Dell Addresses XPS 720 H2C Problems

[HardOCP News]

Dell has posted the reason behind the company no longer offering the XPS 720 H2C QX6800 Extreme Edition and it seems that the blame is being placed on a shortage of QX6800 processors that can tolerate the level of overclocking needed. This is unfortunate because, even though we recommended the XPS 710 H2C with reservations earlier this year, we gave Dell credit for being serious about competing in the high-end gaming market.

We apologize for having to do this, truth is that we do not have a line of sight to enough supply of QX6800 processors that can tolerate the Bin+3 overclocking. Since it already runs at a 2.93GHz speed, there's a limited headroom to overclock. It just comes down to physics—a design can only tolerate so much voltage. Note that we are still offering the QX6800 Extreme Edition on the air-cooled XPS 720 Red system running at a lower clock speed of Bin+1 or (3.2GHz).

 

[Cobra]

Makes sense. Being a mass market company rather than a niche specialist, Dell doesn't really have the stomach to keep at it like the smaller enthusiast brands. They will only sell enthusiast systems that are easy and profitable to make.

On another note, I really miss [H]'s Consumer and its system evaluations... I hope maybe one of these years you'll find a way to get back into it.

 

[Chris_B]

How fast exactly was the bin+3 overclocking? I think i read the next down from that was 3.46ghzz, so im assuming 3.5 or 3.6ghz?

 

[Chris_B]

Just found it 3.73ghz, not a bit of wonder they were having probs clocking chips that high.

 

[Devistater]

Well it is water cooled