I priced up the same spec as I am paying £720 for, and hit £1200 and thats without all the grief and time of building/configuring and installing drivers (once you find the 64 bit versions). The Dell deal was a no brainer in my book,

Of course, that's absolutely fine if you know what you're doing but I wouldn't have the first idea how to overclock anything and I'm not into building PCs from scratch. I'm sure I could do so but it would take so much of my time researching what to do as to make it an illogical decision when I can buy the Dell pre-built and tested in a matter of seconds.

Speaking of which - great excitement this evening as I note these magic words on the Dell order tracking page:

"Your order has been sent for delivery."

Woohoo! Roll on Monday!

Regards
Dave

Again, corrrect me if I am wrong, you would have to buy another MoBo and trade it out in the Dell system if you wanted to overclock it? Probably have to change the power supply and cooling also?? I am a total neophyte at computer building, although I've upgraded a few.

Yes, I wouldn't try to overclock a dell system and I certainly wouldn't try to swap out critical components such as motherboard, etc, etc. Their systems are pretty well built and once you pull off the case, I think you'll agree that system modifications such as a mobo swap are risky and difficult. Why the need to overclock? You may be able to eek out a 5-15% speed improvement but at the potential cost of system stability and longevity.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against doing so, but if you are not exactly experienced with doing it, I think you are definately best leaving it alone. This frankly is analogus to modifying your car with new headers, exhaust, computer chips, etc, etc, etc.. Yes, it can work out, but in most cases, leaving the complete system alone the way the designer originally intended it has merit....

Jon

Oh, and let me add one more thing here.... And I'm speaking as somebody who HAS overclocked my systems in the past and have *always* built my pc's...

System overclockers mainly do so for sport... The time system overclockers GAIN with the performance increase will rarely ever make up for the time SPENT going through all the benchmarking, stability testing (burn-in), system configuration, cost of equipment upgrades such as better coolers, fans, etc, etc... People typically overclock as a hobby with the benefit of having a faster computer.....

To get 15% more speed in your Vegas renders you may spend countless hours and money to reach it. Heck, you might as well just buy the next fastest processor.

There have been times I've applied a very mild overclock to my system by way of a few BIOS settings that I knew were extremely conservative and my existing hardware would easily handle it. You may not yield the highest performance gains of overclocking, but you will get a small speed benefit while most likely not sacrificing reliability with the least amount of time involved with doing it.

Jon

Terry, the answer to your question is no, you cannot swap out Dell MOBO or power supply. They are not standard sizes, and are made deliberately so they cannot be swapped out.

Dell connectors used are also proprietary and non-standard.

Though I build my own, I don't recommend building your own unless you have time for a new hobby. The research is lengthy, the potential pitfalls are many. In general it can be very trying.

The potential for increase in performance is huge with the i7 chip. I personally wouldn't consider a non-clockable i7 system at this point.

Another way to put it is that Dell components are purposely non-standard to keep people from buying components on the open market instead of buying through Dell.

I don't think Dell tries to scr-w people on price, or they wouldn't have been able to build their business to its current level, but they definitely want all possible sales revenue to flow through them for options/upgrades etc.

Well, I'd say this is about half true..

With virtually any Dell system you can add the following:

CPU Upgrade
Hard Drive
Video Card
CD/DVD Rom Drive
Memory
Any other Add-on Card, etc..

So that pretty much covers about 90% of what somebody might want to add to their computer. What you probably would have a very difficult time doing would be to replace a mainboard... So let's not give Dell too hard a time and throw them to the wolves as protecting their investments with proprietary hardware... It's not like they are Apple!!! :)

Jon

Mine arrived today. Wont get a chance to set it up for a week or so as I need to clear off some projects.

Anybody got a clue what the centre port on my graphics card is?

LHS-DVI
RHS-HDMI
Centre-Who Knows?

That's Dells Display Port in the middle. I have one on my Dell 2408WFP Monitor. It's a bit like (yet) another variant of HDMI I think and the cables look quite similar (BUT are not interchangeable). The port on the right is HDMI. Maybe someone makes a conversion lead or plug as it's basically a digital display connection.

I just use the DVI plugs so can't help further. Why do manufactures keep changing these things! (Apple are just as bad with their latest itteration of their own display plugs).

Thats crazy? Are DVI and HDMI not good enough for them?

Bit miffed as I specifically said I would be using two DVI monitors and they didn't include the HDMI to DVI adapter.

I suspect Jim's and Jeff's answers (earlier, above) give you the reason......Yes, it's crazy!!!

I think it is cool that you have an HDMI port, Alastair. Besides an i7 processor, I think an HDMI port is the only thing I'm missing from my currentl configuration that I miss.

