Dell Dimension XPS B1000r review

Thanks to its 1GHz Pentium III and 64Mb GeForce graphics card, the Dell Dimension XPS B1000r is mind-numbingly fast.

It's also wallet-numbingly expensive.

The Dimension is the first system with a 1GHz Pentium III to enter the Buyer Labs. The Pentium boasts 256K on-die cache running at the same 1GHz frequency. On paper at least, the processor promises monstrous performance and for this reason alone the Dell is noteworthy. There is, however, more than just the Dell's CPU to spotlight it as unusual.

When I powered on the PC it also scooped up the Computer Buyer Golden Ears award for the noisiest machine ever heard. The 1GHz Pentium, as you'd expect, runs hot, despite all the technological advances Intel has instigated. To keep the silicon chilled, Dell has fitted a fan and cowl that wouldn't look out of place on an aeroplane.

The Dell is also the first PC we've seen to use RDRAM. RDRAM is far faster than the more commonplace SDRAM. The faster memory also looks far funkier than SDRAM, having a metallic blue cover over its all-important silicon. It also fits a different socket from SDRAM. So don't get any ideas about fitting RDRAM in your PC for extra speed - it'll neither fit nor work!

The Dell's Intel 820 motherboard has two RIMM sockets, and both are occupied. One plays host to the memory and the other holds a terminator. If and when RDRAM becomes cheaper, and you fancy adding some more, just remove the terminator and insert your new memory.

Dell has fitted 128Mb RDRAM, which sounds good, but is actually the bare minimum for PCs that aspire to being really fast. 256Mb would have been more appropriate in a machine at this price.

By normal standards, the Dimension has a massive hard drive - 30Gb in size. Again, this would usually be regarded as very generous, but this is not an everyday machine.

Size, as the old adage goes, isn't everything. Speed is also important. Here the Dell slips down a little, as its UltraDMA/66 Quantum Fireball disk isn't as frighteningly fast as I expected. In our speed tests, the Quantum is slower than our top choice from Maxtor.

Your £2,669 buys you plenty of goodies. Dell has fitted a 12-speed NEC DVD-ROM drive and a Sony CD-R/W. The Sony drive is capable of reading disks at 24-speed, writing to CD-Rs at eight-speed. If you're interested in using re-writable CD-R/W disks then the Sony will be able to write data at quad-speed.

But the Dell's graphics more than compensate for its comparative lows in the hard disk stakes. The card is a 64Mb Guillemot Prophet, built around the all-conquering nVidia GeForce 256 chip. Not only does the card have a king's ransom in RAM, it's the faster Double Data-Rate silicon too. If you're a serious gamer, you'd be hard pushed to find a better card. In the event, Dell scored a stonking 3226 in our Corel graphics test. When it came to 3DMark, Dell used its superior graphics to full effect, bringing home the gaming bacon faster than any machine we've seen.

The Dell's monitor is a goodie too. It's a 19in Dell UltraScan with a Sony Trinitron tube. The picture's excellent, as you'd rightly demand. Indeed, after close examination, I couldn't fault it. If all monitors were this great, the world would be a happier place.

Sound is handled by a Sound Blaster Live! Value 512, an excellent choice for gamers. It's teamed with a set of harman/kardon HK595 speakers, which look funky - and sound great. The satellites are thin and curved, as opposed to the more usual deep and square box designs. To bolster the sound, the set has a massive black subwoofer that delivers a fair thump. Again, gamers will be in ecstasy (and their neighbours in tears).