Dell Tower Plus Review: A Hybrid Work and Gaming Desktop

I like the I/O on the front panel. You get three USB-A ports (5 Gbps), as well as a 10-Gbps USB-C port. The inclusion of a headphone jack and an SD card slot is also very convenient. On the back, you’ll find your usual assortment of storage, along with one more USB-C port. It will cover all the bases depending on what peripherals and accessories you use.

In addition to the video ports on the back of the GPU, you get upgraded port selection on the back of the PC. For PC versions without discrete graphics, you now get HDMI 2.0 and a USB-C Thunderbolt 4 port, which lets you connect up to two 4K displays. You have the usual assortment of four USB-A ports, an Ethernet jack, stereo audio port and a Kensington lock.

The Dell Tower Plus doesn’t exactly use off-the-shelf parts, but it does give you fairly good upgradeability, which is one of the main reasons to buy a desktop in the first place. For additional expansion, there are two overhead free storage bays for 3.5-inch SATA hard drives, as well as an additional M.2 for an additional SSD. There are two DIMM slots, which will allow you to pack up to 64 GB of DDR5 memory, if you so desire. My review unit came with two sticks of DDR5 RAM, 16 GB each, as well as a single-terabyte M.2 SSD.

Adding or replacing these components is fairly straightforward, and there are even some instructions printed on the inside of the side panel. No, it isn’t Framework Desktop In terms of ease of use, however, there is a lot more room for your hands when tinkering with components or solving some problems. It’s not a system naturally made for true DIYers. Custom motherboards make upgrading the motherboard or CPU more difficult, but for the basics, Dell has done a good job of giving you a foundation you can build on.

Performance for professionals

Photo: Luke Larsen

My review unit is one of the more powerful configurations with both an unlocked Intel Core Ultra 7 265K and an RTX 5070. (You can upgrade to Core Ultra 9 285K and RTX 5080.) This desktop value decreases as you move down the configuration. The cheapest for Intel graphics is $800, but it doesn’t make much sense to buy one when you can get one Dell 14 Plus Laptop Better specs for less money, especially with the added benefit of display and portability.