Dell XPS Tower Special Edition (8930) Review: A Coffee Lake-Infused Sleeper Rig


Dell XPS Tower Special Edition (8930): Grand Theft Auto V And Thief

Grand Theft Auto V
DirectX 11 Gaming Performance

Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series has been wildly successful for many years now, offering some of the edgiest story lines, game play tactics and objectives the gaming industry has ever seen. With psychopathic main characters, you are left in the depraved communities of Los Santos and Blaine County, to walk a path few would dare choose in real life, committing nefarious acts, robbing and pillaging to complete your objectives. In short, it's rather entertaining that you're tasked with leaving a virtual world worse off than you found it, consequences be damned. We benchmark GTA V at 1920x1080, 2560x1440, and 3840x2160 at the Very High Quality preset.

Grand Theft Auto V
Grand Theft Auto V

Dell XPS Tower Special Edition Grand Theft Auto V

Dell's XPS Tower Special Edition puts on a better showing in Grand Theft Auto V, where it leapfrogs over Lenovo's IdeaCentre Y710 Cube in two of the three resolutions tested. Here we see more strong performance across board—at 4K, the XPS Tower SE averages 68 fps, and tops 180 fps at 1080p. Smooth as butter, baby.

Thief
DirectX 11 Gaming Performance

Square Enix set the tone for Thief by saying, "Garrett, the Master Thief, steps out of the shadows into the City. In this treacherous place, where the Baron’s Watch spreads a rising tide of fear and oppression, his skills are the only things he can trust. Even the most cautious citizens and their best-guarded possessions are not safe from his reach." The Thief series has been popular for years, not only for its interesting story lines and unique gameplay, but because the games have consistently featured excellent graphics and imagery, and leveraged bleeding graphics edge technology, like AMD's Mantle API, for example.

thief screenshot
Thief

Dell XPS Tower Special Edition Thief

In our last gaming benchmark, the XPS Tower SE edges out Lenovo's desktop at 1080p, loses by a few fps in 1440p, and comes in a just a single fps behind in 4K. The results are exaggerated in our graphs, given how close the two performed to one another across the board.

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