One thing that I know my kids will grow up around will be computers. If I count the computers in our house the number would be 5 actual computers; 2 desktops and 3 laptops. This does not count tablets or smartphones either, that would just bump up the number a tad. Are all those computers being used? Currently one desktop and one laptop are used on a daily basis. The others, which are perfectly fine, just do not have room to be utilized.
So with being a somewhat tech savvy household, how does one normally go about buying a computer? Well, it can be a bit complicated. You need to pick a CPU; Intel or AMD? Then you need to pick out a motherboard with the features you desire; ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI and more. Then pick out the RAM you want that will be compatible with the motherboard. Don’t forget a storage device, do you go SSD or HDD or do you get both and then configure them in a particular way? What about a video card? Are you going to be gaming? Do you want to spend $150, $500 or $1200 on a video card?
Does that all seem way to overwhelming for you? There is an easier way. A way that parents who might not be up-to-date on what computer hardware is available and how to choose the appropriate parts. You won’t even have to worry about putting it all together either!
That’s where a Dell desktop or laptop might come in handy. You pick a price-point and what you might want to do with it and voila! A couple weeks later a shiny new computer arrives at your home. You can also make use of places such as Best-Buy to purchase a pre-configured Dell too.
Dell Inspiron 5675 – Gaming Desktop
Dell has two offerings for their gaming desktops, their Inspiron series and then their higher-end Alienware series. Today we’re going to look at the Dell Insprion 5675, a moderately priced gaming desktop that will suite a gamer’s needs. The Dell Insprion gaming series desktops are great for those who do not wish to dip into their children’s school savings in order for them to play the latest PC games.
The Dell Insprion 5675 that I am looking at today has the following specifications:
- AMD Ryzen 7 1700X CPU
- 8 GB DDR4-2400 RAM
- AMD Radeon RX 580 with 8 GB DDR5 VRAM
- 1TB 7200 RPM Toshiba drive
- 802.11ac (2×2) Wi-Fi with Bluetooth
- Dual-layer DVD-Burner
- Polar Blue LED case lighting
- 460W Power Supply Unit (PSU)
The one change that I did when I received the Inspiron 5675 was that I installed a Samsung 850 EVO 250GB
The Looks and Feels
In previous incarnations of Dell, the desktops, especially the Insprions were fairly plain looking almost business or institutional looking. Well it seems that Dell has changed things with their gaming series of Inspiron desktops and have given them more of a gaming-type look and feel to them.
Look at those fins, they add a bit more of a gaming appeal to them, but that’s not all to them, as we will see in a bit.
The front of the case is loaded with some decent I/O ports; 2x USB 3.1, 1x USB 3.0 Type-C, 2x USB 2.0, SD card reader, headphone-in jack and of course the DVD Burner.
Around the back you have all the other I/O ports. These include: PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse (old school there..), 4x USB 3.1 SuperSpeed, 2x USB 2.0, 1x Gigabit Ethernet, Audio Ports
Below you see the AMD Radeon RX580 graphics card with its 1x HDMI and 3x DisplayPorts. When using the Dell Insprion 5675, ensure you have the proper cable connections to your existing monitor. You can pick up DVI to HDMI cables or adapters if needed (I did).
Next is to pop open the case. Chances are you probably will not ever do this but as a tech-loving type person, I love opening up computers to see what is inside.
Dell computers have never been known for their clean cable management, but it’s not horrible. I have seen worse from pre-built computers in the past.
The AMD Radeon RX 580 video card with its 6-pin power connector. This video card is AMD’s answer to the NVIDIA GTX 1060 and in my tests, the RX 580 has kept me happy with this particular setup.
On the bottom at the front of the case is where the hard drives are located. This Dell Insprion 5675 configuration had a 1TB Toshiba hard drive, but I opted to replace it with my Samsung EVO 850 240GB SSD and installed Windows 10 on it. This freed up the 1TB Toshiba drive for data files. There is another drive shown in the photo but it was from a previous desktop where I wanted to transfer my game files from. I would recommend picking a configuration of the Dell Inspirion 5675 with an SSD for the OS though.
