Dell Inspiron 27 7000
Dell puts it all on red.
Dell’s Inspiron 27 7000s haven’t been the most inspiring all-in-one PCs since they launched a couple of years ago, but with not a lot to lose, the company’s gone a little radical in its search for the next big thing. It’s done so by betting big on AMD components, throwing out the Intel parts and going all-in on an AMD Ryzen CPU and Radeon GPU combo. This transition has added a dedicated GPU to the 27-inch AIO equation, meaning these new models finally pack some real gaming grint. However, these new Inspirons have consequently started to line up with Apple iMac’s ‘premium’ price points. So can Dell compete in this space?
We tested the midrange model that’s currently available through JB Hi-Fi, but it’s not a configuration we think is particularly well balanced. It’s been fitted with the amply-powerful Ryzen 5 1400 and 8GB of DDR4 RAM, but these premium components have to make do without an SSD, and relying on a 1TB HDD drags everything from boot times to file transfers down to an excessively sluggish pace for such a premium machine.
That said, cough up $100 more and you get a config with an additional 128GB SSD to run your OS and some essential apps, so it’s probably best to just pretend that this $2,199 model isn’t an option.
AMD’s streamlined Ryzen 5 series CPUs actually perform pretty close to a number of Intel Core i7 chips, with the Ryzen 5 version of the Inspiron 27 7000 lining up roughly with the performance of an i7-6700HQ, a staple CPU in high-end gaming laptops from the first half of this year. It even managed to get ahead of a desktop i7-6700 CPU that we tested on an HP EliteOne 800 Touch AIO in PCMark 8’s Home benchmark, with a score of 3,840 over the latter’s 3,528. However, it fell behind on the Work element, with respective scores of 4,528 and 4,997.
Fitted with a Radeon RX 560 GPU (roughly the same as a mobile GeForce GTX 1050), the 27 7000 is capable of light gaming and gets above 30fps using Ultra settings in titles like Batman: Arkham Knight, Bioshock Infinite, Grid 2, Metro Last Light Tomb Raider.