Dell XPS 8340 Desktop PC Review | Biden News

Introduction and Pricing

It’s been a while since we’ve had a desktop system for testing, but we were lucky enough to snag Dell’s XPS 8340 right when we finished the XPS 9315 just a few weeks back. As most know, XPS is still the flagship brand for Dell, while Alienware is the high-end gaming brand. That said, the XPS still offers a strong platform that can be configured for gaming if you don’t like the aesthetics of Alienware platforms. The 8340 is a highly customizable system, as seen in the image below, so let’s see how our review was specified.

VIEW GALLERY – 32 PICTURES

Before diving in, I will note that our review system was configured with the 12600K. At the time of writing, I was unable to configure the system as shipped on the Dell.com website, so we chose the 12700 non-K for price reasons.

Moving on, the XPS 8340 is an Intel 600 series chip platform. It can be specified with any CPU from the 12400 to the 12900K. As mentioned above, our unit shipped with the 12600K. Memory is DDR5, 16GB in a dual-bus configuration running at 4400MHz. Furthermore, our XPS 8340 includes the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti LHR with 8GB of GDDR6, and storage consists of 2TB NVMe and 1TB SATA HDD. Allowing for expansion, the XPS 8340 has several PSU options, ours coming with the 750W unit. We also added water cooling just for the extra thermal headroom in testing.

The MSRP for this system comes in at $1717.99 at the time of writing. Dell includes a one-year warranty along with available 24/7 support.

The XPS 8340, BIOS and Software

Packaging and BIOS

Unboxing the XPS 8340, we are graced with a mostly white chassis with the front I/O painted silver. At the top, you’ll find the power button followed by a full-sized card reader, 3.5mm audio jack, three USB 3.2 ports and USB-C at the bottom. Also note, this unit has an optical drive installed.

Moving to the rear, at the top, you’ll find a thumb screw to release the side panel from the chassis. We then move down into the trigger and rear I/O. This includes a full set of rear audio outputs and DisplayPort. Further down, you’ll notice another set of four USB-A ports and another USB-C.

Below, we have the PSU and its input, and above, the GeForce RTX 3060 Ti and its four DP and one HDMI ports.

Opening up the XPS 8340, Dell manages the cable layout quite well. Starting from the top, we have two cages for 3.5″ HDDs, one occupied by our IronWolf drive. Moving down into the system, Dell uses a custom motherboard; even the form factor is not a DIY standard. It offers several NVMe slots and there’s a four-slot DDR5 board that can handle 128GB of memory. The CPU is embedded, so there’s room for an upgrade. Below, we note everything snapped into place, including cooling fans and the GPU itself.

BIOS

The BIOS is basic and includes the main menu showing the installed hardware configuration.

The advanced menu includes options for core configuration along with HT and Speed ​​Step. Further down, you’ll find support for switchable drive support and SATA/NVMe operating mode.

Dell includes overclocking features in the BIOS. Although simplified, it allows several levels.

Software

My Dell is the software included with the XPS 8340. This includes model identification and warranty support on the right panel.

While exploring the software, the top menu enables customization control, device manager and system health.

Dell Cinema moves into audio and network traffic control with CinemaStream.

As seen above, we have CPUz shots for both the CPU and memory.

As noted, our 8340 came with the 3060 Ti installed.

Cinebench, Crossmark and AIDA64

Cinebench R23

Cinebench is a long-standing image benchmark that Intel and AMD have relied heavily on to highlight their latest platforms during unveilings. The benchmark has two tests, a single-core workload that will use one thread or 1T and a multi-threaded test that uses all threads or nT of a tested CPU.

Starting with R23, the XPS got us 1902 single thread and 17333 for multi thread.

Throwing the 8340 into our charts, we only have one comparison machine in the ThinkStation equipped with the 12900.

Above we have thrown our nT results into our chart.

mark of the cross

CrossMark allowed a score of 1911; this includes 1822 in productivity and 2051 in creativity. Liability landed in 1786.

Moving that data to charts, the XPS holds its own, capturing a better score in responsiveness.

AIDA64

Above, we have the memory benchmark results for an 8340 with throughput between 52K and 58K while latency is quite high at 92ns.

Throwing those results into our charts, the 8340 has considerable latency from the stock DDR5 modules. It is 10ns slower than the ThinkStation using DDR5 SODIMMs.

UL Benchmarks

3DMark and Gaming

3DMark

Going into 3DMark, the XPS scored a single-threaded score of 986 and a sixteen-threaded score of 8019.

In comparison, we still have the ThinkStation along with the 8340.

Time Spy got a total score of 11374, slightly above average for the hardware and capable of 105 FPS+ in BFV.

Back to our charts, the XPS 8340 performs better in gaming than the productivity-focused ThinkStation.

Hitting the storage benchmark, the XPS 8340 landed with a score of 2750, with bandwidth at 476.32.

Procyon results were quite good and on par with what we found when testing many Z690 boards last gen with our 12600K. 6501 for Photo and 6792 for Office.

I tagged a couple of extra benches here for the 8340. One was WEBXPRT4, scoring 316 points.

Value and Final Thoughts

Value

Price v Performance landed well for the 8340, given the small number of platforms in our bestsellers.

Final Thoughts

Dell’s XPS 8340, on a 12th Gen Intel platform, is a good starting point for a nervous newbie just getting into gaming or streaming who is still deciding on building a machine. It offers the performance expected from its components, as we noted in our testing, and doesn’t require all the knowledge needed when putting together a system yourself. It is upgradable to a point; this includes memory, CPU and GPU, and if configured correctly when ordering can support the absolute best components available.

In our testing, although limited by pre-built comparisons, the XPS 8340 performed quite well and matched what we’ve seen many Z690 motherboards rate with our 12600K last generation. R23 provided 1902 single strand and 17333 nT. Looking at CrossMark, we saw an amazing score for responsiveness and productivity. Procyon performed where we expected, with a slightly higher score in Office, although Photo was only slightly behind. We ran limited gaming tests on the XPS, Time Spy showing a score of 11374, which ended up slightly above average for the components.

As with all pre-built systems, it’s always hard to justify prices because “you can build it cheaper.” On that note, we tried just that, using Newegg.com to build a system as close as possible to the unit Dell sent us. We saved about $100 total by choosing ASRock’s Z690 motherboard, MSI’s 12600K, 3060 Ti, and Sabrent DDR5. Storage was the 980 Pro in the 2TB configuration, and we found a decent Corsair 750W PSU. The total came to 1649 USD.

The XPS 8340 will run you about $1700, a $50 premium, but that includes support and a one-year warranty. If something goes wrong with the system, you don’t get that when you build your own machine.