Hi Jeff, You could always add a Black Magic Intensity card. I will be fitting mine into this case which means I have to use the adpater I mentioned to convert HDMI to DVI. Using 2 24's and a 42" 1080p panel via the Intensity.

Alastair, what is the purpose of the Black Magic Intensity cards? As someone who shoots in HD now, do I have a need for it?

For a Vegas user like me, it lets me output my preview screen to a 42" 1080p panel.

It works with other editing packages as well. Probably better, as the Vegas release is still a BETA version. It also lets you capture un-compressed HD. Be warned though...the files are HUGE!

Trust me that overclocking is not done for sport in my case. I don't play games. Raising your BUS speed from 133 to 185 required going into the bios and making about 2-3 changes. It took a few minutes.

I wasn't telling people who don't understand computers to go out and build a system, but they could purchase a system that includes a motherboard like and Asus P6T or Gigabyte equivolent. They may even have a computer builder in their area who could offer something.

This is not a fringe activity. For more information you can look here:
bit-tech.net | Guide - Overclocking Intel's Core i7 920

I don't agree with you dismissing the significant speed gains and saying it takes hours. It literally takes 5-10 minutes for someone who has never done it and it results about a 30-40% speed bump. Moving from 2.66Ghz to 3.6Ghz on the CPU while also increasing the BUS clock is not insignificant and if it can be done reliably (which with this chip it can)the results are huge. You recommended buying the next faster processor as a better option but the very fastest Intel i7 is 3.2Ghz and costs $900.00. The entry level processor overclocked will be much faster not only because of the faster clock speed to also becuase of the jump in BUS speed.

My recommendation is to talk to a local computer builder who may even make the bios changes for you, or investigate online options. Most of all don't dismiss things before fully educating yourself. Every new chip/motherboard combination yields different results and your results may have been mixed but this combo is pretty special.

-Jonathan

P.S. If anyone is interested in the exact hardware that should be used, the settings that need to be made in BIOS, or the risks to overclocking I would be happy to answer.

Since i used to OC everything, I can safely say, that messing with CS latency timing, voltage jumps, and frequency multipliers is.... not something 90% of hte people here in DVInfo are interested in. The jump of render times from 5hrs to 1hr is what matters, not the 1hr vs 58 minute difference.

But if you can reliably tweak your systems, then have fun because I remember how fun it was to squeeze more out of a box than the manufacturers said you could.

As I understand it, the i7 has something called "turbo boost" that automatically overclocks until it reaches it's temperature/power limits.

There was a comment in the Intel white paper that mentioned something about how this feature has to be "requested" by the operating system. Not quite sure what that means or how one gets the system to "request" it, though.

It's arrived!
 

Mine turned up this morning too. I'm supposed to be working very hard on some documents this week ... but only managed to stop myself setting it up until mid-afternoon. No willpower whatsoever ;-)

Plugged it in to the 1920x1080 Dell monitor I also persuaded myself to buy, installed Vegas 8.1 (hey, where's the preview in Trimmer gone, or is that only on 8.0c?)

Have had time for just one test, a video of my cat that I did when I first got the V1 (Cat on Vimeo if you're interested)

Time to render for Vimeo HD (H264 codec, 4Mbit-5Mbit)
* on my old Pentium 4 2.5GHZ: over 16 minutes
* on the Core i7 2.66GHz: 1 min, 27 sec.

Yum, yum, yum! Very pleased indeed. And full-screen preview at 1080 with no jerkiness too, lovely.

Regards
Dave

Update Us!
 

Thought I would bring this back to top. So what are you guys seeing with your new systems?

I'm just in the niddle of the great pc shuffle at the moment. Should have it powered up over the hols.

Mine showed up a couple of days ago, but haven't fired it up it yet - still agonizing over whether to bite the bullet and get another 30" Apple Cinema display for it or something smaller.

The way my workspace is set up I think I have room for three of the 30 inchers so the second one would fit OK and I could eventually have two on the new machine and one on the old machine. And the graphics card I have in both the old and new machine will support two of them at full resolution.

And two of them would look so neat.

And I'd have space for all those palletes

And they'd look so neat...

Decisions, decisions! I wish someone besides my wife would tell me why I don't want that second 30 incher! Help me before I do my part to revive the economy!!!

Hi guys, just wanted to know how much would cost in Europe the pc you'r talking about.Do you think there will be a lot of difference between a Intel core2 duo EXTREME x 9000?

thx

Keeping in mind that I do not have an i7 (but that I am a huge computer hardware geek) my opinion is that the i7 will be MUCH MUCH faster than the Pynron core based x9000 CPU. The x9000 CPU is a NOTEBOOK cpu and as such is designed to go easy on power, and to be a scaled down version of a full desktop CPU.

The i7 is designed to be as fast as absolutely possible, and not be bottlenecked by notebook power restrictions.

