When do we finally get the Dell XPS 15 with AMD Ryzen CPUs?

The XPS 15 has been one of the best multimedia laptops in the last couple of years. The current model 9510 is a pretty conservative update including a new 3.5K OLED touchscreen option. Both the processor as well as the graphics card also get the expected updates, but this requires a closer look.

We start with the graphics card, The previous model XPS 15 9500 was equipped with the GeForce GTX 1650 Ti Mobile and a TGP of 50W. The new XPS 15 9510 gets the GeForce RTX 3050 Ti, but it is only the 45W model. Nvidia advertises a TGP range between 35-80W, so the 45W model is at the lower end of the performance spectrum. The actual gaming performance of the new XPS 15 is therefore pretty much comparable to the predecessor. There can be advantages/disadvantages depending on the game, but you should not expect a big improvement.

The new processor does not surprise, either. As expected, you get Intel's new Tiger Lake-H chips. They can consume up to 93W for a brief period and 45W under sustained workloads. All in all, decent results and the Core i7-11800H is a good CPU. However, a comparison with the current Ryzen 7 5800H from AMD shows that the Zen3 cores have closed the gap in single-core benchmarks and the AMD CPUs are just more efficient. The short-term performance is comparable and the sustained performance is better, even with significantly lower power limits.

Overall, the fan configuration on the new model is quieter than before, even under load (including gaming). We believe the AMD processor would work well in this concept. You could even use lower power limits (like 65/35W) and the performance would still be better, but at the same time there would be more headroom for a faster GPU. Perhaps a faster version of the RTX 3050 Ti or maybe even the RTX 3060, even though the XPS 15 is not designed to be a gaming laptop. The port situation is currently still an advantage for Intel. We believe Dell wants Thunderbolt 4 or USB 4, which is currently not possible with AMD chips. We will have to wait for the upcoming Rembrandt H models (Zen3+), which will support USB 4 in 2022.  

The current XPS 15 9510 is limited to Intel CPUs, but we hope that there will finally be an AMD version in 2022. We also noticed some software issues in our review of the current model, but the situation was already improved with the latest BIOS update to version 1.4. Please see our comprehensive review of the XPS 15 with in-depth analysis for more information:

• Dell XPS 15 9510 OLED (Core i7-11800H, RTX 3050 Ti) Review