Performance Benchmarks
CPU Performance
To see what advantages might be afforded by the move to 6th-gen Intel Skylake processors with the XPS 13, and what kind of power one might expect from our top-end XPS 15 with its Core i7-6700HQ, I ran benchmarks from our usual test suite.
We'll begin with SiSoft Sandra:
We almost need to ignore the results from the XPS 15, as it has a massive advantage from its 8-thread Core i7 CPU. Still, for someone looking for a portable workstation the XPS 15 would clearly have the requisite power. It's worth noting that the Broadwell Core i5-5200U from last year's XPS 13 had a much better result with floating-point performance in this test.
Next up we have CineBench, with both single-core and multi-threaded results:
Interestingly, when comparing the i5-6200U to the previous i5-5200U, the latter's Broadwell core fared slightly better in the render test with single-core performance; though multi-core still went to the Skylake CPU. This could be an anomoly, but it's now the second time we've seen the 5th-gen part on top (the first was floating-point performance in SiSoft Sandra).
Handbrake encoding is our last CPU test, and I'm sure you can see the i7-6700HQ's absurd lead coming.
Here the processors are in the expected order, with each generation of Core i5 a little better than the last. Obviously your encoding times are going to be cut in half with twice as many threads, as we can see from the results with the XPS 15.
GPU Performance
I ran one quick graphics benchmark on each machine before stopping, for what will soon be an obvious reason:
The outrageous advantage in GPU power provided by the discrete GTX 960M in the XPS 15 renders further GPU comparisons moot. However, this performance does mean that your investment in the most-expensive configuration of this XPS series affords you the ability to play games, and at reasonable settings (albeit at nowhere near the panel's native 4k resolution).
SSD Performance
We'll move on to storage performance, as both of these XPS machines include Samsung PM951 M.2 SSDs. Our 13-inch model includes the 256GB version, with the XPS 15 equipped with the 512GB version.
XPS 13 results on the left, XPS 15 results on the right
It looks like these drives are write-limited at about 300MB/s for the smaller 256GB drive, and 600MB/s for the 512GB drive. This is not uncommon, as OEM's have the ability to tailor SSD speed for various reasons, including thermal or power concerns. The drives were still very fast accross the board with outstanding read speeds, and general file operations were very speedy on both notebooks.
For reference, here's a look at CrystalDiskMark results from both drives:
XPS 13 results on the left, XPS 15 results on the right
Next we'll check out the battery life with our PCPer Wi-Fi test.
Well something non Apple to
Well something non Apple to compete with Apple that actually provides TB connectivity, and TB3 at that, now for an enterprise license and all that windows 10 nonsense shut off and then maybe there can be some use from these systems for medical/HIPAA usage. M$ should be forced to offer it’s enterprise licensing to all businesses, and not discriminate against the small business owners. Hopefully Dell will offer some form of enterprise Linux support for laptops like this. That Intel Core i7-6700HQ option is nice for the power users, and hopefully Dell will be offering a more up to date GPU SKU in some future variants. What really needs to be compared among this and the Apple variants is just what make and model of Intel TB/TB3 controller chip is being used in the laptop, I’d really like to know that to be able to properly compare any to laptop makers SKU’s full TB/TB# abilities.
Hopefully for any power laptop users maybe AMD could offer a 6 Zen core laptop APU in 2017 for the power laptop users market or maybe even some 8 core Opteron mobile APU/portable workstation variants also. 2017 is going to be a more interesting year for users of x86 based CPUs/SOCs/APUs especially for any of AMD’s new APUs on an interposer designs for the workstation(PC and mobile) market.
This will all depend on the
This will all depend on the TDP of Zen from those specific segments and the relative performance as well. APUs haven’t be terrible, but they don’t compete well with Intel at higher price points/TDPs from what I remember.
We haven’t seen much in the way of mobile CPUs from AMD in a while for that very reason; too hot and too “slow” to compete, so AMD targeted other platforms.
