Panther Lake XPS 16 is so efficient, it draws just 1.5 W when idling for insanely long battery life
The 2026 XPS 16 introduces major changes to the series both inside and out. Internally, Dell has swapped out Arrow Lake and Nvidia GeForce options for solely Panther Lake. By dropping discrete graphics, Dell was able to both slim down the chassis and improve efficiency by significant margins.
The graph below shows the power consumption of the XPS 16 FHD+ configuration over a two-minute period when idling on desktop at the lowest brightness setting and with VRR enabled. The system would average just 1.5 W which is very impressive for a large 16-inch screen size. Competing models like the Asus ZenBook S16 or MSI Prestige 16 would each draw between 3 W and 5 W when under similar conditions.
Increasing the brightness from minimum to maximum on the new XPS 16 would increase average consumption from 1.5 W to 4.5 W which would still be much lower than many competitors.
Naturally, the high efficiency of Panther Lake can extend battery life quite noticeably. For example, our test unit would last for almost 27 hours when running our WLAN loop test on the Balanced power profile with VRR enabled and the brightness set to 150 nits. Results are easily several hours longer than previous generation XPS 16 models even after accounting for the fact that the new XPS 16 ships with a smaller 70 Wh battery.
Nonetheless, all the changes to the new XPS 16 have entailed some notable drawbacks especially in regards to graphics performance. More benchmarks and comparisons can be found on our recent review of the 2026 XPS 16.
| Dell XPS 16 Core Ultra 5 325 Ultra 5 325, Intel Graphics 4 Xe3, SK hynix PVC10 HFS512GEM4X182N, IPS, 1920x1200, 16" | Dell 16 Premium DA16250 Ultra 7 255H, GeForce RTX 5070 Laptop, Kioxia BG6 KBG6AZNV1T02, OLED, 3840x2400, 16.3" | Dell XPS 16 9640 Ultra 7 155H, GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU, Kioxia XG8 KXG80ZNV1T02, OLED, 3840x2400, 16.3" | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Power Consumption | -225% | -186% | |
| Idle Minimum * (Watt) | 1.3 | 6.5 -400% | 7.7 -492% |
| Idle Average * (Watt) | 4.5 | 8.1 -80% | 10.3 -129% |
| Idle Maximum * (Watt) | 4.6 | 33 -617% | 10.6 -130% |
| Load Average * (Watt) | 36.5 | 88.9 -144% | 76.5 -110% |
| Cyberpunk 2077 ultra external monitor * (Watt) | 45.4 | 108.9 -140% | |
| Cyberpunk 2077 ultra * (Watt) | 47.9 | 108.7 -127% | |
| Load Maximum * (Watt) | 82.8 | 138.3 -67% | 138.5 -67% |
| Witcher 3 ultra * (Watt) | 126.4 |
* ... smaller is better
Power Consumption Cyberpunk / Stress Test
Power Consumption external Monitor
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