Questions About The Dell XPS Special Edition Tower

[Kjennings92]

After some personal debate, I have chosen to go with a Dell XPS Special Edition tower to replace my older laptop which has been gradually slowing down. And I can't wait til I get it! However, I'm concerned about how good the cooling is. So far, I've asked my question on the Dell website (about a week ago now) & haven't yet heard anything. I have heard that the regular fans it has sometimes can be a little noisy. Strangely enough, I have also heard that a lot of the later Intel CPUs come with fans/coolers/heatsinks (whatever the appropriate term is) that aren't the greatest. With that said, I'm uncertain as to whether or not I should upgrade the CPU fan for better performance. If anyone who has had experience with this tower can tell me what to expect in terms of cooling performance, I would be VERY grateful! For general information, I want the best air performance possible so that the system will stay cool no matter what I'm doing. (I chose not to go with a liquid cooling system because they can be a bit more of a hassle when compared to air coolers. It's just my preference.)

 

Here are a few things you should know in case you need to ask me anything:

1.) I do plan on doing some gaming with the tower. Nothing super extreme, just normal games for the most part.

2.) Nothing in 4K as I chose not to go with a 4K monitor.

3.) The monitor I chose to pair with the desktop will be an Alienware AW2518H as a multi-purpose monitor.

4.) The main specs for the tower will be as follows: 8th Gen i7-8700 CPU (the non overclockable version), a 2 TB HDD + a smaller SSD, 16 GB of DDR4 ram, & a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070 Ti GPU.

 

If anyone needs any further details or if you have any other questions for me, feel free to drop me a line! Hopefully someone can help me out with this!

Thank you for your time, patience & help! Kyle.

[CapitalistVN]

Judging from the image on the Dell website about the cooling of the tower, I personally don't think that will be adequate even for an 8700. That's essentially a laptop cooler in disguise tbh.

[Crunchy Dragon]

1 minute ago, CapitalistVN said:

Judging from the image on the Dell website about the cooling of the tower, I personally don't think that will be adequate even for an 8700. That's essentially a laptop cooler in disguise tbh.

-snip-

If he used the Intel stock cooler, he might be able to get away with an 8700.

 

Assuming it'll fit on the board, Dell does love their proprietary connectors and form factors.

[Windows7ge]

If the tower is what I'm seeing on Google where the PSU can swivel out on its own little arm you're going to be extremely limited in your own CPU cooler options. The PSU covers up the CPU. A very low profile cooler like the default one installed are the only ones short enough to fit.

 

In terms of CPU cooling one of the most basic things you can do is change the thermal compound on the CPU. I have yet to encounter any pre-built system that doesn't use crap thermal compound. Personally I like Arctic Silver 99.9% silver compound or their polysynthetic ceramic variant.

[CapitalistVN]

1 minute ago, Windows7ge said:

If the tower is what I'm seeing on Google where the PSU can swivel out on its own little arm you're going to be extremely limited in your own CPU cooler options. The PSU covers up the CPU. A very low profile cooler like the default one installed are the only ones short enough to fit.

 

 

Can it possibly fit the NH-L9I though?

[Windows7ge]

2 minutes ago, CapitalistVN said:

Can it possibly fit the NH-L9I though?

Ha, yeah, that would fit. I said he'd be extremely limited. I didn't say that there are no options on the market at all. He's only working with a 65W chip...I'm not sure what the NH-L9I is rated to handle.

[CapitalistVN]

3 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

Ha, yeah, that would fit. I said he'd be extremely limited. I didn't say that there are no options on the market at all. He's only working with a 65W chip...I'm not sure what the NH-L9I is rated to handle.

It's rated handling 65W chips, but I recalled when Linus use this cooler in the ASRock MiniDesk PC, he almost fried the 7700K and the 7700 is also very hot. Sooooo... yeah.

[Windows7ge]

8 minutes ago, CapitalistVN said:

It's rated handling 65W chips, but I recalled when Linus use this cooler in the ASRock MiniDesk PC, he almost fried the 7700K and the 7700 is also very hot. Sooooo... yeah.

Not to mention the front cover doesn't show much ventilation except around the edges. I'm not certain there's any front fan at all just the options to add one or two. The blower is probably used to compensate for the lack of airflow in the case by sucking it in from all sides...I get the feeling this case will very dusty very quick.

[WoodenMarker]

25 minutes ago, CapitalistVN said:

Judging from the image on the Dell website about the cooling of the tower, I personally don't think that will be adequate even for an 8700. That's essentially a laptop cooler in disguise tbh.

It's much larger than any laptop cooler. Blower style coolers are very power and size efficient for cooling which is why they're used in so many laptops and prebuilts. 

From this article and the comments, cooling seems to be fine: https://www.pcmag.com/review/356700/dell-xps-tower-special-edition-8930

The main problem if any would be noise if the cpu is constantly under heavy load for something like renders. For what's described in the OP, that shouldn't be a problem.

23 minutes ago, Crunchy Dragon said:

If he used the Intel stock cooler, he might be able to get away with an 8700.

Assuming it'll fit on the board, Dell does love their proprietary connectors and form factors.

If there's enough space behind the motherboard tray for the push pins, it should fit but it's probably worse than the cooler included with the system. 

20 minutes ago, CapitalistVN said:

Can it possibly fit the NH-L9I though?

Yes but I don't think it'd be better for temps. It'd be quieter though.