Dell Updates Top-End XPS 720 H2C Gaming System

Dell's latest iteration of its XPS 700-series gaming systems takes overclocking to new levels. The company announced today that its premium-priced (opening price is $5299), top-tier offering will bump to the XPS 720 H2C; along with the model number change, this model offers more overclocking options on Intel chips. Like the XPS 710 H2C before it, this new model features Dell's unique designed ceramic water cooling system.

According to Ketan Pandya, Dell's marketing manager for XPS gaming, the ceramic water cooling has been highly effective, and is what let the company push its overclocking even further. The system has two Intel Core 2 Extreme quad-core CPU options: the QX6700, which can be overclocked to 3.46 GHz, and the QX6800, which can be overclocked to 3.73 GHz at the factory. In the BIOS, says Pandya, "users can go in and tweak it as high as bin +5, about 3.93 GHz clockspeed, and Dell will support it." The system has safeguards to protect against catastrophic failure.

The CPU isn't the only option performance-minded gamers have when it comes to overclocking. The Corsair 800-MHz DDR2 Dominator memory can be bumped to 1066-MHz. And the BIOS also supports user adjustments to the front-side bus speed. The CPU, memory, and front-side bus overclocking will be supported by Dell under warranty. Dell isn't supporting GPU overclocking, though.

Other new options with this system: nVidia nForce 680i SLI and nVidia's 8800 Ultra graphics; a Blu-ray Disc burner; and support for RAID 0+1 and RAID 5 configurations among the system's maximum of four hard disk drives. Interesting side notes: Dell will offer Hitachi's 7K1000 1TB hard drive as an option; and the RAID configurations are both available even if you choose Dell's DataSafe option for disk backup.

Customization fans will appreciate Dell's enhancement to the XPS 720 H2C's aesthetics. Before, you could select lights and colors of lights, for the massive, piano-black chassis' three lighting zones. Now you can select actual lighting effects, where, in some applications, the lights adapt to what's going on on-screen. Lights can respond to iTunes and Windows MediaPlayer. "Ultimately," says Pandya, "game publishers the lights reaction into their software."

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