Dell XPS Tower Special Edition: It’s faster than it looks
BACK IN THE day, Dell’s XPS desktops were fire-breathing gaming machines. They could take on the best from Falcon Northwest, Alienware, Origin, and the rest of the “money is no object” boutique builders.
Then Dell bought Alienware, and the XPS desktop lineup moved away from big, beefy gaming rigs to Alienware, and instead focused on “premium design.” (Read: desktop towers that you’d be hard-pressed to tell apart from their non-gaming counterparts.)
Judging by the redesigned XPS Tower Special Edition (go.pcworld.com/xpstowerse), Dell remains committed to that division between its brands. Instead of an all-out battle station, this refreshed XPS offers a rock-solid gaming experience that runs coolly and quietly in an extremely understated design.
Chassis and ports
The big news with the XPS Tower Special Edition is its retooled chassis. The frame is now 27 percent smaller than the previous one, measuring just 15 inches tall and 14 inches deep. Dell’s achieved this shrinkage by moving some of the drive bays and putting the power supply over the CPU area.
Despite the tight design and single case fan—a 120mm spinner that sits atop the system at the back—airflow doesn’t seem to be an issue. (Skip ahead to the “Acoustics and thermals” section for how the machine performs during stress testing.) Tinkering with the system’s hardware is easy, too. When you pop off the side door via an easy-to-pull hinge on the
