I ordered a new custom built Dell XPS on Monday and it arrived Thursday! I was a bit worried because their website ate my first two orders (one of those times it gave me an error on the confirmation page!) and I ended up having to contact Dell by phone to get the computer ordered (and make sure I wasn't ordering two).

I did a little bit of investigation before I bought my new computer including pricing out the components for The CodingHorror Ultimate Developer Rig. The interesting thing is that article was posted in June, just 6 months ago, and when I priced everything it was almost half the price. However, the price on the Dell XPS was comparable, the specs were pretty decent, and I didn't really feel like going through all the hassle of putting together my own machine.

The highlights of my Dell XPS include:

• Intel Core2 processor Q6600 (2.40Ghz,1066FSB) w/QuadCore Technology and 8MB cache
• 3GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz (don't really know much about RAM specs other than 3GB is good)
• 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS
• Dell 19 in 1 Media Card Reader with Bluetooth
• Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit Edition English
• 4 Year Limited Warranty

I don't typically purchase the extended warranty, but it was a condition of the coupon that I used. Basically I got $500 off of the computer but I had to purchase the warranty (plus 3 year Trend security, whatever that is) for $338. It was still a better deal than any other coupon I was able to find and now I've got a 4 year warranty to boot!

I would have written this last night, but I was a bit busy installing software (Firefox 2, Visual Studio 2008 - Trial :(, Slick Run, GoodSync, RoboForm, Live Writer, Office 2007, etc).