Bought XPS 8940, should I have waited for XPS 8950? Need advice

Not sure what "processing power and available RAM" means.

The 8940 or 8950 is not a Precision workstation.

DDR4 vs DDR5 is mostly marketing not performance.

Thank you for your reply. My pay grade unfortunately doesn't pair me with those commercial Precision machines. I have used the maxed out XPS builds in my profession as the price point for performance is the best IMO. 

By 'processing power and available RAM.', I just mean that processing speed/power and available ram (capacity) is the most important for my work. I do not know the language of PCs all that well, so excuse my lack of knowledge.

Thanks again!

@protomania1 You may be interested in this article which describes what looks like the new XPS 8950: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/10/dells-xps-desktop-gets-a-new-look-and-liquid-cooling/

I would especially look at the reader comments.

@protomania1  - You didn't mention how much RAM your XPS 8940 will have, but it supports up to 128 GB of RAM so that should give you plenty of room to expand...

The last thing anyone should ever do is read the comment section of any article

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@Joe Shades wrote:

The last thing anyone should ever do is read the comment section of any article

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Not in this case. Vic is right about this, the comments are spot on in regards to Dell desktops. Also, there is often more truth in the comments to articles than the articles themselves. That's why a lot of media has removed comments.....they are censoring the truth.

Re: 

should I have waited to purchase the 8950? I had my previous 8700 for years and years. My goal is to have this 8940 for as long as I can as well.

So, looking for advice. Is the new DDR5 RAM and Intel I9-12th gen a complete game changer compared to the DDR4 RAM and I9-11th gen? I am not concerned with graphics cards as my PC is not for gaming or video work. My main workload consist of processing power and available RAM.

The 8940 I purchased is still in the box, and I have 30 days to return it. 

if I were you I would check the invoice of system spec whether your 8940 came with premium cooler or generic Dell pancake cooler.  the latter is pathetically inadequate found out by many buyers.  the 8950 in picture appears to come with premium cooler by default.  whether it is 11th or 12th gen cpu you do need a competent cooler for cpu performance.

I think you may always kick yourself for not getting the ddr5 and 12th if you keep the 8940 and only eye the 8950.  you may hear a lot of different opinions on this or that but ultimately it is your own personal pc for years to come and do you want to stay with yesterday's tech or today's, that is a personal question only you know the answer.  Just remind yourself the 8950 today will be become like 8940 the next year, meaning even newer model will come out to supplant it.  but speaking of pc of the day today, you need to decide based on your own feeling without qualms.

@dave423 Thanks. When someone ignores the comments they are ignoring other people's opinions/thoughts on the subject. Those opinions may be correct or not but at least they are something to think about. The OP is looking for advice, reading the comments offers some advice and things to consider.

Personally I would have either built my own. If for some reason it had to be a Dell I would have bought a XPS 8930. Yes it's a few years old but you can still find them new on Amazon and Newegg.

• Hello ! I think you should return it, and get the latest. I too just bought a new PC after years of getting by on an older model. I just think people like us carry our devices longer so we should get the best at the time we buy. From what I read about 11th gen. People complain and favor 10th gen, it appears 12th gen has regained some lost footing and looks to be a plus for Intel. I'm excited to get my new machine. Got a good price for it, got all the specs I need and can upgrade if necessary. I initially bought an Alienware model a week or so ago because it was the only 12th gen. Then something told me to check, and now we have an XPS model and from all I can tell, wore changing on the cooling system and there's no "clear" side panelling but I'm not into gaming , don't need all that, but the upgrade RAM type, graphics card, and overall cores, I'm glad I changed, I saved several hundred dollars and I'm getting the same internals. 

I've never built my own PC because I figured it would be too time-consuming and involve too many risks. Maybe I'd end up with a mediocre chassis that has issues, or one or more of the components I'd buy from different vendors might not perform well. So I'd have to return one or more components to various vendors. Sounds like a lot of potential aggravation.

I'm still using my 11 year-old Dell 8300 (2nd gen Core i7) and occasionally experience brief browser or app startup delays. That's because I keep tons of browser tabs (and apps) open, thus soaking up RAM, and also because of the system's age (background app updates and AV scanning, browser gunk, etc.). If I were to upgrade today, I'd get the best, or close to the best, CPU available (no gaming, don't need unlocked/overclocking), lowest-tier gfx card, min. amount of RAM, best available storage tech, etc. So that probably means the XPS 8950 with base i7-12700, 8GB, GeForce GTX 1650 (or AMD equiv), SSD/HDD combo, DVD (or BDR) drive, etc. I noticed the XPS 8950 comes with a 460W Chassis & Standard CPU Air Cooling - I have no idea whether those two features would be good enough (I'm concerned about some of the complaints XPS 8940 customers have had about under-powered chassis & suboptimal cooling). Given the XPS 8950 config I listed, would 460W and standard air cooling potentially cause any issues? Should I opt for a higher wattage chassis and better cooling?

I@Leonardo91  Can't hurt to go for the larger PSU now. You never know if you'll need the extra power down the road, especially if you upgrade to a better GPU.

IMO, you should get more than 8 GB of RAM. A single 8-GB RAM module can only run in single-channel mode. You should get at least 2x 8 GB so RAM runs in dual-channel mode, which is faster and more efficient than single-channel mode.

You mentioned "tons of browser tabs (and apps) open, thus soaking up RAM" so that's a really good reason why you want more than 1x 8 GB.

The alternative to "standard air cooling" is liquid cooling, but I think Dell only offers liquid cooling with "K" class CPUs in the XPS 8950. A "K" CPU and liquid cooling is going to up the price...

Thanks for responding. I'll probably never upgrade the GPU (not a gamer, don't do image rendering). Even today, I'm still satisfied with the lowest-tier-offered gfx card that came with my XPS 8300 in 2011, never had any big issues. I follow the rule of thumb that one should always upgrade from the CPU's built-in gfx chip to a separate gfx card to lessen CPU workload.

I didn't know dual-channel RAM is faster/more efficient than single-channel mode. I have 8GB on my current system (4x2GB). Does that mean I have four-channel RAM or would that still be dual-channel? Based on your helpful comments, I'll be sure to get 16GB instead of 8GB to take advantage of dual-channel performance. So when it comes time to upgrade my old PC, I'm now thinking of getting the XPS 8950 with i7-12700, 16GB, GeForce GTX 1650, dual SDD/HDD, and optical drive. Given I won't need to upgrade the gfx card after I get the PC, it seems you're indicating the 460W chassis should be enough for my needs. (I think Nvidia recommends a minimum 300W PSU for its GTX 1650.)

BTW, I'm still using a nice Dell IPS display (bought in 2011) on Windows 7. Dell and the OEM still provide that display's drivers for Win7, Win8, and Win10 but not Windows 11. If I go ahead and buy a Windows 11 Dell PC, will my Dell display still work on Windows 11 (maybe if I install the available Windows 10 driver)? My Dell display is DVI-I but the Nvidia GTX 1650 only supports DVI-D, so I'd have to buy a DVI-I to DVI-D adapter. I'm unsure whether doing those things will be enough to get my Dell display to work on a Windows 11 XPS 8950.