Just an XPS 700 update.

After just over a week with my new Dell XPS 700, I would have to give it a 9.5/10.  System is very stable(except on nvidia beta drivers), quiet, and fast.  Tried the 91.33 Beta drivers from Nvidia(only drivers from nVidia that support 7900GS) and they work fine with World of Warcraft, but oblivion and Half Life 2 crash periodially after installing them.  Rolled back to 81.40 from Dell Drivers and no crashes since. 

Have also "solved" the power button issue.  Someone from the Dell forums posted a quick "how to" on the xps 700's power button.  Basically don't press in on the button, you actually put you finger just under the button and push upwords.  The button works perfectly this way. 

Also figured out my usb flash drive issue, the 13 in 1 media reader maps itself to F,G,H,I driver, and both my flash drives where trying to re-use F when I plugged them in.  Change the 13 in 1 reader to map to M,N,O,P and drives started working. 

My XPS 700

7/27 PC Pictures - Taken with Camera Phone, sorry about Blurryness

7/28 PC Pictures - Taken with real Digital Camera, still some poor lighting but betting pics.

Took almost 2 months to get but now the question on everyones mind is "Was it worth it?".  First impression where very good, this pc looks sharp.  Weighting in at 71 pounds was a bit of a supprise, have had many pc's in my time, don't think any of them where ever over 50 pounds.  Any I have had aluminum ones before, but after looking inside you can see where all the weight comes from. 

First boot up was smooth, but was a little disappointed that the desktop was 1/2 full junk software.  Isn't this something Dell was saying they would quit doing to XPS customers?  After uninstalling a number of apps I was told about a great tool pc-de-crapifier , which greatly help and removed the rest of the junk.  After removing the majority of the junk I quickly began the install of World of Warcraft, which I play 4+ hour a night 5+ days a week.  Decided to see if it would really multi-task for I lauched the oblivion installer, it didn't seem to mind, so started downloading wow 1.11 patch in the background.  This pc never skipped a beat.   No errors during installed, no (not respondings), all this while still replying to post on dell forums about my new xps. 

World of Warcraft
First thing I did was turn all the setting up and turn the (adjust my setting dynamicly) off.   Restarted and was amazed at the way the game now looked, had never been able to run with all the graph setting turned up, most where at 50% or 0,   My character was in IF(Ironforge) aka lagforge and I figured this would be a good place to test my fps.  Ran out in front of the bank in IF and was amazed to see the fps between 45 and 64.  After drooling for awhile I decided to get in a few fights, see if it effected things.  After a few duals in front of IF, I was drooling again.  It seemed to be stuck of 60 fps.  Almost didn't go to work the next day, wanted to play so bad...

Oblivion
My oblivion settings on my old pc where medium with a few adjustments but it looked good and played ok.  When I first clicked the oblivion icon it alerted me that my settings where set to "ultra high".  I had a previous saved game that was just outside the beginning sewers, so I loaded it up.  WOW, finally my screen looked amazing, but what about the fps?  Never got about 42fps and it dropped to low 20's a few time, but the game seemed to play very smooth thou.  My old pc was lucky to get 15fps. 

A few Oblivion Screen Shots 

Half Life 2
Well would love to tell you this ran great, but steam kept me from playing.  I hate steam.

Fear
Didn't install it yet, sorry, was having funny in Oblivion.

Benchmarks

   Ran some basic benchmarking via Sandra Lite 2007 , looks like my 950 3.4 falls just short of the 2600 Core 2 Duo.  Also some benchmark and hardware scans. 

CPUZ

Ran cpuz per users request.  http://www.droppedatbirth.com/cpuz.htm

Case Size

• 23" deep
  9" wide
  22" High w/o stand
  23" High w/ stand

Issues I have had so far

1. Will not read my Iomega 128mb usb drive, it sees it but says invalid drive.  Tried front and back usb's.
2. Drivers for video where 80.40 Dell Video drivers.  Current stable Nvidia driver don't support 7900GS, but betas do, I haven't installed them but downloaded them and ran installer to 1/2 point, appear is will install them.
3. Power button is stiff, you have to push it pretty firm to power box up, you have a 50% chance the button will fall off, its just clipped on the back side of the grill.  Luckily the case is very easy to open and with all the leds you can see without having to turn on the lights. 
4. 13 in 1 drive is lose and moving around, have tried to tighten it up but it still moves around.  

Pros

•  This PC is quite, played Oblivion for 2 hours, never heard any big fan coming on or anything.
•  SLI 7900's work great, games are incredible fast
•  This PC is beautiful
•  Cooling - My Dell 8300 was a heat pump, even idel it was pumping out heat like crazy.  My new XPS doesn't put out huge amounts of heat, great cooling.
•  Seems Very Stable

Cons 

•  Didn't Get Core 2 upgrade, looks like my 950 3.4 is about the same speed as a Core 2 3000, but the Core 2 is a bit faster.
•  2 months of waiting
•  This thing is huge and heavy PC
•  USB drive issues(Minor)
•  Dell Drivers on Video(Might be fixed with Beta Drivers)
•  Still Junk software on box
   

Verdict.

 I love this pc, might look into core 2 in a few months depending on more benchmarks and price but for now, this will due just fine.  Still not happy with the way Dell has treated its customers, If I would have been able to cancel my order like I tried last week, I would be an Ex-Dell customer building a custom box instead.  But since I did get it and it is what I wanted, a true gaming rig.  I would have to give it a 4 1/2 out of 5. 
 

Found out today that my machine was finally built this weekend, thats why I couldn't cancel it.  Sounds like I may be receiving the first xps 700 to finally ship.  Status of my order status finally reflects this.  Will see if it really arrives in 2 days.