Introduction, Specs, and Pricing
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XPS has been Dell’s flagship lineup way back to I can keep in mind. It additionally served as Dell’s gaming arm for a number of years earlier than they picked up Alienware in 2006. In its present generational format, XPS has served as Dell’s Ultrabook all the best way again to 2010 with the preliminary launch of the XPS 15 L501 and L502.
XPS 13, within the present kind issue, was initially launched in 2012 and since then has undergone many redesigns and {hardware} upgrades with every new era. The latest {hardware} design has a bevy of recent {hardware} underneath the hood. That stated, it sticks with the design of the XPS 13 9300 from earlier within the 12 months.
Specs
{Hardware} specs put the XPS 9310 on the Intel Tiger Lake platform with the Core i7-1165G7. It is a four-core / eight-thread half that operates with a base frequency of two.8GHz and a lift of 4.7GHz. It is necessary to decide on your reminiscence correctly as XPS has it soldered to the motherboard, not upgradable. Thankfully, our pattern was geared up with 16GB of super-fast LPDDR4 4667MHz.
As for graphics, we’ve got the brand new Intel Xe answer, and it powers our 13.4″ FHD+ Infinity Edge show. Storage for this mannequin is a 512GB PCIe 3.0 answer, the Micron 2300 NVMe.
The Killer AX1650 handles networking with full Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5 capabilities. Exterior I/O is dealt with by two Thunderbolt 4 ports, one on either side, together with a UHS-II succesful microSD slot.
Pricing
The Dell XPS 13 9310, as configured above, retails for $1599.99 with a one-year guarantee.
Packaging, Equipment, and Overview
Packaging and Equipment
The XPS 13 arrived to us in a white field, Dell branded. Unboxing, we’ve got the equipment neatly positioned, every in their very own cavity.
Included with the XPS 13 9310, we’ve got two potentialities for the facility adapter with an extension cable to the left. Additionally, you will discover a Kind-C to Kind-A adapter included.
Dell XPS 13″ 9310 (2020) Overview
Our journey with the XPS 13 begins right here, with silver shell Dell branding on prime.
The left facet of the pocket book homes each Thunderbolt 4 and the MicroSD slot.
On the fitting facet, we run fairly clear with only a Thunderbolt 4 port and three.5mm audio jack.
The highest fringe of the pocket book is brushed aluminum.
Opening the 9310, our pattern is the Arctic White colorway. The design features a white carbon fiber prime, massive touchpad within the heart. The display screen is the Infinity Edge with almost no bezel in any respect.
Shutting down our lights, you will get a take a look at the white backlighting on the keyboard.
Opening up the again of the XPS, we discover a big battery protecting a lot of the actual property, 52Wh @ 7.6v. 5 screws, and you’ll take away it if it ever must be changed. Above, we’ve got the m.2 SSD underneath a copper warmth sink machine and to the left the embedded AX1650s module. You can find a somewhat small warmth sink design between each cooling followers that cools the Core i7-1165G7 and Intel Xe graphics.
Eradicating the copper cowl from the m.2 SSD, we discover a Micron 2300 NVMe answer.
BIOS/UEFI and Software program
UEFI
Setup for the XPS 13 features a totally succesful EFI with mouse assist. BIOS begins with an summary of the {hardware}, together with CPU and reminiscence speeds and battery degree. I then transfer into boot configuration, the place you’ll be able to change the present boot machine and even allow SD card boot.
Built-in gadgets can help you handle issues just like the front-facing digicam, audio, and USB/Thunderbolt configuration. Storage configuration means that you can arrange your NVMe answer in AHCI or RAID mode – default is RAID mode for the Micron 2300. Shifting into connections, we are able to allow or disable the WLAN and Bluetooth performance whereas the facility menu means that you can select battery configuration.
Software program
Software program for the XPS 13 consists of Help Help from Dell. This software program retains your drivers updated, scans for {hardware} errors, and maintains your filesystem. It does have further choices to the fitting for tuning the system and optimizing the community.
KCC is one other function of the XPS 13. I would go away community optimization to this piece of software program because it has a {hardware} layer that interfaces with the AX1650s.
System/CPU Benchmarks
WPrime
WPrime is a number one multi-threaded benchmark. In our setup, we are going to manually set the variety of cores for the CPU underneath take a look at.
With the XPS 13 9310 being our first productivity-based pocket book, I began the charts contemporary. WPrime exhibits 5.29 seconds for 32M and 208 seconds for 1024M.