My first laptop has a single
My first laptop has a single core Intel chip and it is rated for 65 watts, and that does not include the AMD discrete mobile graphics. So if it’s a laptop for power users, or for mobile workstation use AMD’s Zen 8 core part will do just fine, and cost a lot less than Intel’s overpriced SKUs with Intel’s dog food graphics. When AMD begins to make it’s APUs on an interposer for Laptops and mobile workstations those chips will have the Zen cores, and a separate Polaris/Vega GPU die, and HBM all on the same interposer. So those APUs on an interposer will be very power efficient, more so than any system that has to use a PCI based GPU.
AMD’s Zen cores will be fabricated at 14nm and should have the thermals to fit 8 cores easily into a laptop form factor! I’m not talking about any gimped down ultrabook thin and light form factor laptop for myself, as I have never bought into that overpriced and gimped of performance Ultrabook crap market. AMD will be able to offer Zen at a much more affordable price, and some Zen APUs with much better graphics and affordable pricing than Intel could ever provide.
I do not see any Intel CPU based mobile workstations that can function as a mobile workstation without the help of AMD’s or Nvidia’s GPUs and no mobile workstation user is ever going to be wanting to use Intel’s dog food graphics, ditto for high end gaming!
I bought into the 15″
I bought into the 15″ i7-6700HQ, 4k screen, 1 tb NVMe, 16 gb ddr4, NV 960m GPU last year and am very satisfied with it. It did not ship without a laundry list of issues but they have all been corrected minus the newest BIOS update which introduced flicker on the 4k models. We are waiting on a fix from Dell.
Anyone on the fence about this laptop should just make the leap. eBay is the best source for very reasonably priced models.
Here is the forum to read up on the 15″ model:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/dell-xps-15-skylake-9550-owners-lounge.783377/page-275
The most appealing thing to
The most appealing thing to me about the XPS 13/15 refresh from a year or two ago was the fact that you could get a 1080P model with amazing battery life. I hope these new models still give you the same option.
As I mentioned to Ryan on
As I mentioned to Ryan on twitter, these have been out for a while; this however doesn’t take anything away from Sebastian’s review. It does have some issues but the BIOS updates and some drivers fixed it after a fresh install, which I strongly recommend.
You can find the 1080P version of the most expensive model, but you’r going to have to call them or chat to get it. I got the XPS 15 i7, 16GB, 512GB SSD, with 1080P from the refurb site for less than then the i5 version on the same so it’s worth checking out.
I bought the 13 to use for
I bought the 13 to use for work, it’s the i7-6560U with 16GB RAM and 500GB NVMe. The display at 3200 x 1800 is amazing, yes glare can be an issue but it’s run everything I’ve thrown at it so far. The nifty little type c adapter means I only have two cables connected to it when I use it back in my home office.
Good luck getting the TB15
Good luck getting the TB15 docking station. It’s been pulled off the market because it’s severely flawed.
I know I’ve got the smaller
I know I’ve got the smaller simple one
I brought myself a xps 13
I brought myself a xps 13 9350 for Christmas. Best laptop I ever had!
It was a PITA to install windows 7 onto it due to having to bodge usb3 drivers into the install but it was all worth it to get rid of 10! I took it on holiday last month. Wifi off and middle brightness I watched 8 hours of films before the battery was flat!
From the XPS 15 2016 teardown
From the XPS 15 2016 teardown guide http://www.laptopmain.com/dell-xps-15-9550-disassembly/, the laptop has two RAM slots, a hard drive bay and a M.2 SSD slot (not PCIe slot, I’m very dissatisfied about this), the upgrade options is very large, so i bought it from newegg.com, and it is work great.
Editor of this case should
Editor of this case should ask Dell about the TB15 docking station and make a big deal about it because Dell uses this review to promote their laptop.
They have pulled the whole dock out of the market and they have told me that they are not developing new dock at all! That makes the XPS 13 laptop quite bad choice for working when there is no way to connect an external monitor or any other device that are connected through the dock.
Dell is not taking any responsibility about the dock case. They are still promoting the product although it is never gonna work.