Budget desktops often skimp on processing power, but Dell’s Inspiron Desktop 3891 doesn’t. This family-friendly microtower delivers a reasonably powerful Intel Core i3 CPU, Wi-Fi 6, and Windows 11 for just $392 as tested. The price even includes a DVD burner and a 12-month McAfee LiveSafe subscription. The Inspiron’s integrated graphics mean it won’t play many games well, but for general use, it does just fine. Overall, the Inspiron Desktop 3891 is a convincing argument not to spend more for a basic PC and earns our budget desktop Editors’ Choice award alongside the Acer Aspire TC-895-UA91, a slightly more expensive tower with more storage.
Respectably Basic
Simple but respectable—that’s the Inspiron Desktop 3891. The Dell looks more upscale than its price would suggest; its black case is appropriate anywhere, and the cross-patterned front panel adds flair.
The tower is all steel save for a plastic front panel; it weighs about 11 pounds. Some bare steel is visible from behind.
As a microtower, the Inspiron is appreciably smaller than a mid-tower desktop at 12.8 by 6.1 by 11.5 inches (HWD). Some mini-towers are even trimmer—the HP Slim Desktop (S01-aF0020) is 10.6 by 3.7 by 11.9 inches—but this Dell is more powerful and upgradable.
Front-panel ports include two USB 3.2 Gen 1 (one Type-A and one Type-C), two legacy USB 2.0 ports, and a headset jack. The power button is next to them. It’s a satisfactory selection.
The tray-loading DVD+/-RW burner is at the top.
Around back you’ll find two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, two more USB 2.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, a VGA video output for legacy monitors and projectors, and line-out audio. Modern video output is unfortunately limited to a single HDMI port, so forget about doing a dual-monitor setup. The HDMI port follows the older version 1.4b spec, limiting 4K resolution output to a slideshow-like 30Hz, so don’t bother hooking up a 4K monitor or TV.
If you want more video connectors, the Inspiron has a PCI Express x16 slot, so you could theoretically install a dedicated graphics card. But as its 260-watt power supply doesn’t have any GPU power connectors (and is itself limited in power, proprietary, and not easily changed), you’d be limited to cards that can be powered solely by the PCI Express slot. (Dell actually offers this tower with a discrete Nvidia GeForce GPU and a beefier power supply, but those models are far out of budget territory.)
Getting inside the Inspiron is easily done by loosening two thumbscrews on its left panel. The Intel B560-based MicroATX motherboard has two DDR4-2666 DIMM slots, which accept up to 64GB of memory (two 32GB DIMMs; our model has a lonely 8GB module).
There’s also an M.2 slot occupied by a 256GB PCI Express Gen 3 solid-state drive. It’s a tiny Type-2230 (30mm) model, but the slot accepts up to Type-2280 (80mm) drives. You’ll also find a PCI Express x1 slot for expansion cards.
Unfortunately, adding more internal storage isn’t practical. There are SATA power cables, but Dell only includes a drive cage if the desktop is ordered with a hard drive from the get-go.
The Inspiron’s only cooling fan is the one on the CPU cooler, which is smartly covered by a shroud that funnels its exhaust outside as opposed to venting it in the case. It’s practically silent even during intense use.
Performance on the Cheap: Testing the Inspiron Desktop 3891
As reviewed, the $392 Inspiron Desktop 3891 from Dell.com includes a quad-core, 3.7GHz (4.4GHz turbo) Core i3-10105 processor, Intel UHD 630 integrated graphics, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, Windows 11 Home, and a one-year warranty. It also bundles a 12-month McAfee LiveSafe anti-malware subscription and a USB keyboard and mouse.
The slim-style keyboard has comfortable keys and gets the job done; the optical mouse is a generic three-button unit that also gets the essentials right.
The Core i3-10105 is a refresh of Intel’s Core i3-10100, with a mild bump in frequency. This Core i3 was released earlier this year alongside Intel’s “Rocket Lake” 11th Generation chips. Intel did not release any low-end Rocket Lake CPUs (the most minimal was a Core i5), and this and a few other slightly upticked 10th Generation processors were released under the moniker “Comet Lake Refresh.”