Cinebench
Cinebench is a long-standing render benchmark that has been closely relied upon by each Intel and AMD to showcase their latest platforms throughout unveils. The benchmark has two checks, a single-core workload that may make the most of one thread or 1T. There may be additionally a multi-threaded take a look at which makes use of all threads or nT of a examined CPU
We moved all of our testing to R23 after its launch; the XPS 13 9310 is our first pocket book to see this take a look at. Outcomes give us 1434 in single thread and 4501 in multithread.
Realbench
Realbench makes use of each video and photograph workloads for real-world testing.
Outcomes for the 9310 reached 77.5 seconds for the heavy workload.
AIDA64 Reminiscence
Reminiscence bandwidth was fairly spectacular for the 9310. Learn reached 62815 whereas write touched 61656.
PCMark 10
PCMark is a benchmark from UL and checks numerous workload sorts to signify typical workloads for a PC. The whole lot from video conferencing, picture import, and enhancing, together with 3D rendering, are examined.
PCMark testing confirmed a rating of 9913 for Important workloads, whereas productiveness and digital content material got here in at 5681 and 4814, respectively.
Our second situation in PCMark 10 is the purposes take a look at. In these workloads, the 9310 scored 7176 in Phrase, 13591 with Excel, and 10274 in PowerPoint. Microsoft Edge scored 9625 for the XPS 9310.
Graphics, System I/O and Battery
Graphics Efficiency
3DMark Night time Raid
Night time Raid is a DirectX 12 benchmark for cell computing gadgets with built-in graphics and low-power platforms powered by Home windows 10 on ARM.
XPS 9310 supplied a major enhance in graphics efficiency over the growing old UHD 630.
3DMark Sky Diver
Sky Diver is a DX11 take a look at for mainstream platforms, together with cell GPUs and built-in graphics.
On this situation, Intel Xe as soon as once more exhibits nice promise with a close to 4x enchancment over UHD 630.
CrystalDiskMark
With the included Micron 2300 NVMe, we noticed 3237 MB/s learn and 2712 MB/s write out of the XPS 9310. 4KQ1 got here in at 40 MB/s learn and 92 MB/s write.
I ran one other spherical of CrystalDiskMark after pulling the included Micron 2300 NVMe in favor of my Samsung 980 Professional. With the 980 Professional, we have been in a position to get a lot better efficiency, correct Gen4 for an Intel platform at 6361 MB/s learn and 2720 MB/s write. 4KQ1 hit 49 MB/s learn and 159 MB/s write.
Networking
Networking for the XPS 9310 depends solely on the Killer AX1650s. With this mannequin and our AX86U from ASUS, we have been in a position to collect 1378Mbps.
Battery Testing
For battery checks, we use the PCMark 10 Battery checks in Workplace mode.
The trendy workplace battery life take a look at ran for 13 hours and 26 minutes or 806 minutes, as seen in our charts. This was unbelievable, to say the least.
Thermals
The photographs above come in the course of testing. We noticed 38c on the keyboard facet at peak whereas the underside facet pushed out 46c on the vents.
Last Ideas
I’ve had the 9310 for somewhat over a month. Utilizing it for every day duties, e-mail, Excel, and so on., has left me fairly joyful. What’s even higher is I can run this machine for 2 eight-hour workdays while not having to cost it, so my day is not a wash if I overlook the charger at house.
Even with this thermal design, the XPS 13 performs amazingly effectively in each single-core and multi-threaded apps, so effectively in reality that our pattern was solely 110 factors decrease than the Ryzen 7 5800X in single-core Cinebench R23.
In PCMark workloads, we turned in a strong spherical of numbers peaking with Excel at 13591. Graphics workloads, too, confirmed strong outcomes for the Intel Xe, an enormous bounce over UHD 630 with over 60FPS in Sky Diver and Night time Raid from 3DMark.
What We Like
Thunderbolt 4: The newest iteration of Thunderbolt comes constructed within the Intel Tiger Lake platform.
eleventh Technology Core i7: Tiger Lake exhibits spectacular CPU efficiency with single-core Cinebench scores which might be simply behind Ryzen 5000 sequence desktop processors!
PCIe 4.0: Lastly, an Intel platform with correct PCIe 4.0 assist!
Intel Xe: Intel Xe Graphics are an enormous enchancment over UHD 630!
What Might Be Higher
Chassis: After prolonged use of the XPS 13 9310, a stiffer chassis is required for this answer. The quantity of flex permits for inaccurate touchpad presses shifting the laptop computer in a working surroundings.
Cooling: Dell has sacrificed cooling to deploy a thinner extra moveable answer. This requires the processor to bounce of thermal throttle resulting in decreased efficiency persistently.
Storage: With PCIe 4.0 accessible on the m.2 slot, it makes me surprise why Dell did not benefit from this with a correct NVMe answer.
