Digital Home Thoughts: Dell Studio XPS 7100 Features AMD Vision Technology

"Announced today, the Dell Studio XPS 7100 is one of the first desktops available to support the powerful AMD Phenom II X6 six-core processor with AMD Turbo Core technology, as well as available quad-core Athlon II processors, for incredibly fast HD media creation, advanced multimedia capabilities, multi-tasking and immersive 3D gaming experiences. With six-core processor power starting at US$699, the Studio XPS 7100 offers exceptional multitasking performance and features a cutting edge, tilt-back design in premium Carbide Silver color."

Dell has traditionally been a mostly Intel-focused OEM, with only a few minor products using AMD chips on the consumer side. I've always felt that was a shame, because while I tend to prefer Intel CPUs for performance reasons, there are plenty of products that aren't so performance-focused and using AMD CPUs would allow Dell to sell the products at a slightly lower price. Oh, and because Dell is so Intel-focused, they've tended to offer craptastic Intel integrated graphics when a similarly-priced system from another OEM using AMD chips would typically offer a decent integrated ATI GPU.

This XPS 7100 is a prime example of that lower price model in action; a six-core CPU system starting at $699 US? Wowzers - that's some great pricing! They've added a power supply with some extra headroom (460 watts) so customers can upgrade their graphics down the road, and with up to 16 GB of RAM, and up to 4 TB of storage, this system has some decent headroom. I wonder though, will it sound like a tornado under heavy load? I purchased an XPS system last year and ended up returning it to Dell because whenever I did anything even slightly CPU intensive, it became quite loud. Oh, and I couldn't overclock it at all. How does the Dell Studio XPS 7100 look to you?