Product Reviews

Despite the phenomenal power of today's desktop machines, the draw of new technology continues to keep people coming back for more. And why not? When you can buy a PC like the Dell Dimension 8300 for just £1,299, everyone from small businesses to home users will start paying attention.

And it certainly looks like it means business. Dell describes the colouring as 'midnight grey and storm grey' and, while the design's been around for a couple of years now, it still looks good. The entire ensemble, including the TFT monitor, multimedia keyboard and Logitech optical mouse, are skilfully colour co-ordinated, giving the whole system an agreeably unified feel.

However, while it undoubtedly looks good, I still have mixed feelings about the hinged case design - it certainly works, but it takes up too much space when open. Once you're inside, you'll also discover the expansion options are fairly limited, with just a single unobstructed PCI slot. That said, there are two unoccupied DIMM sockets, while the impressive tally of eight USB 2 ports on the back offers an easy way to add devices. Another plus is Dell's ingenious cooling system, which funnels the 90mm CPU fan directly out to a rear exhaust, negating the need for any more fans.

Besides, it's not as if you're going to upgrade this system in a hurry anyway. Dell has already installed some top-line components, including a 3GHz Pentium 4 running on an 800MHz front side bus with the appropriate 875P motherboard chipset. Coupled with the 512MB of PC3200 RAM split over two DIMMs, this offers an impressive maximum memory bandwidth of 6.4GB/sec. Given that, and the buzz surrounding Intel's latest 875P chipset, the 2D benchmark result of 1.70 was slightly disappointing - especially in comparison with the Mesh Matrix 3200+ Power (see opposite) with its 2.2GHz Athlon XP 3200+ - but the Dimension is still more than fast enough for most applications.

What's more, I was pleased to note the inclusion of ATi's new flagship Radeon 9800 Pro, which will keep you ahead of the game for a good while to come. Scoring a stunning 17,512 in 3DMark2001 SE at 1,024 x 768 in 32-bit colour,

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this is among the fastest PCs we've seen in 3D. Its score only dropped to 11,865 with 4x anti-aliasing and 8x anisotropic filtering - even the gruelling 3DMark03 produced an incredible score of 5,632.

The 8300 will be future proof for a long time yet, and just to push the point further Dell includes a 120GB Serial ATA Seagate Barracuda V hard disk, which will look after most people's storage requirements for a while, and do it quickly with its 8MB buffer. There's also room inside for another hard disk, with a spare Serial ATA connector too. Even the DVD burner handily supports DVD+RW at 4x/2x, as well as CD-RW, and there's also a 16x DVD-ROM for convenient disc copying.

The two drives do, however, take up the only external 5.25in bays, leaving the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 without the front-panel breakout drive of the popular Platinum version. This won't make a huge difference to most users though, and at least it retains the six-pin FireWire port on the backplate. Paired with the 200W, THX-certified Altec Lansing ADA995 speakers (comprising a sizeable subwoofer and silver and black egg-shaped satellites), this is an extremely capable surround system, and it certainly brings DVDs and games to life. There's no volume control on the speakers themselves, but you'll find a knob on the pleasingly solid keyboard, and this works well in practice.

Partnered with the 18in TFT monitor, this makes for an excellent entertainment system. The screen deals respectably with fast-action gaming and DVDs look great, with very little ghosting. The colours are also crisp and vibrant through the DVI input at the native resolution of 1,280 x 1,024, and the viewing angles are impressively wide too, with the screen image still visible from a 90-degree angle. If there's one disappointment, it's that the screen is slightly reflective, which could prove distracting in bright conditions, but it's a minor complaint.

The 8300's predecessor, the 8250, sat on our A List as the Ultimate PC for several months before being knocked off by Evesham's phenomenal £1,849 Axis 3000+ TD2 (see issue 104, p112). And, fair enough, the Evesham leaves the Dell behind with its 2D score of 2.08 and 228GB hard disk RAID array, but the Dimension 8300 is hot on its heels in every other way, particularly with its incredible price of £1,299. This even includes a three-year, on-site, next-business-day warranty (use E-Value code 200-D52REV).

Due to the new technology, Dell is predicting a lead time of up to 30 days on the Dimension 8300, but if you're prepared to wait you won't regret it. While its 2D performance isn't mind-blowing, the DVD burner, cutting-edge graphics, brilliant 18in TFT and stunning speaker set make it a bargain.