When I upgraded my VR headset to a Valve Index, I knew there's a chance I'd want a new video card to go with it. The increased display resolution and refresh rate of the Index is significantly more demanding, possibly outpacing my existing RTX 2070 video card. Well, that expectation proved to be true. And to my small surprise, the challenge of running an Index has outpaced not only my video card but my processor as well! Faced with a major upgrade, I decided to get an entire system built around a RTX 3080. I combed through all of the Memorial Day 2023 sales I could find, and the winner of this competition was a Dell XPS 8950.

Most PCs built with a RTX 3080 video card cater to a market infatuated with multicolor LEDs. I don't care to have them on my own computer, but I know how they work electronically and confident I can turn down the garish lights if they bother me. The bigger problem are functional tradeoffs made by cases optimized around those lights and related aesthetics accessories. For example, many of these PCs have clear sides to show off the hardware and lights inside. Glass and acrylic are poor thermal conductors and obviously obstructs airflow, not great for a power-hungry machine that needs to dissipate a lot of heat. Such are the silliness in HP Omen, Lenovo Legion, Dell Alienware, and other PCs competing in this market.

Dell's Inspiron product line is their economy class for competing on price. If price was the biggest concern, I would buy parts and build a PC myself. I'm willing to pay a small premium to have a well-engineered system that I can expect to work well for several years. After that point I will contemplate piecemeal upgrades like a new video card. Between Dell's low-priced Inspiron and their high-end Alienware is their XPS product line. Returning to the airline analogy: if Inspiron is economy class and Alienware is first class, XPS is their business class. I think I can find my Goldilocks "just right" point here. These products aren't penny-pinched to last barely as long as the warranty. They should give all the performance I want with none of the gratuitous LEDs.

Dell's list prices for XPS systems are roughly double what I would pay to buy similar components and assemble a system by myself, but I have never paid Dell MSRP and I don't intend to start. The current Dell XPS desktop is the 8960 with 4000-series NVIDIA GPUs and 13-th generation Intel CPUs. This meant existing stock for older XPS 8950 with previous generation RTX 3080 video card and older generation CPU can sometimes be found with clearance pricing. Combined with Memorial Day and additional discounts, these not-bottom-basement machines can be had for less than 15% premium over self-assembly with bottom-basement components. This was good enough for a closer look.