Nicholas Rayner

Over the weekend I got a nice email from Dell informing me that their brand new XPS 730. Here are the official specs:

Processors

The XPS 730 supports dual-core and quad-core Intel^®  processors.

45nm Intel^®  Core^TM 2 Extreme

  Operating System

Genuine Windows Vista^®  Home Premium

Genuine Windows Vista^®  Ultimate

For more details on Dell systems that run Windows Vista, see www.dell.com/vista.

  Chipset

NVIDIA nForce^®  790i Ultra SLI^TM

  Cooling

Dell’s patented H2C 2-stage Hybrid (Liquid/Thermoelectric) Cooling Device gives improved performance over a standard liquid cooling device. The optional H2C Hybrid Liquid Cooling solution is only available at the point of sale.

  2-stage Cooling cools more efficiently and more quietly

  It is a sealed device which means less maintenance hassle for you (no 6 monthly refill cycle)

  Runs cooler in overclocking mode

  Runs more quietly in normal operating mode

  Memory

Dual channel DDR3 SDRAM system memory

  Graphics Technology³

Designed to support the new PCI Express 2.0 bus architecture with two x16 graphics cards slots, the NVIDIA nForce^®  790i Ultra SLI^TM will support single, dual and Quad Graphics solutions, for sizzling graphics speeds leading to a truely immersive gaming experience.

NVIDIA SLI^TM  technology is a revolutionary platform innovation that allows you to intelligently scale graphics performance by combining multiple NVIDIA^®  graphics solutions in a single system with an NVIDIA nForce^®  SLI^TM  MCP.

ATI CrossFireX^TM  multi-GPU technology takes your gaming experience to unforeseeable heights with more scalability, higher performance and compatibility for unparalleled visual thrills than ever before.

  Hard Drives

Single Drives: Up to 1TB

Single Performance Drives: Up to 1TB

RAID 1: Up to 1TB (1TB X 2 SATA -II 3Gb/s, 7200RPM)

Additional Hard Drives without RAID: 250GB ,320GB 500GB ,750GB and 1TB

RAID 0: Up to 2TB(1TB X 2 SATA -II 3Gb/s, 7200RPM)

Up to 4TB storage capacity available: [2TB RAID 0 as your primary boot volume plus 2TB Raid 0 extra storage capacity]

  Optical Drives and Media Card Reader

Both single and dual drive configurations available

Single Drives: 16x DVD+/-RW Drive, Blu-ray Disc^TM  (reads/writes CD, DVD, Blu-ray discs)

Dual Drives: DVD-ROM and 16x DVD+/-RW Drive, Blu-ray Disc^TM  and 16x DVD+/-RW Drive (reads/writes CD, DVD, Blu-ray discs)

Optional Dell 19 in 1 Media Card Reader with integrated Bluetooth

  Sound Cards

Sound Blaster X-Fi^TM  Xtreme Gamer

  Physics Accelerator

Optional AGEIA^®  PhysX^TM  processor PPA1 (PCIe)

  Chassis Features

Chassis

Height: 55.5 cm (21.9 inches) without stand; 57.2 cm (22.5 inches) with stand

Width: 21.9 cm (8.6 inches) without stand; 35.6 cm (14.0 inches) with stand

Depth: 59.4 cm (23.4 inches)

Weight: 21.7 kg (47.8 lb) typical configuration; 31 kg (68 lb) maximum configuration

Power

EPA compliant 80+ 1KW power supply on all configurations

Slots

PCIe X 16 Gen 2 – 2 slots

PCIe x 16 – 1 slot

PCIe x 1 – 2 slots

PCI – 2 slot

Bays

4 x 5.25" optical bays

4 x 3.5" internal HDD bays

2 x 3.5" external flex bays (floppy/media reader)

Standard I/O Ports

Front: USB 2.0 (x2), 1394a (x1), (1) headphone out, (1) microphone in, optional 19-in-1 media card reader

Rear (Audio connectors): S/PDIF Audio Out(Coax and Optical), microphone, line-in, line-out, center/LFE, Rear Surround, Side Surround

Rear(Other): USB 2.0 (x6), 1394a (x1), eSATA (x1), PS/2 Mouse and Keyboard, Gigabit Ethernet (x2)