Dell Updates The XPS 13 With 8th Generation Quad-Core CPUs
by Brett Howse on August 29, 2017 10:40 PM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Dell
- Intel
- Trade Shows
- XPS 13
- Kaby Lake
- Kaby Lake Refresh
- IFA 2017
Dell has announced it is updating the XPS 13 with the just announced 8th generation Kaby Lake refresh. While we’re still waiting for 10nm chips to launch, the latest Kaby Lake ultramobile processors are more than just a speed bump, with the latest CPUs being the first in Intel’s popular 15-Watt Core lineup to offer four cores and eight threads.
| Specifications of Intel Core i5/i7 U-series CPUs | |||||||||||
| 7th Generation | 8th Generation | ||||||||||
| Cores | Freq + Turbo |
L3 | Price | Cores | Freq + Turbo |
L3 | Price | ||||
| i7-7660U | 2/4 | 2.5/4.0 GHz | 4 MB | $415 | i7-8650U | 4/8 | 1.9/4.2 GHz | 8 MB | $409 | ||
| i7-7560U | 2.4/3.8 GHz | $415 | i7-8550U | 1.8/4.0 GHz | $409 | ||||||
| i5-7360U | 2/4 | 2.3/3.6 GHz | 3 MB | $304 | i5-8350U | 4/8 | 1.7/3.6 GHz | 6 MB | $297 | ||
| i5-7260U | 2.2/3.4 GHz | $304 | i5-8250U | 1.6/3.4 GHz | $297 | ||||||
Dell is claiming the latest XPS 13 is 44% faster than the outgoing XPS 9360, and that falls in-line with the speed bump Intel has been promising as well. Dell is making this comparison with BAPCo’s SYSmark 2014 SE, which does attempt to replicate real-world use cases, so this should be an impressive update.
Other than the new CPU, the rest of the XPS 13 stays the same, and that’s not a problem at all. The XPS 13 continues to offer both a 1920x1080 FHD model, with Dell claiming up to 22 hours of battery life, and a QHD+ model (3200x1800) with touch, that gets less. The XPS 13 is one of the smallest 13-inch notebooks around, and really pioneered the thin bezel revolution we’ve seen other manufacturers exploit as well.
The new XPS 13 with 8th Generation Intel Core processors will be available starting with the Core i7 model on September 12th starting at $1399.99, and more configurations will be available in October, which should get closer to the starting price of the i3 model at $799.99.
Source: Dell
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geepat - Wednesday, August 30, 2017 - link
Only if you blame Intel for cheating their way into the market in the early 2000s when AMD had the better product.piroroadkill - Wednesday, August 30, 2017 - link
The amount of work and money Intel put in to making sure AMD could not compete on a level playing field is incredible. Do a little research.CedarWind - Tuesday, August 29, 2017 - link
Now if they could only update it with a screen that's not 16:9thesavvymage - Wednesday, August 30, 2017 - link
yup. if they moved the screen down just a few mm to get the webcam back up there, and then extended the bottom of the screen down to 16:10 (or even further) this would go from being a good laptop to being best on the market.Samus - Wednesday, August 30, 2017 - link
16:10 is so unfortunately rare on a laptop. Basically the best ratio for productivity is on the surface...hopefully we have an 8th gen model in the near future.Dug - Wednesday, August 30, 2017 - link
That would be very nice, but knowing Microsoft, they don't have any plans on updating the surface laptop anytime soon.I unfortunately can't wait as I have to pick a laptop now, and I would prefer to have a slower laptop with 3:2 aspect ratio than the faster and arguably better laptop with 16:9.
Kakti - Wednesday, August 30, 2017 - link
My Acer Switch Alpha 12 is basically a SP4 clone at half the price. I had a SP3 a long while ago but returned it due to hardware bugs - loved the design. Bought the Switch Alpha like ~8 months ago now and love it. Has a really nice 12" 3:2 screen, SSD, etc. I don't think they've announced a Coffeelake version of that yet, but today did reveal some other new ones.hxxps://techreport.com/news/32483/acer-switch-convertibles-and-chromebook-15-are-on-the-move
kitty4427 - Wednesday, August 30, 2017 - link
An XPS 13 with MX150 graphics would be the perfect college laptop.Ej24 - Wednesday, August 30, 2017 - link
I wish. It'd be the perfect do almost anything laptop. Unfortunately it'd require a massive redesign of the motherboard and cooling solution. I'm almost certain the new quad-cores fit on the same sized substrate as the old dual cores because the old dual core was an SOC so the cpu-pch package was already quite large. Being able to use the same size substrate means almost no redesign.tipoo - Friday, September 1, 2017 - link
It would take a redesign as it never had the predecessor 940M. The closest model in size that has the MX150, the Xiaomi Air 13, is decidedly larger than the Dell.I do wish Dell or Apple would make a 13" around it though, it's the most exciting low end laptop chip in a long time.