If you are constrained by a budget, then I'm sure the x9000 will be a good alternative. If you can afford both, but are wondering about the relative performance difference, I would expect the i7 to be easily TWICE as fast, if not more, than the x9000, primarily because the i7 is a 4 core chip and the x900 is 2 core, but also because of the different intended uses of the chip.

Jim FYI, the HP 30" monitor is priced less and seems to have better specs than the Apple. Reviews for the HP are impressive. Available at newegg.

Question for any of you Dell i7 users. Does your eSATA work?

Mine worked briefly (recognised the drive) then hung my system. Now....no matter what way I try it, I get nothing.

Have tried a few differennt drives and two different enclosures.

Alastair, is your e-SATA integrated or a PCIe card? The reason I ask is because I've had issue with Dell integrated contollers in the past. Actually, I've had issues with integrated controllers in other systems as well.

I personally have been so disappointed with integrated controllers I've vowed to never use them again.

It's incorporated into the MOBO by the looks of things. It's located in amongst all the USB/Sound/Optical/Firewire/Network connections.

Well, I don't know if you have a workstation or consumer pc, but I do know their support for my last Dell workstation was outstanding.

You might try their live support, it was fast and very responsive. This is likely a common issue, and they may have a suggestion. Their first question will be if your bios and chipset drivers are the latest. If there is a newer, separate driver for your e-sata controller you should update that before calling also.

Jeff is right!Dell support is awesome.Maybe the best custumor service you can get from a brand that sell pc.
I have an extrem x9000 cause i have a laptop,it was the best out there last summer when i purchased my precision...Is there a better option 4 the laptops right now?

Talking about prices:how much are uyou spending for theese fast machines?
thx

As a current Dell Financial customer in my last statement was an insert offering a $399 discount on a config of the Studio XPS with the i7. The sale price is $1099 and includes a 22" monitor. Other details are 6gb RAM, Vista Premium, 2 year warranty. The deal expires Jan 25 and if anyone wants to check it out you can enter the "E-Value" code in the Dell search area and it should come up. The E code is: 6M257-DXCDZZ2

I have been sorely tempted to order this as an upgrade from my dual core system but as I am just starting my Wedding Videography biz and don't expect to be doing much editing until Spring I am gambling even better deals will be available then.

You are absolutely right, the deals will get better. Wise decision to wait if you don't need it now.

Just built my i7 today and I'm loving it. Before my previous computer choked so much on AVCHD now I'm trying to see what will make Vegas stumble. So far everything went shockingly well.

Ok Guys!
 

What are some of you finding out with your new systems?

I'm finding out my eSATA port no longer works. But....the guys above were right, seriously good customer service from Dell. Called them and they are sending out someone to my house in two days to replace the mobo.

Here's hoping I then have a working eSATA port and can get on with some proper testing. At present, this is holding me back from being able to say how smooth playback is and how quickly rendering is going as I am having to use USB2 which is slower.

I'm excited to be joining the i7 Club tomorrow - another Dell Studio XPS user here, chose to buy a new PC rather than sinking hundreds of $$ to upgrade my dual core 32-bit machine. Got a great deal on the 121M configuration (i7 920 CPU, 6GB RAM, 750GB HD, ATI 4850 graphics card).

I'll be setting it up to run Vegas Pro, downloading the 64-bit version from Sony ... any pointers or advice for this process? Thanks!

Sam

I should mention that I'm an existing Vegas Pro user (version 8.0c)

If you're new to Vista, read up on tweaks to mimimize OS drains on your resources.

Install 8.1 first thing after you've tweaked it. Remember to defragment your HD after installing new programs.

I personally zero out the new hard drive as soon as I boot up a new Dell and reinstall Windows. If all you have is a restore disc and they didn't give you an OS disc, then there isn't much point in doing that.

Be prepared that 8.1 might not work perfectly. When I click on the external preview button in 8.1 Vegas freezes and I have to shut down. I can't use it. Also Excalibur is the only plugin that works with 8.1.

Most have found it works fine, but not everyone, so be ready for that.

Install 8.0c after you install 8.1. 8.0c works fine installed with 8.1 already on there.

i7
 

I will be receiving my I7 computer in the next day or two.

I was going to build one but after reading this list I went to dell and opted for an xps 435 MT.

I kept it base knowing I will upgrade to raid and more internal drives in a month or two from now.

I7 920 (2.66 gh) processor, 6 gigs of tri channel ram

750 gig hard drive (I have a 1 t external that allows interchanging hard drives)

dual layer dv d burner (bluray to come later) to do my test burning on.

Out the door for 1,164.40 Canadian. I could not get the parts for that.

Big step up from my dual core ath 64 HP media center and my upscale P4!!!



Thanks for the advice on this board!!!


Now to over clock it to 3 gigs and add a cooler.