This 65-watt CPU’s performance is much superior to that of Intel Celeron and Pentium and AMD Athlon chips. That said, you must temper your expectations with a desktop this inexpensive. Multitasking quickly uses up the system’s 8GB of memory, at which point the desktop can become sluggish, and its 256GB solid-state drive is small. Memory and the on-motherboard storage are fortunately upgradable (adding another 8GB stick of DDR4-2666 would cost only about $30 at aftermarket prices and give you much better performance). As for gaming, you’ll be limited to what you can play on integrated graphics.
Similarly equipped desktops tend to command more—both the Acer Aspire TC-895-UA91 and the HP Envy Desktop TP01-1055m went for up to $449 as I typed this. You can also spend more and get less; Lenovo’s IdeaCentre 3i Desktop is currently $429 with a dual-core Pentium Gold G6400 and just 4GB of RAM.
Let’s test the Inspiron Desktop 3891. It’s one of the first budget desktops to complete our new benchmarking regimen, so it’s entering a David-and-Goliath battle against several gaming PCs whose basic specifications appear below. They include the mid-tower Lenovo Legion Tower 5i and the compact NZXT H1 Mini Plus. The Inspiron won’t win any benchmark tests against those machines, of course, but it won’t do half bad, as you’ll see. We also mapped in a couple of low-cost mini PCs, the ECS Liva Q3 Plus (running a seldom-seen embedded Ryzen CPU) and the lowest-end Intel NUC 11 we tested, the “Tiger Canyon” Pro Kit. These units are a lot smaller than the Inspiron Desktop.
Productivity and Content Creation Tests
Our first test is UL’s PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance and also includes a storage subtest for the primary drive. We consider 4,000 points in the main test a sign of strong performance for everyday productivity, and the Inspiron Desktop 3891 just cleared that. It trailed the big PCs in the storage test (the mini PCs did not run that test), but its 256GB SSD is plenty responsive for everyday use.
Three other benchmarks focus on the CPU, using all available cores and threads, to rate a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 uses that company’s Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene, while Primate Labs’ Geekbench 5.4 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. Finally, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to convert a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution (lower times are better).
Our final productivity test is Puget Systems’ PugetBench for Photoshop, which uses the Creative Cloud version 22 of Adobe’s famous image editor to rate a PC’s performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It’s an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.
The Inspiron’s quad-core Core i3 didn’t come close to the Lenovo’s six-core Core i5, let alone the eight-core CPUs in the other systems, but that’s not a knock; with four cores and relatively high clock speeds, the Core i3 has performance to spare for most tasks. Its low Photoshop score is more attributable to its 8GB of RAM, which is barely enough to complete the test. Meanwhile, it traded blows with the Core i5 NUC and regularly topped the low-end ECS Liva.
Graphics and Gaming Tests
For Windows PCs, we run two synthetic tests (we skip the real-world gaming benchmarks with non-gaming PCs like this one). UL’s 3DMark contributes two DirectX 12 gaming simulations, Night Raid (more modest, suitable for systems with integrated graphics) and Time Spy (more demanding, suitable for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). Another test is the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which we use to gauge OpenGL performance.
Graphics performance isn’t the Inspiron’s strong suit. Its Intel UHD 630 integrated graphics can play a few casual or browser-based games, but if you want to play the latest AAA titles or competitive esports, you’ll need a true gaming desktop. You can also see the difference here between the weaker UHD Graphics in the Dell and the better integrated solutions in the ECS (Radeon Vega) and Intel NUC (newer Intel Iris Xe silicon).
A Budget Desktop Done Right
The Dell Inspiron Desktop 3891 delivers all you could hope for in a budget desktop and a little extra. It doesn’t lack for performance, thanks to its quad-core Intel Core i3 CPU, and also includes Wi-Fi 6 and a DVD burner. Its main downsides are its single HDMI port and support for only one internal storage drive. Integrated graphics also limit its gaming potential. But if you’re looking for the computing essentials, this Inspiron compact is an admirable value and clinches an Editors’ Choice award for budget desktops.
