stationary desktop computer since then. Both my work and personal computers have been laptops for years, so why would I now get a desktop? I’ll mention my reasons (in case you’re searching for your own), and then I’ll share my experiences with this new entry from Dell. Desktop computers have a few advantages that no laptop will ever match: • Easier upgradeability • Better thermal management • Cheaper for the same performance • Loads of ports The tradeoff for all of this is that you go where the computer is, not the other way around. Is it worth it? That’s what I’m here to find out. The Dell XPS 8960 is the latest upgrade to the previous XPS 8950. The version I’m reviewing features a 13th generation i7, 16GB of memory, and a discrete NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 video card. As someone who enjoys gaming but could not call myself a gamer, the Dell XPS 8960 gives me the opportunity to play all of the many games I’ve collected over the years but couldn’t always play, depending on my laptop hardware configurations. Games like NBA 2K21 ran flawlessly, and Civilization VI ran more smoothly than on any of my other machines. While I wouldn’t have expected any chess game to give a computer problems, Chess Ultra is a game that has proven very finicky on my laptops, but the 8960 ran it without a hitch. The 8960 is ostensibly a gaming machine, but it has understated “business” looks that appeal to gamers of all ages. For me, that allows it to fit into my home décor much more easily than it would if it featured clear side panels and colored LED fan lights. If you’re looking for that king of gaming machine, you won’t find it here. Setup is pretty standard for a Windows machine. Bringing over my One Drive files was a breeze, as was getting setup in Edge and Office 365. Dell took an interesting approach to storage on this machine. It includes a 512 GB SSD, as well as a 2 TB hard drive spinning at 7200 rpm. This is a great solution that provides a super-fast SSD for boot-up and storage of processor-intensive programs while also giving you plenty of slightly slower storage with a 2 TB hard drive. I actually like having a real hard drive, since it’s still possible to recover from a catastrophic failure with a physical disk, which is not possible on a fully digital solution such as an SSD. The downside of Dell’s approach is that the SSD is relatively small if you want to take advantage of the faster performance by installing your games to the SSD. It’s been a while since I’ve actually had to think about more than one hard drive in a computer, so I was just installing games left and right without much thought. It wasn’t long before I was running out of space on the SSD and had to move some of the games to the hard drive. This gave me the opportunity to test the games on both the SSD and hard drive, and I’m happy to report that, while the hard drive was a bit slower, if you’re careful not to put your most intensive programs there, you’ll be fine. You’ll just have to do a little planning to decide what goes where. The nice thing is that there’s an empty slot you can use to add another SSD or even another hard drive if you want, so storage definitely won’t be a problem on this machine. The inside of the machine is pretty roomy, but its compact size makes it less spacious than a typical tower configuration. I like the size of the XPS 8960, as it makes it easier to incorporate into most rooms. I mentioned the RTX graphics card earlier. This card features 4 Display Ports and 1 HDMI port. I know that DP may be the more popular option in the gaming world, but I would have preferred at least one more HDMI port. I also found that the USB-C port did not support display output natively, and this seems like an oversight to me. I could use an HDMI to USB-C adapter in that slot to add another monitor, but why doesn’t that port handle video on its own? This is a pretty quiet computer, but when the fans kick in, they are pretty loud. They usually spin up when I’m putting a big load on the processors, and then spin down after a short time. It’s not so loud that it’s unbearable, but it’s definitely noticeable. The system comes with a wired keyboard and mouse, which you’ll need to complete the initial setup. After that, I paired my Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and put the wired versions away. The ones in the box are clearly not meant to be high-end peripherals, but they get the job done. It’s not really a fair comparison, but I wanted to compare Geekbench results on this machine, to those I previously got on my Surface Book 3 a few years ago. The SB also has a discrete video card, but it’s not even in the conversation with the XPS 8960, as you would expect. The SB single-core score was 944 versus 2576 for the XPS. The multi-core score of 3255 for the Surface Book 3 was matched with a multi-core score of 15, 287 on the XPS. Without the thermal constraints of a laptop, Dell was able to give it a lot more power. Another piece of anecdotal evidence is the time it takes to create a passage guide using the Logos Bible software. A passage guide is basically pulling excerpts from your library on a particular topic or passage. The Surface Book 3 did this in 14 seconds, which is great, but the XPS 8960 handled it in 5.69 seconds! Running an Excel test consisting of 100,000 VLOOKUP formulas took an average of .05 seconds, compared with an average of 2.5 seconds on the Surface Book—50 times faster! Everything I did, from working with Office files, to compiling code in Visual Studio, to using Adobe Photoshop Elements, to playing games, worked flawlessly, smoothly and quickly. The Dell XPX 8960 is causing me to shift my mindset back to my older way of thinking. I like the idea of having a desktop as a “home base”—a place where files can be stored to be shared, and which won’t carry the risk of being left behind in a hotel or taxi on my laptop. Plenty of storage means I can store more photos without having to worry about running out as soon, and there’s no program that I have to run with reduced settings due to performance issues. I’ve been working at home since the pandemic, and that means I have an office space set up all the time. Given that, it’s now much more practical to have a desktop computer in that space, running 24/7 and ready to go (although it did crash and reboot hours after I wrote this). If you’re going to do that, I highly recommend the XPS 8960 for that setup. It’s a great gaming machine for all but the most demanding gamers, but it’s also a more than capable business machine that can handle anything you can throw at it.

