Dell XPS One 27: Can An All-In-One Make Us Love Windows 8?

Windows 8 is unquestionably intended to create consistency between consoles, tablets, phones, and the PC. But the desktop world is still largely without touch input. Can Dell's XPS One 27 make the Windows 8 experience better with a gorgeous touchscreen?

Windows 8 represents Microsoft’s first earnest effort to bring mobile users back to the desktop (Ed.: Or is it the other way around?), where they can find huge quantities of local storage and vast computing resources to be more productive, create content, and game in a truly enveloping environment. A 5" screen just can't hold a candle to three 1920x1080 displays for any of those tasks.

For those of us glued to our desktops, not necessarily concerned about a convergence of phones, tablets, game consoles, and PCs, the Windows 8 interface is jarring. We saw it from your comments as soon as the operating system debuted. But we've been using it since last year and navigate around it fairly smoothly, particularly on multi-monitor configs that circumvent that interface almost entirely.

What about the folks using Windows 8 on a PC with a single screen? That's where the operating system seems to run into most of the resistance. The one thing hurting Microsoft the most with its touch-based interface is the lack of PCs with touchscreens.

Dell saw that coming.

If you have a mobile device with Windows on it, you already know that consistency between interfaces is nice. Really, though, you want functionality to match. A touchscreen turns Dell’s XPS One 27 from a device that resembles a super-sized tablet to a device that actually works a lot like one. And that capability adds only $200 to the price of the most entry-level $1,399 model.

Of course, Dell wants to show off. So we're testing something a little (lot) more deluxe.

Dell XPS One Touch 27 (2710) $2599 Configuration
Platform	Intel FCPGA988, H77 Express, Embeded PCIe Graphics
CPU	Third-Generation Intel Ivy Bridge-Based Core i7-3770S (3.1-3.9 GHz, 8 MB Shared L3 Cache, 65 W Max TDP)
RAM	2x Nanya NT8GC64B8HB0NS-DI (2 x 8 GB) DDR3-1600 SO-DIMM, CL11
Graphics	Nvidia GeForce GT 640M: 645 MHz, 2 GB GDDR5-4000
Display	Capacitive Touch 27" LED Backlit Glossy LCD, 2560x1440
Webcam	2.0 Megapixel w/dual microphone and sliding cover
Audio	Realtek Integrated HD Audio with Waves MaxxAudio 4
Security	Kensington Security Slot
Storage
Hard Drive	Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001: 2 TB, 7,200 RPM, 64 MB Cache, SATA 6Gb/s Samsung MZMPC032HBCD-00000: 32 GB MLC Cache Drive, mSATA 6Gb/s
Optical Drive	HL-DS 8x Slot Loading DVD Burner/BDR Combo HL-DT-ST DVDRWBD CT40N
Media Drive	8-in-1 SDXC/MMC/MS/xD flash media interface
Networking
Wireless LAN	Intel Advanced-N 6235 802.11n PCIe
Wireless PAN	Integrated Bluetooth Transceiver on Wireless Combo Card
Gigabit Network	Atheros AR8161 PCIe 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet
IEEE-1394	None
Telephony	None
Peripheral Interfaces
USB	6 x USB 3.0 (4-rear, 2-side)
Expansion Card	1 x empty Mini PCIe (for optional TV tuner)
External Hard Drive	USB-only
Audio	Headphone, Microphone, Rear Out, SPDIF
Video	HDMI Out, HDMI In (Display-Only)
General Stats
Weight	PC 34.4 lbs, Peripherals 1.6 lbs, Total 36 pounds
Operating System	Microsoft Windows 8 Pro 64-bit Edition, OEM
Warranty	One-year parts/Labor w/In-Home Service

The extra $1,000 brings with it a slew of upgrades, including the Core i7-3770S CPU, 16 GB RAM, the 32 GB SSD cache drive, a 2 TB hard drive, and Blu-ray reader/DVD burner.

How Does FX Treat Your Graphics Card?

Does AMD’s flagship CPU really allow GeForce cards to run closer to their potential than Radeons? That conclusion is still a little difficult to reach, since the Radeon HD 7970 is faster than the GeForce GTX 680 in today's benchmark suite. We can still get there by comparing the results of a less-bottlenecked processor, however, and we can get even more information by comparing CrossFire to SLI. After spending way too much time poring over the data, the best illustration of CPU-to-GPU scaling occurred as I wrote this article’s introduction.

The above chart shows that, without significant CPU bottlenecks, two GeForce GTX 680s in SLI and a pair of Radeon HD 7970s in CrossFire offer similar performance. It also illustrates that this performance similarly comes not from having identically-performing cards, but from a slight scaling advantage favoring the slowerGeForce GTX 680s when you put two of them together.

Our big revelation is that AMD’s FX-8350 performs 5% better in SLI than it does in CrossFire. When all else is made equal, AMD’s current flagship host processor really does favor Nvidia's graphics technology. Whoops.

CPU-To-GPU Performance Scaling

Much to the chagrin of my boss, I followed up a week of benchmarking with a few days of wading through data, trying to figure out the best way to present these results. We can, for example, consider the cards first.

We clearly see that the Core i7-3770K gets a bigger boost from two Radeon HD 7970s in CrossFire than AMD's FX-8350, but that could just be a general indication of lower CPU performance from the Vishera-based CPU. That is fair enough. The FX is a less expensive processor, so we're completely fine with it not performing as well.

SLI scales a little better than CrossFire on the Intel CPU, and the SLI-versus-CrossFire spread is even wider on the FX-8350-based configuration. We’re getting close to an answer.

Using the Core i7-3770K as a common factor, we find that AMD's Radeon HD 7970 slightly outperforms theGeForce GTX 680 in our test suite. Yet, slightly better scaling allows SLI to catch up to CrossFire.

Conversely, the FX-8350 appears to favor Nvidia's SLI technology over CrossFire. This is just another data point quantifying the potential validity of claims that AMD's cards are more limited on its own processors, and that Nvidia's graphics hardware is able to extract more performance from a top-end FX.

Intel takes an 11% lead over AMD when paired to a single Radeon HD 7970. That lead shrinks to only 9% when a single GeForce GTX 680 is used. Of course, this chart doesn’t make clear whether AMD is favoring the GeForce, or Intel is instead favoring the Radeon.

CrossFire boosts gaming performance on Intel's Core i7-3770K by 72%, but only manages to speed up frame rates on AMD's FX-8350 by 47%. The Vishera-based FX gets a far bigger kick from SLI.