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Dell Inspiron i560-4000NBK review: Dell Inspiron i560-4000NBK

Dell Inspiron i560-4000NBK

Rich Brown Former Senior Editorial Director - Home and Wellness
Rich was the editorial lead for CNET's Home and Wellness sections, based in Louisville, Kentucky. Before moving to Louisville in 2013, Rich ran CNET's desktop computer review section for 10 years in New York City. He has worked as a tech journalist since 1994, covering everything from 3D printing to Z-Wave smart locks.
Expertise Smart home, Windows PCs, cooking (sometimes), woodworking tools (getting there...)
Rich Brown
6 min read

Editors' note: This review is part of our 2010 retail laptop and desktop spring roundup, which covers specific fixed configurations of popular systems found in retail stores.

5.9

Dell Inspiron i560-4000NBK

The Good

Decent single-core performance; wireless networking included; power efficient.

The Bad

Not as fast as more affordable Gateway; few features to really set it apart.

The Bottom Line

We recommend this Dell only to those who need its particular combination of good-enough performance and wireless networking. If you value faster performance, or you're willing to get your hands dirty with upgrades, you can find more computer for your money elsewhere.

The retail-only Dell Inspiron i560-4000NBK offers little to get excited about. You'll get decent performance from this $599 dual-core midtower, but a less expensive system from Gateway is faster. Dell offers an 802.11n wireless networking adapter and a little extra RAM in exchange, but we can't say we find those features worth paying extra for given the performance gap with the cheaper Gateway. The Dell's combination of acceptable speed and built-in Wi-Fi might appeal to some of you with specific needs, but we expect most people shopping for a midtower would live with an extra wire if it meant better performance and saving a few bucks.

The Inspiron i560-4000NBK comes in Dell's familiar all-black midtower case. You can customize the color of the front panel in the online version, although interestingly, the configurable Inspiron 560 available from Dell's Web site features slower processors, smaller hard drives, and lower prices than this retail-only model. We expect few people will find Dell's simple midtower design offensive in its monochrome incarnation. Our only question is whether a commodity desktop vendor like Dell, Gateway, or HP will ever find a way to seriously compete with Apple in terms of system aesthetics.

  Dell Inspiron i560-4000NBK Gateway DX4831-01e
Price $599 $549
CPU 2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E7500 2.93GHz Intel Core i3-530
Memory 8GB 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM 6GB 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM
Graphics 32MB (shared) Intel GMA X4500 integrated graphics chip 32MB (shared) Intel GMA X4500 integrated graphics chip
Hard drives 1TB, 7,200rpm 1TB, 7,200rpm
Optical drive dual-layer DVD burner dual-layer DVD burner
Networking Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11n Gigabit Ethernet
Operating system Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

As mentioned, the Dell's obvious feature advantages over the less expensive Gateway consist of a wireless networking adapter and 8GB of 1,066MHz DDR3 RAM compared with the Gateway's 6GB of faster 1,333MHz DDR3 RAM. As you can see from our performance charts below, we found the Dell's extra memory provided little discernible benefit in our consumer-oriented test workloads. The Dell's wireless card becomes its only true advantage, then. Considering you can add Wi-Fi to the Gateway for $20 or so via 802.11n USB key, the Dell's bundled Wi-Fi is really only a differentiator for those who can't be troubled to add wireless to the Gateway post-purchase.

Adobe Photoshop CS3 image-processing test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Dell Inspiron i560-4000NBK
105 

Apple iTunes encoding test (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Dell Inspiron i560-4000NBK
132 

Multimedia multitasking (in seconds)
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)
Dell Inspiron i560-4000NBK
640 

CineBench (score)
(Longer bars indicate faster performance)
Rendering Multiple CPUs  
Rendering Single CPU  
HP Pavilion p6320y
11,356 
3,249 
HP Pavilion p6310y
10,515 
2,993 
Gateway DX4300-15e
10,402 
2,964 
Gateway DX4831-01e
9,263 
4,018 
Dell Inspiron i560-4000NBK
6,816 
3,542 

The performance picture for the Dell isn't particularly terrible, but it doesn't show enough speed to set itself apart from its competition. Thanks to a fast 2.93GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, the Dell fares well enough on our Photoshop and iTunes tests, which favor fast single-core performance. As it's only a dual-core system, the Dell falters on our multitasking and multicore Cinebench tests when you compare it with the quad-core or pseudo-quad core systems (in the case of the Gateway and its Core i3 CPU) in its price range. If you wanted a wireless-equipped midtower with a large hard drive dedicated to ripping and converting media files, the Dell would be a respectable budget choice. Outside of that specific recommendation, you're better off with one of the Dell's competitors.