Psu died after 2 days. And it's proprietary software which apparently means that geek squad can't fix it. So they gave me a full refund which was nice except for the fact that I bought it on sale so I couldn't even afford a new one. Warranty was completely useless and couldn't help either.

I’ve been using a Dell All-In-One (AIO) as my primary Home-Office PC for several years now. It’s been a good performer, but I’ve missed some of the options that come standard with a traditional tower desktop, including the option to change monitors. I also like to be able to just turn off my monitor rather than putting the PC into one of the sleep-mode options, as Microsoft has never quite mastered sleep mode for AIOs in my opinion. Many times I’ve had to walk away from my AIO while in the middle of a project with several Apps or documents open, only to return & experience a problem reawakening my AIO. This conflict has even resulted in the loss of data on a couple of occasions. Again, I prefer the certainty of simply turning off a standalone monitor while leaving the desktop fully awake. I also feel that I get better heat dissipation & overall thermal management with my new traditional tower vs. my AIO. Due to the compact nature of an AIO, the parts are often smaller, & I often heard the little fan inside working overtime to cool down the components. I now have a greater sense of security w/a larger fan & standard-size components in this standalone XPS 8960 tower, especially when gaming or performing video editing. I do miss the convenient touchscreen of my AIO, especially when I’m interacting with others & showing or teaching them a series of steps required to perform a certain task. But there are still more advantages to this new traditional desktop PC than drawbacks. Although I try to future-proof my PCs as best I can w/in budget limits & component availability, there are still times I want to upgrade an internal component (perhaps w/more RAM or a better graphics card, etc.) before the machine’s overall useful life ends. In general, PC towers are just easier to customize, easier to upgrade, & easier to service & repair. This XPS 8960 has all the hardware features I need to move with speed & optimize my productivity. With the 13th Gen Intel Core i7 processor & 16GB memory, I can have several Apps open at the same time with no noticeable lag. It also has 2 additional Memory slots if needed which is another advantage vs. my old sealed AIO. With the 512GB SSD & 2TB HDD, I have more than enough space to store large music & video files rather than relying on cloud storage or external storage devices. And this model has ports galore: 9 total USB-A & C (4 front/5 rear). Finally, the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card is impressive, especially if you’re into gaming. NVIDIA’s Ray Tracing technology makes a noticeable difference in lighting & shadows, providing graphic images that appear photorealistic. My only disappointment was that this XPS 8960 comes with a very basic wired mouse & keyboard (which I quickly upgraded w/better input devices). Otherwise, this is a future-proofed workhorse PC that I expect will perform well over time.

