- Pc Keeper Download Cnet There's an extensive myth on the computing world, that for you to speed your computer up, you *need* spend $100's to acquire it 'upgraded'. Action wrong, web site slow computer is not to use the hardware (bits and pieces) comes with.
- View full Need for Speed II Special Edition specs on CNET.
- View full Need for Speed II Special Edition specs on CNET.
- Need for Speed: Special Edition Main article: Need for Speed: Special Edition A Special Edition of Road & Track Presents: The Need for Speed was released in 1996 which included additional content missing from the original PC release.
- Need For Speed Special Edition Cnet Pc
- Special Edition Tv
- Need For Speed Special Edition
- Need For Speed Special
- Need For Speed Special Edition Cnet Free
Need For Speed Special Edition Cnet Pc
Need for Speed Special Edition adds new cars, new tracks, changeable time of day settings, 8-player network/modem support, in-game music, and finally Windows support to the highly successful Need For Speed. The game lets you drive 8 speed devils including Lamborghini Diablo VT, Ferrari 512TR, and Porsche 911 Carrera.
Special Edition Tv
Desktops/;type=reviewresponse;sz=344x79;ord=123456789?' target='_blank' >Desktops/;type=reviewresponse;sz=344x79;ord=123456789?' border='0' alt=' />- Pros
Reasonably priced. Good gaming performance. Subtle and attractive design. Compact, tool-free chassis.
- Cons
Cable routing could be neater. Expandability is limited. Internal PSU arm is a bit stiff.
- Bottom Line
The Dell XPS Tower Special Edition is a sleek gaming desktop that delivers good performance at an accessible price. While expandability is limited, it's a good choice for modest gamers.
How can you tell a gaming desktop from a regular PC? Normally, you'd point to a bulky build, geometric design, industrial science fiction aesthetics, a splash of RGB lighting, and a red-and-black motif. So you'd be forgiven for not recognizing the Dell XPS Tower Special Edition (8910) (starts at $999; $1,249 as tested) as a gaming PC right away. Despite its understated design, this most recent update to Dell's XPS line packs an Nvidia GTX 1070 graphics card, which translates to a computer that's just fine for gaming, even VR—and can be had for a very good price. For these reasons, it replaces the Lenovo Erazer X315 as our Editors' Choice for entry-level gaming desktops.
- $799.99
- $2,299.99
- $1,149.99
- $2,199.99
- $1,722.00
- $1,832.00
- $1,999.00
- $1,771.00
- $1,779.00
- $1,999.00
- $1,199.99
Design and Features
Subtlety is the name of the game with the XPS Tower Special Edition (8910), especially when you compare it side by side with its stodgier predecessor, the XPS 8900 Special Edition. The body of the XPS Tower is made of black plastic, while the front panel is constructed of dark silver aluminum bezel and has the Dell logo front and center. The top and left panels also feature ribbing, which helps with venting and lets you see the green glow of the graphics card inside. The overall effect gives the XPS Tower Special Edition a sophisticated look and feel. You don't often see desktops, much less gaming desktops, praised for their tactile quality, but the Special Edition is surprisingly pleasant to the touch—a nice little bonus considering the price.
While it may not look it, the XPS Tower Special Edition has a lot in common with the Alienware Aurora (2016). (This makes sense, since Alienware is owned by Dell.) Both share the same chassis skeleton. This makes the XPS Tower Special Edition 27 percent smaller than its previous iteration, measuring a compact 15.22 by 7.09 by 14.02 inches (HWD). That's also smaller than the Aurora (18.6 by 8.4 by 14.1 inches), which has a bolder gaming aesthetic, but not quite as compact as the Origin Chronos VR (11.75 by 4.0 by 13.75 inches).
