Dell XPS 8940 – A great desktop PC that will not rip you off

Dell is known for its decently priced lineup of PCs and laptops. The Dell XPS 8940 is not an exception to that rule. The 8940 is a powerful desktop PC at a descent price offering plenty of configuration options.

Although Dell PC cases do not have an eye catching design, Dell slowly ensures to address this issue. The 8940 has a robust design with nice exterior. It comes in various CPU options. You can get it with a 10th Gen Intel Core i7-10700 processor (based on Comet Lake ) which is an 8-core/16-thread with 2.9 GHz frequency (up to 4.8 GHz with Turbo Boost). But if you don’t mind spending extra money, you can opt for the 10-core/20-thread Core i9-10900K processor that comes in the special edition (SE) of that PC.

You can find 8940 in various memory configurations starting with 16 GB of RAM up to 128GB of RAM. Our system has 64 GB of RAM (2×32 GB DDR4 at 2933 MHz) which is more than enough to cover all your needs.

Depending on your wallet, you can buy the system with 512 GB of SSD and 1 TB HDD or you can go to a more premium versions with 2 TB of SSD and 4 TB of HDD storage. In any case, if you are not a professional that needs to store large amount of multimedia/video files on your computer, the 1.5 TB of storage should be enough.

The system is having an integrated Intel UHD Graphics 630 card but our system is also loaded with a dedicated NVidia GeForce GTX 1660Ti at 6GB. We would prefer to see the system with an RTX 3070 on it but this would increase the overall cost of the system dramatically. Unfortunately, we will have to suffer the consequences of the low pricing here as our system does not exceed the retail price of $1,700. Adding an RTX 3070 would definitely increase the price of the system to more than $2,500.

It comes with Bluetooth 5.1 and a build-in WiFi6 connectivity which is 802.11ax compliant although your home/office router should also be compatible to take advantage of it. From the system it couldn’t be missing the classic 1 Gbps RJ-45 Ethernet port.

At the front of the case the system has an optical drive, an SD card slot, a headset jack, 3x USB 3.1 ports and 1x USB3.1 Type-C port. Overall, the system has 7 x USB-A 3.1, 1 x USB-C 3.1, 2 x USB 2.0, 1 x HDMI 2.0b, 1 x HDMI 1.4(onboard), 1 x DisplayPort 1.4, 1 x DisplayPort 1.2(onboard), 1 x DVI, 1 x Media 3-in-1 Card Reader, 1 x Headset Jack and 1 x Microphone Jack.

Dell ensured to deliver the system with a Wired keyboard and Wired mouse. They are not the best ones and they are quite cheap but they seem to be doing their job quite well. Obviously if you are going to spend large amounts of time typing on the keyboard, you might as well consider buying a mechanical keyboard as it will reduce your typing fatigue.

What we liked

We really liked the fact that the 8940 has a plethora of front-facing slots. You don’t usually see SD or USB Type-C slots in other desktop PCs on the front. Connecting USB devices was just a breeze as it we didn’t need to lean on the back of the tower.

The optical DVD-RW drive on the front is not something you are going to use daily as it was years ago but it is a nice addition to the system. The case also has very nice and sleek design without taking too much space. Equipping the system with WiFi6, Bluetooth 5.1 and two different storage options (both SSD and HDD), Dell ensures that you will get a PC that will cover most, if not all, of your needs.