Dell overclocks, flexes its volume muscle

The Dell XPS 710 H2C, to be officially announced at CES tomorrow, isn't fundamentally that different from the old, vanilla XPS 710, but two important factors make it stand out. Thanks in part to an internally developed, hybrid liquid-cooling rig, the XPS 710 H2C will be the first desktop ever from Dell to ship with a factory-overclocked, fully warrantied CPU. The Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700's stock 2.6GHz will ship to customers at 3.2GHz.

The XPS 710 H2C is also notable for its price. At $5,200 for the core configuration, it's roughly $1,500 less expensive than similar over-the-top gamer PCs. We've reviewed similar systems from Velocity Micro and Widow PC in the last week, and they both came in around $7,300.

The hardest of the hard core might balk at the fact that Dell still relies on an Nforce 590 (D) motherboard chipset, which doesn't have as many features as Nvidia's standard 590 circuitry and is a generation behind the more recent Nforce 680i chipset. But if its status as a volume player hurts Dell by making it less nimble than its smaller, boutique-shop competition, we're glad that Dell is making up for it with its ability to drive down prices.