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Anyone knows who is the supplier of the motherboard ???

it's an Intel board probably made by Foxconn, which makes the Intel-brand boards in masses - in this case for Dell (Motherboard ID 64-2776-009999-00101111-060509-TYLSBURG$1AAAA000). This also means that you cannot overclock it. There is only little you can do in the BIOS. The memory won't go above 1066 (you can install faster though) and the max you can install on this specific board is 12Gb.

this is an excellent machine. got mine from outlet a couple 100 cheaper. the warranty from outlet is only 1 yr. It makes your OS fly

Thanks!

Got mine from the outlet several months ago for $629 with a better video card and less RAM. Expandability is limited, but very powerful machine as is. After waiting a long time for the right buy, I've been very happy with this purchase.

Will Dell void the warranty if I install a third party (better) video card? Dell ATI 4850 is way too expensive.

I never had a problem with Dell if you upgrade or add a card inside ...

#5: well, if you're going to upgrade to a higher end video card, you may need to upgrade the power supply as well. This one comes with a 360watt PSU, which won't be enough for a lot of the higher end video cards.

Apparently, it can handle the Radeon 4850, as Dell is offering that as an option, but avoid anything that draws more power than that.

As a note, this computer does use standard ATX power supplies, so it's an easy upgrade, if you do need it.

XPS are great fast gaming machine. Mine is 4 years old and I have never had any issues. Smoking fast systems, you really get your moneys worth.

CompWiz17, thanks a lot.

I am running a three years old XPS and it exhibits some issues lately. At some times the PSU fan was really loud. It now stops roaring but I don't really know whether it comes back to normal or the fan died. The second issue was the board stop recognizing the 3 extra harddisks that I installed two years ago without any issues. I unplug then replug in either the power or data cables and they (the disks) work again, for some times, and then lost. I then remove two disks (still not work) and eventually change the battery. It is okay now, with only one extra disk. Only when I replaced the CMOS battery then the machine alerted there were several issues including the fan thing and "battery low power." The XPS line apparently is not even close a perfect machine. I built/used several system since Intel AT286 (believe it or not) and DOS 5.0 so I guess I know how to care for a machine.

I agree with you and it seems building one's own machine can bring some extra benefits evidently. There are just not enough good financially and technically ready-built machines out there for us consumers to choose. At some points I even think that there is a conspiracy among the manufacturers to force us to pay for their overpriced products.

I am now considering checking some websites to learn (again) how to build a modern system. I have not done this for more than a decade or so and I don't really know what happens these days.

Any idea about a decent setup? How about your recently built one?

Thanks again, CompWiz17.

#10: I've built quite a few systems, so I can help you out there.

What do you plan to use your system for? Also, what do you think you'd like to spend on it?

CompWiz17, let's say we start with a quad-core or an i7. Everything will be following. A Phenom would be nice too. I want to work mostly with movie stuff (just for fun, not for fund) and a little some games. Speaking of cost, I guess a homebrew system would be much cheaper than an equivalent Dell or HP. A 600 - 700 price range would work?