It's difficult to write a review on a desktop computer. So much of our interaction with computers is based on the inputs… visual with a monitors, and tactile with mouse and keyboard. Sure, desktops will always be the king of I/O, but otherwise the review of a box is really just a review of the sum total of its contents. Normally when I write a review, I end with the price. For the sake of reviewing the contents of a box, I will instead start this review with the price–$1,499 retail…and talk about what that gets you, and if it's worth it. We'll start with expandability, because I think that's the first reason I'd want to buy a desktop. Future upgrades. There's room to grow here for sure, with two fully cabled 3.5" expansion bays (one of which is occupied with a 2TB hard drive), two M2 slots (one of which is occupied with a 512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD), two RAM slots (occupied by 16GB DDR5 RAM; the system is expandable to 64GB total), and 3 PCIe slots (one of which is occupied by the 8GB NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 graphics card). It is definitely not the most expandable, but for $1,500, I'd be pleased with it. Regarding storage, the 512GB SSD is nice, as is the ability to add another M.2 SSD. If it saved a few bucks, I'd be interested to start with a 256GB SSD and upgrade as SSD prices are dropping. It wouldn't be a huge savings, but I think this will add up as we go. Same deal with the 7200 RPM hard drive--leave it out, let me put my own drives in, and drop the price. Unfortunately, the video card and the processor are what they are. I don't think I could do that much better on the open market, so no potential savings there. The 13th-gen i7 Intel processor has 8 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores, so tasks are no real issue. I probably wouldn't buy an Intel computer with anything elss than an i7, but as of June 2023 these are still very new processors for Dell's lineup. The video card has 8GB of video memory, and paired with the processor and super fast storage, it's a great starting computer for video editing, gaming, maybe even VR. But for the price, considering right out of the box you can get work done, I'm relatively content with it. For $1,500, the standard RAM should definitely be at 32GB--or at bare minimum, a single 16GB stick so you don't have to scrap all the RAM it comes with to upgrade. Honestly at this price, the RAM is disappointing, but 16GB is still plenty to get the job done. Taking it all into consideration, I think a slight price drop--even $200--would be enough to compel me to call this truly worth it *from a specifications perspective*. There are some other really nice things about this system; for starters, it's very quiet. When the computer was sleeping, the hard drive periodically spun up frequently, which got to be annoying, but otherwise it's whisper quiet for everyday tasks. Also, the IO is awesome, with plenty of ports on the front and back to connect all of your gear. Those of us who live off of laptops have been forced into an insane reduction in IO on computers…so it's nice to have options again. And, it's a Dell. Say what you want, but they've been around for a long time and will continue to be around. Dell support is perfectly acceptable and their warranties deliver on what they promise. It's a solid brand that isn't going anywhere. Now--are we overpaying for this box of components because the "XPS" label is on it? Maybe. What makes it an XPS desktop versus Inspiron, aside from the case material? If someone came to me asking about buying a desktop for every day tasks, this is not the one I'd recommend. Someone would need justification for the performance that an i7 processor and dedicated graphics can provide. And I'd expect an every-day desktop to cost well under $1,000. For this desktop, I guess there are worse places to start. It will serve someone out of the box for a little while at least, but I still think the price is a bit high. Nonetheless, the unit itself, I would recommend. I'd like to see some adjustments to the specs for the price (or the price considering the specs), but it's a mid-tier well performing desktop that is expandable and quiet. What's not to love, aside from the price?

This desktop more or less does it all out of the box. It is pretty solidly spec’d and I would say has most people covered no matter what they are looking to do. Office/productivity, picture/video, gaming, etc…it handles it all with relative ease. Dell has been doing this for seemingly ever, so, as expected, setup was a breeze. Everything was packaged well, and in a manner that it was easy to get it all together rather quickly. Once connected, it was typical software and Windows updates, but all in all, a very, very simple process. I expect this will be the case for everyone. As for looks, I really kind of like the case. Plain. Simple. Clean. Black. More Black. Some may find it lacking, but for me it is perfect. I am not into the gaming aesthetic, and while a little style here and there could have been added, I like it as is. It is well built, solid, and has a good feel. It has some weight, but it is by no means heavy. It also comes with some great front I/O (mix of USB A, C, card reader, headphone) that is a nice add. Lastly, I really like the fact that it comes with some room for expansion/upgradeability. While there are some proprietary issues here, and some frustrating choices (the PSU wattage as well as the number of RAM slots), simply being to add to and/or change components over time is one of the main benefits of owning a desktop…and one that allows it. You get a little future proofing, as well as just, well, options. Something that seems to be harder and harder to find these days. I would say my only real dig here is that the case is not the quietest case out there. It is not “loud,” but I found when pushed, it was more than silent. Just something to note. Performance-wise, I really could not be happier. The chip/RAM/drive/GPU stack really does well. Everything runs smoothly, I can multitask without issue, boot and application load times are snappy, and I am quite pleased with the gaming experience. Clearly, the GPU has limitations, but that should be understood here. That said, on the proper resolution, games still fly and look great. Beyond just performance, I love that they provided both a M.2 SSD (as well as another empty slot) AND a standard higher capacity hard drive (and another empty bay). It really is the best of both worlds. A dedicated spot for installs, and one for storage. At least that is how I am running it. You just don’t see that offered all the time. Lastly, there is a nice blend of connectivity. Between the front I/O, and all that located on the back, I have to think most would not have an issue. Honestly, I think it is all just some solid hardware. Well, mostly all lol. Perhaps it is the computer snob in me, but you may want to upgrade the keyboard and mouse. Another thing to note. In the end, I have to say that I really like this machine. If you are looking for a strictly gaming PC, perhaps you should look elsewhere. Furthermore, know your use case beforehand, and understand its limitations, but I think this is a fantastic choice for just about everyone looking for a well-rounded, powerful system that should meet most people's needs. It looks good, is built well, has some nice specs, and has some room for upgrades and/or expansion. I think the value is there.

worst computer to buy keep going down and sometime will not start