14 DAY TRIAL // XPS series is very well known for its gaming capabilities. It's probably safe to say that XPS PCs have always been gaming oriented so it comes as a real surprise the fact that Dell decided to offer an optional CPU upgrade to the new quad core from INTEL, QX6700.
Dell says that the new XPS when using the mighty quad core will actually be 55% faster than when powered by an X6800 dual core CPU. What they don't say is that a quad core CPU is actually pointless when it comes to games, mainly because modern games take advantage of 2 cores being present but not four. Maybe Valve will change that since they have a plan to produce a game that will support four simultaneous threads but that's in the distant future. Until then, quad core power will be available only for optimized software such as rendering and encoding applications.
As for the system itself, the case is the same as the one in the 700 series. Two color models are available for the case, "Jet Black" and "Formula Red". A 750W PSU powered XPS using QX6700 will cost about $3700 while the 1000W version will cost $100 more. Quite an expensive upgrade if you take into account that the same system with a dual core onboard will cost only $3000.
XPS will make a great gift for Christmas. And not only that, but it will also be a rare product mostly because CPU stocks are limited when talking about QX6700. Moreover, it's safe to say that XPS 710 may actually turn out cheaper than other comparable products since large system integrators have already announced their quad core monsters along with a price of at least $5000.