Opening up the XPS Tower Special Edition is fairly simple thanks to its tool-free design. There's a latch at the rear top-right corner that releases the left panel. The insides are a tad cramped, and that's reflected in its Tetris-like engineering. Most noticeably, the power supply is housed in a swinging arm unit that releases via two locks on the rear. The arm itself is rather stiff, so you have to use both hands when swinging it open, but this is preferable to it moving around willy-nilly. And while the arm is a neat solution to housing all these components in a finite space, it does block off the fans and the motherboard. This might irk gamers who like to get hands-on with their PCs, but they're also not the target of the XPS Tower Special Edition. The cable routing could also be a bit neater, but again this isn't really an issue for casual gamers. If you would rather not futz around too much with a computer's insides (but also want to reserve the right to), the Special Edition is more than adequate.
As far as expandability, you have options—just not a whole lot of them. There are four DIMM slots total, which can hold up to 64GB of memory, three 3.5-inch drive bays, and one 5.25-inch drive bay. The configuration we tested came with 8GB of memory—two 4GB DDR4 DIMMs—and a 1TB 7,200rpm SATA hard drive. There's only one PCle x16 slot, however, which is taken up by the GTX 1070. So if you want two 10-series cards, you're out of luck. But these are minor quibbles, considering this setup is plenty for the target demographic.
I/O port selection is also decent. On the front panel are the Power button, four USB 3.0 ports, a microphone jack, a headphone jack, an SD card slot, and the DVDRW optical drive. In the rear, you'll find an additional three USB 3.0 ports, one USB 3.1 port, two USB 2.0 ports, one USB-C port, an HDMI port, a DisplayPort connector, an Ethernet jack and three audio jacks. Lastly, the Special Edition comes with a standard keyboard and mouse, which, while not spectacular, will tide you over until you can decide on the perfect gaming mouseand keyboard.
Performance
What's inside? A 2.7GHz Intel Core i5-6400 processor, along with the aforementioned 8GB of RAM and Nvidia GTX 1070 graphics card. This is similar to the Lenovo Ideacentre Y700, which also sports 8GB of RAM and a GTX 1070, as well as a slightly faster Core i5 CPU, and offers nearly identical performance. And with the boost to a GTX 1070, it's definitely an improvement over the XPS 8900 Special Edition.
See How We Test Desktops
There are lots of ways to measure performance, but for gaming machines, the most important metrics are 3D and gaming tests. The XPS Tower Special Edition scored a respectable, but not earth-shattering 18,448 points on 3DMark Cloud Gate, and 7,100 on the more strenuous Fire Strike Extreme. As expected, that's better than the XPS 8900 Special Edition (16,915 on CloudGate, 4,791 on Fire Strike Extreme), and on par with the Lenovo Ideacentre Y700 (19,646 on CloudGate, 7,022 on Fire Strike Extreme). It does, however, lag more powerful desktops. The Alienware Aurora, for instance, logged scores of 33,330 on Cloud Gate and 15,618 on Fire Strike Extreme.
In terms of frame rates, the XPS Tower Special Edition does benefit from having the GTX 1070 card. At 1,366-by-768 resolution with graphics quality set to Medium, it returned a good 201 frames per second (fps) and 115fps respectively on the Heaven and Valley gaming tests. With the resolution increased to 1,920 by 1,080 and the graphics quality on Ultra, it still managed a respectable 101fps on Heaven and 99fps on Valley. The XPS Tower Special Edition's frame rates are better than the XPS 8900 Special Edition's, thanks to its newer graphics card. Its numbers are slightly behind those of the Lenovo Ideacentre Y700, but not enough to make a huge difference in gameplay, and the list price is slightly cheaper than the Y700's.
When it comes to productivity, the XPS Tower Special Edition trails its rivals, mostly because it's sporting a less-powerful processor. Its decent score of 3,033 points on our PCMark 8 Work Conventional test is only slightly behind the XPS 8900 Special Edition's 3,088 and the Ideacentre Y700's 3,388. What matters is that this computer is powerful enough to handle day-to-day productivity tasks, and given its price and gaming performance, this is a more-than-acceptable trade-off for low-key gamers.
