Dell's XPS 600 line of gaming desktops not only features high-end components for excellent performance, but they're packaged inside Dell's newly revamped chassis that gives the more expensive enthusiast PC vendors a run for their money.

The large silver and black chassis features new armored front plating. The majority of the case exterior is plastic, but it feels quite sturdy while making it easier to move the system around (say, to a buddy?s LAN party) than a solid metal case. Opening the case and adding and removing components can all be handled without tools, so it?s very upgrade friendly.

You won't need many upgrades for quite some time. At baseline, the system ships with a great set of core power and storage. The standard configuration is a 3.0GHz Pentium 4 processor and 1GB of 533MHz DDR2 memory. That should be sufficient, but the $200 upgrade to a 3.0GHz Pentium D Dual Core processor gives you two core processors in a single chip.

Dual Core upgrades beyond that are much more costly, with the 3.2GHz Pentium D being $400 over baseline and the ultimate 3.2GHz Extreme Edition Dual Core a hefty $1,000 extra. If you do want to beef up the memory, you can double the RAM to 2GB for a decent price of $120 or upgrade to 1GB of faster 667MHz memory for only $20.

There's a 160GB 7,200rpm hard drive in the XPS 600, providing lots of room for game installations and multimedia files. Upgrades are reasonable, with a 250GB drive available for an additional $60. These Dimensions support RAID options, enabling upgrades to 320GB of space in twin 160GB drives for $100 over baseline. The maximum option is an awesome one terabyte of space in twin drives, but it will set you back $880.

The starting configuration includes a DVD-ROM drive and a 48X/32X/48X CD-RW drive. Potentially, you can burn an audio CD while you're watching a movie on DVD, but you still won?t have any DVD writing capability. For $20, you can swap out the two drives for a single 16X DVD+/-RW Dual Layer drive and burn to both DVD-R and DVD+R as well as the newer high-capacity DL media (able to store over 8GB of data on a single disk). If you want two drives, you can pair the DVD-ROM drive with that DVD+/-RW drive for $40, letting you make disk-to-disk burns on the fly.

These are gaming systems, and Dell knew not to shirk on the graphics card. The XPS 600 ships with an NVIDIA GeForce 6800 PCI Express card with 256MB of graphics memory. It's a high-end card that will serve most gamers quite well. Hard-core enthusiasts can upgrade to NVIDIA?s cutting-edge GeForce 7800 GTX card for $400. Or, for the ultimate in gaming performance, you can pair two of the 7800 boards in an SLi configuration for $850. It drives the price up considerably, but it's one of the best graphics performance options currently available.

The XPS 600 ships with Windows XP Media Center edition. With that operating system and the core power inside the PC, it can be the centerpiece of your home theater system as well. For $149, you can add a dual TV tuner and a remote control to your Dell. This lets you input television signals for watching or recording on your PC, turning it into a Personal Video Recorder (PVR). Since it's a dual tuner, you can watch one show and record another at the same time.

Dell includes a 17-inch flat panel monitor with the systems, but they're currently offering a free upgrade to a 19-inch LCD. This large screen is great for gaming and watching movies, yet doesn't take up tons of desktop space. If you already have a display or want to hook up your XPS to an HDTV in your living room, you can forgo the monitor and knock $100 off the price.

Audio is generated by the SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS soundcard that includes an additional Firewire port (there's already one in front and one in back). No speakers are included with the system.

The input devices are rather basic, but upgrading to a wireless keyboard and wireless optical mouse is $50. It's a great option to consider if you'll the XPS in your living room and compute from the couch.

There's only a one-year warranty on the XPS 600, but you get lifetime 24/7 telephone tech support as long as you own the system, and Dell provides dedicated XPS gaming support.

The Dell Dimension XPS 600 sells for less than $1,800 in a great configuration that includes a 19-inch flat-panel monitor. Even if you spring for the upgrades necessary to make it a top-of-the-line gaming system, it still costs less than most dedicated gaming systems.


Pro: Includes 19-inch LCD, good power core and storage
Con: Some upgrades expensive

FOR MORE INFORMATION
Dell Computer Corporation
One Dell Way
Round Rock, TX 78682
(800) 915-3355
http://www.dell.com

Ratings:
Overall Value: 8
Performance: 9
Ease of Use: 7
Documentation: 7

Warranty
1-year