There are actually two M.2 slots on the Dell (proprietary) motherboard. If you want that extra performance boost, it is best to make use of an M.2 SSD as the read/write speeds are even faster due to the fact these types of drives are connected directly to the motherboard as opposed to running through a SATA controller then SATA cable etc. You can also see the Wi-Fi card here as well, and 802.11ac 2×2 card, in fact the antennas are just wires that are attached to the topside of the case itself. So no external antennas to ruin the look of the case.
The CPU’s fan and heatsink with 2 DDR4-2400 slots next to it. In this configuration there is a single 8GB DDR4-2400 memory module. Easily upgradeable at a later time to a maximum of 32GB. I was actually surprised to see heatpipes with the CPU’s fan and heatsink, I would assume that is because the AMD Ryzen 7 1700X runs a bit hotter than Intel’s 7700k CPUs. There would be enough room to put in a beefier CPU Fan/Heatsink, but Dell ensures that the one that is shipped with the units are good enough for the intended use.
The power supply unit (PSU) is 460W (watt), which seems a bit low for me, but again, Dell tests and certifies their components so I will have to judge their reasoning for this. There does seem to be enough room to put in a larger power supply if needed. Who knows, perhaps I’ll drop in my modular 560W power supply in a later time. For now, the 460W PSU will do the job.
The one thing I mentioned earlier was the exterior of the case has these fins to it. These do help with having air pass through, but with the included Blue LED case lighting, they give the Dell Insprion a whole different look.
You can toggle the LEDs on and off via a control panel option within Windows itself. I like the look of the Blue LEDs myself. It goes give the case design a bit more of a “gamer” feel too.
Gaming Benchmarks
On to the gaming benchmarks, after all, this is a desktop computer that is marketed towards those who wish to play games right? So how does the Dell Insprion 5675 handle a variety of video graphic benchmark programs? Let’s take a look!
These benchmark programs are designed to push the graphics card to its limits in a full-3D sort of world. When watching these sorts of benchmarks you want to ensure there is no slow-downed scenes or choppiness. The higher the average FPS the better (for simplicity of course).
First up is Unigine’s Heaven Benchmark
I set the benchmark to being “High” as opposed to “Epic” and I set it to 1080p as I know that this isn’t a high-end gaming machine so there wouldn’t be a reason to test it all on max. This Inspiron is marketed for being a good budget gaming machine. If you want a high-end gaming machine the video cards are going start at the cost of the same price as the Dell Insprion 5675 itself!
Here with the Heaven benchmark we see that the FPS or Frames Per Second give an average of 92.9, where a minimum of 12 is seen and a maximum of 210.7 was seen. While watching the benchmark do its thing I didn’t really notice any slow downs, but there must of been when it recorded a low 12.2 FPS at one point.
Next up is the Unigine Valley Benchmark
Unigine Valley Benchmark is newer than the Heaven Benchmark and thus I wouldn’t have expected a higher score or higher framerate. I even tested it at the “Ultra” setting at 1080p. With an average FPS of 83.6 that’s not bad. Minimum FPS was 28.4 isn’t bad either with a maximum FPS of 156.9, to me that’s pretty good. The whole benchmark played out remarkably smooth.
Finally, Unigine’s Superposition
New for 2017 is Unigine’s Superposition and it definitely tries and push the graphics to its breaking point. The neat thing about Superposition is that it allows you to compare your results with other people’s results. Based on other results of similar video card, the Dell Inspiron didn’t do all that bad, but when I look into other people’s scores you can see that all of them have overclocked their graphic cards CPU (GPU) higher than the stock setting as well as have other items overclocked. But the Dell Inspiron 5675 being at stock settings, it handles pretty good.
Real Gaming Tests
Now depending on what games your kid(s) are playing on a computer these days the Dell Inspiron 5675 should be able to handle any of them within reason. You’re probably not going to go full Epic settings with a 4K 144hz gaming monitor, that would require at least spending over $2000 (before taxes) typically. They will be able to play the newest titles on the market without any issues with the Dell Inspiron 5675.
The games I typically play can be fairly graphic intense so I find they tend to be my real world benchmarking go-to’s. The two games I play are both available on Steam: ARK: Survival Evolved and Dark and Light.