Unlike Dell's lamentable $500 midtower, the Inspiron i545-1125NBK, the i560-4000NBK provides evidence that Dell selected its hardware sometime in the last year. Where the i545 had only analog outputs for both video and audio, the i560 boasts an HDMI output. It lacks separate digital audio, FireWire, eSATA, or other more modern connections offered by Gateway, Asus, and other budget retail contenders, but we're glad for some acknowledgement from Dell that there's more to life than VGA video output, even among budget PCs. Granted, aside from the HDMI port, this system still only has Gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0, and 7.1 analog audio jacks on its rear panel, leaving plenty of room for improvement. Baby steps.

Inside the Dell you'll find a standard budget upgrade path. Expansion card upgrades include a 16x PCI Express graphics card slot and a single standard PCI slot. The Wi-Fi adapter takes up a 1X PCI Express slot. You get four RAM slots, although all come occupied. There's also room to add a second hard drive. Since we don't recommend this system in the first place for most shoppers, it's also hard for us to justify using this as an upgrade foundation.

Juice box
Dell Inspiron i560-4000NBK  
Off (watts) 0.83
Sleep (watts) 2.45
Idle (watts) 46.81
Load (watts) 78.67
Raw (annual kWh) 183.04896
EnergyStar compliant Yes
Annual operating cost (@$0.1135/kWh) $20.78

Annual power cost (dollars)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Excellent power efficiency might not be a selling point for most consumers, but between this system and the Inspiron i545-1125NBK mentioned earlier, Dell has demonstrated an apparent commitment to keeping its desktops' power consumption in check. Each of Dell's budget retail systems leads its price category among Windows 7-based desktops, and for that Dell should be commended. That power efficiency won't get you anything more tangible than an extra dollar or so in your pocket every month, and you can likely make more meaningful investments in your own green conscious efforts. Still, for those who keep such things top of mind, perhaps you may sleep easier knowing the Dell is among the greener desktops we've tested.

We also have a fair opinion of Dell's service and support policies and offerings. You get a year of warranty coverage out of the box, as well as 24-7 toll-free phone support. The system itself comes with a few programs for monitoring system health, and Dell's Web site provides a handful of useful support features, from driver and manual downloads to online support chat.

Find out more about how we test desktop systems.

System configurations:

Dell Inspiron i560-4000NBK
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Duo E7500; 8GB 1,066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 32MB (shared) Intel GMA X4500 HD integrated graphics chip; 1TB, 7,200 rpm Seagate hard drive

Gateway DX4300-15e
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 2.6GHz AMD Phenom II X4 810; 8GB 800MHz DDR2 SDRAM; 256MB (shared) AMD Radeon HD 3200 integrated graphics chip; 1TB, 7,200 rpm Western Digital hard drive

Gateway DX4831-01e
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 2.93GHz Intel Core i3 530; 6GB 1,333MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 32MB (shared) Intel GMA X4500 HD integrated graphics chip; 1TB, 7,200 rpm Western Digital hard drive

HP Pavilion p6310y
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 2.8GHz AMD Phenom II X4 630; 6GB 1,066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 256MB (shared) Nvidia GeForce 9100 integrated graphics chip; 1TB, 7,200 rpm Western Digital hard drive

HP Pavilion p6320y
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit); 2.8GHz AMD Phenom II X4 820; 8GB 1,066MHz DDR3 SDRAM; 256MB (shared) Nvidia GeForce 9100 integrated graphics chip; 1TB, 7,200 rpm Western Digital hard drive

5.9

Dell Inspiron i560-4000NBK

Score Breakdown

Design 6Features 6Performance 5Support 7