Conclusion
It's easy to think that you can't get a 'cheaper' gaming desktop for less than $2,000—a number that might be off-putting to gamers who aren't looking for something hulking and futuristic. While not the most powerful system you can buy, the Dell XPS Tower Special Edition is affordably priced and delivers solid, VR-capable gaming. And while it's very similar to the Lenovo Ideacentre Y700 in performance, its sleeker, more compact design is an added bonus that makes this a desktop that gamers hunting for a bargain should put near the top of their list.
Dell XPS Tower Special Edition (8910)
Bottom Line: The Dell XPS Tower Special Edition is a sleek gaming desktop that delivers good performance at an accessible price. While expandability is limited, it's a good choice for modest gamers.
- $599.99
- $999.00
- $1,199.99
- $699.00
Road & Track Presents: The Need for Speed SE is a quality game with speed and power at a very high level. Electronic Arts obviously put a lot into this game and it shows.
Everything from the level of graphic detail to the racecars is really nice. To get an idea of how good the graphics really are be sure to change the detail level to high, otherwise, they look blocky and grainy. On high, though, they are clear and smooth and the cars move fluidly through turns and perform strongly. The backgrounds, though at times a bit too sparsely detailed, are, for the most part, nice representations of cities, highways or other locations you may be driving through.
Driving on long tracks (some are four miles long), you notice the amount of work that Electronic Arts put into the game. There are plenty of computer-controlled cars trying to impede your progress through the levels, as well as cops who actually do interfere with your progress by stopping you for speeding. Why they don't actually stop any of the other speeding cars on the track is beyond me. If the cops do catch you, a speeding ticket is awarded before you resume the race.
Need For Speed Special Edition
One problem I had with Road & Track Presents: The Need for Speed SE is that even though the controls strike a nice balance between loose and tight, there are times you really don't feel in control of your $100,000+ vehicle. There are too many crashes that should not occur. Furthermore, one humorous bug I found (or is it a designed flaw?) is when you get too near a wall, the computer automatically shifts you back to a lane. You do lose speed, however, so it's as if you brushed against it but with no real harm done. If this is intentional (and I'm guessing it was), it seems like a fairly stupid idea.
Another major complaint about the controls regards the lack of support for game pads. Only two buttons are active on a controller, leading to the necessity of using multiple input sources. In other words, while using your game pad to turn, you have to press the up and down arrow keys to shift and the h-key to honk your horn. It really ties up your hands and makes you lose some of your abilities.
The best part of Road & Track Presents: The Need for Speed SE is the cars -- cool, expensive and a great variety. From the Lamborghini to the Ferrari, you don't find a single dud and a really nice touch is the information provided about them. You can listen to an audio commentary about each one, see pictures of both its interior and exterior and read about its performance attributes.
Although not without its flaws, Road & Track Presents: The Need for Speed SE is a very entertaining and exhilarating experience worthy of any car or racing enthusiast. Give this one a try.
Graphics: With the graphic detail set on high, the game shines. The backgrounds are quality and the cars move smoothly.
Sound: Fairly basic background music, adequate for a car racing game although rock music from real bands would have been more fun.
Need For Speed Special
Enjoyment: The game is fun. Evading cops while trying to win a race is tough but entertaining. My only complaint is the controls.
Replay Value: There are a lot of tracks and with the ability to play over a modem, play is endless.
Need for Speed Special Edition adds new cars, new tracks, changeable time of day settings, 8-player network/modem support, in-game music, and finally Windows support to the highly successful Need For Speed
The game lets you drive 8 speed devils including Lamborghini Diablo VT, Ferrari 512TR, and Porsche 911 Carrera. The race tracks are highly detailed with the help of texture mapped vector graphics The soundtrack is digitally recorded, and of professional quality.
Need for Speed SE has indepth coverage of the cars and race tracks. Video clips of the cars are also included.
How to run this game on modern Windows PC?
Need For Speed Special Edition Cnet Free
People who downloaded Need for Speed, The: Special Edition have also downloaded:
Need For Speed 2 Special Edition, Need for Speed, The, Need for Speed 3: Hot Pursuit, Need for Speed: High Stakes, Need for Speed 5: Porsche Unleashed, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Need for Speed: Underground, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2