Long gone are the days when you have to spend the first half hour uinstalling a bunch of trialware and other third-party cruft when booting up a new PC for the first time. There are still some exceptions out there, just not here.


We booted to a clean desktop. Behind the scenes is a 12-month subscription to McAfee LiveSafe, which is sort of an all-encompassing security package (more than just antivirus software), so it's not totally devoid of third-party software. But at least in this case it's an actual unlocked product and not a 30-day trial. Whether or not you choose to use it is another story.

As for the operating system, the default option is Windows 10 Home 64-bit. Dell does offer an optional upgrade to the Pro version for $60 more, if you need it.


Software represents another area where the Inspiron Gaming Desktop differs from the XPS Tower. The only custom utility on this system is Dell's SupportAssist. This provides a GUI front-end for downloading drivers and auditing your system, though it can also analyze your hardware to look for problems or predict if a component is likely to fail. This is done by running a Hardware Checkup.

This system comes with onboard 802.11ac Wi-Fi, but unlike the XPS Tower, it's not using any Killer products from Rivets Network, therefore there's no fancy Killer Control Center (or any advanced wireless controls). It also lacks a software equalizer for the onboard audio.

Since there's not much to see here, let's dive into the benchmarks...