ARK: Survival Evolved (1080p)
Think Minecraft meets Jurassic Park but with more realistic graphics. ARK has been in development for a really long time and has finally been officially released. I find that it is a great game to play and has some pretty beautiful scenery. Not to mention there are dinosaurs that you can tame as your own!
I can play ARK with everything on the Epic setting and I average about 50-60 FPS which is great. I have not seen any issues yet playing ARK on the Dell Inspiron 5675 and it has made the game look so much better than with my previous computer or even the PlayStation4.
Dark and Light – Early Access (1080p)
Dark and Light is in Early Development on Steam, that means that it can be full of bugs and is not optimized for any particular system. Though most games are optimized for an NVIDIA graphics card, I find that the AMD Radeon RX580 plays perfectly fine and I am glad that it allows me to play the game with higher graphic settings than my previous computer with its NVIDIA GTX500 Ti.
I don’t make use of full Epic settings on Dark and Light because being an Early Access game the game hasn’t finished being graphically optimized. I do run on a few of the settings being at Epic with some being lowered down to High and it is still a lot of fun to play. I can also push the view distance to maximum which allows me to see way more of the map as I explore the area.
Hard Drive Speed Tests (More Geeky Things Ahead!)
You can skip this part and go straight to the Final Thoughts if you wish. This is more of a geeky thing when you talk about the speed of hard drives (aka storage).
Since the configuration I received came with a 1TB Toshbia hard drive, I thought I would benchmark the drive along side the Samsung EVO SSD and another hard drive I had access to. This can help show why you might want to use an SSD as your OS drive.
Up first the 1TB Toshiba SATA drive
The main numbers to look at here are the first row. Essentially this Toshiba has a 171.1MBps read speed with a 167.1MBps write speed. I won’t get into the details of how the numbers are calculated or what Sequential Queue tests means but it gives us a starting point. The Toshiba drive is ultra quiet too, you could not hear it spin up. Remember, this drive is a mechanical drive with platters and a reading arm etc.
The Samsung EVO 850 SSD
So what do you notice about the two benchmarks? The Samsung is essentially 5 times faster than the mechanical Toshiba drive. If you want to increase the gaming experience, look at having an SSD (solid state drive) installed and have your little gamer’s most favourite game installed on to it to help maximum their gaming experience.
A last, the WD 2TB Black
This helps show you that not all drives are created equal. This was the WD (Western Digital) 2TB Black drive. Both the Toshiba and WD are 7200 RPM drives, but the not only did the Toshiba perform better, but the WD Black drive was extremely loud when the test ramped up. I can see why Dell went with the Toshiba drive was it was virtually noise-less when under full load.
Final Thoughts
I have had the Dell Inspiron 5675 in my possession for about a couple of weeks now and I totally recommend looking at the Inspiron series of gaming desktops if you are in the market for a nice gaming system for the family. You don’t need to worry about selecting a CPU with a motherboard with what type of RAM will go in it. You won’t need to mess around having to install the operating system on it as well. You select the base unit, choose an option or two (like that SSD I mentioned above) and click Buy! Then in about 2 weeks you will have a shiny new desktop computer sitting at your door waiting for it to be played with.
There are plenty of ports included with the Dell Inspiron 5675 that I’ve actually stopped using the USB3.0 4-port hub I was using with my previous computer. There are even a couple of extra USB 3.0 ports left for me to use at a later time if I need to!
The Inspiron is also quiet, and I like that. The SSD helps of course, but the included Toshiba drive that was shipped with it was quiet even under full load of reading/writing data. The loudest thing I have on my desk right now is my keyboard as I type this post!
There isn’t much I would change about this particular Dell based on its cost. I did add my own SSD, but that is an easy upgrade option when purchasing the Inspiron 5675. There is also a bit of room to grow too if needed. I can drop in another stick of RAM (memory) up to a maximum of 32GB. I can add another hard drive if I need more internal storage. There is even another PCIe slot to add a second video card if I so wish to go down that route at a later time.
The Dell Inspiron 5675 starts at $1,149.99 CDN
If you have any additional questions about the Dell Insprion 5675 or general computer questions, please post them in the comments below and I will answer them best I can!
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November 29, 2017 at 11:04 am