Dell Updates XPS 13 with Intel 8th Gen Quad Core CPUs

[DocSwag]

Source: https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/8/28/16202002/dell-8th-generation-kaby-lake-updates-xps-13-inspiron

Today Dell is updating its popular XPS 13 lineup with new 8th generation Intel processors. These are the new 8th generation CPUs recently announced by Intel that feature 4 cores rather than the traditional 2 for u series CPUs.

Quote

Dell is updating a bunch of its laptops with Intel’s newest processors, the 8th generation Kaby Lake chips. At the top of the list is the XPS 13, which gets the option for two of Intel’s quad-core chips: an i5, running at 1.6GHz with speeds up to 3.4GHz, and an i7, running at 1.8GHz with speeds up to 4GHz.

 

The new processors won’t all be available at once. On September 12th, Dell will phase in the Core i7 chip, then in October, it’ll bring in the i5 chip. Dell didn’t have pricing information available for XPS 13 models with 8th generation processors, but the current i7 sells for $1,349.99, so you can expect it to be somewhere around that.

Traditionally u series CPUs were 15 watt dual core hyperthreaded parts aimed squarely at thin and light ultrabooks. They slotted in between Intel's ultra lower power y series (formerly known as core m) fanless cpus and the more powerful 28 watt dual core hyperthreaded CPUs that featured higher clock speeds and (usually) more powerful graphics. However with cannonlake (and thus an ipc increase) delayed, and Intel having just pulled a clock speed trick with Kaby Lake, Intel really only had one direction to improve performance with 8th generation CPUs: more cores.

 

And so now we have 15 watt u series CPUs that feature 4 cores and 8 threads; double that of the past few generations. Clock speeds have taken a bit of a hit due to more cores obviously needing more power, with all the new u series CPUs having a base clock speed under 2 ghz, but I wouldn't be surprised if, with decent cooling, we could see a lot of laptops using these CPUs boosting higher into the 2 ghz range.

 

The only change to the new XPS 13 laptops are the CPUs. Everything else is still the same as before.

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Other than the new processor options, nothing is changing on the XPS 13, for better or worse. The laptop had one of the most impressive designs when it was introduced in 2015, but it’s now facing much tougher competition as other PC manufacturers have figured out how to make their own laptops with similarly tiny bezels.

 

[Billy_Mays]

Might get one soon possible instead of my slow laptop

[RadiatingLight]

"8th Gen"

 

Salty about the names, and them not being Coffee Lake, not that they have 4 cores - that's awesome.

[potoooooooo]

15w quadcore XPS 15/ MBPR 15 with insane battery WHEN

[dizmo]

Pretty nice, thought tbh I've never found the need for more than the 2c/4t that the U series chips had.

12 minutes ago, RadiatingLight said:

"8th Gen"

 

Salty about the names, and them not being Coffee Lake, not that they have 4 cores - that's awesome.

I think the fact that they doubled the cores is more than enough reason to call it 8th gen.

[DocSwag]

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

Pretty nice, thought tbh I've never found the need for more than the 2c/4t that the U series chips had.

Personally I think the main reason this is nice is for ultrabook gaming, potentially with eGPUs. With most games being able to use 4 cores now this could give a nice gaming performance jump with a decent gpu.

[dizmo]

1 minute ago, DocSwag said:

Personally I think the main reason this is nice is for ultrabook gaming, potentially with eGPUs. With most games being able to use 4 cores now this could give a nice gaming performance jump with a decent gpu.

They make pretty thin notebooks with HQ series CPUs don't they? I don't think I'd downgrade to a worse cooling solution if that was my intent. Though I think the idea is pretty stupid to begin with. You can buy a desktop system with a one tier lower GPU, and get virtually the same performance...without causing degradation to your ultrabook.

[Enderman]

I wonder how good the iGPU is gonna be...

[79wjd]

Just now, Enderman said:

I wonder how good the iGPU is gonna be...

Good enough to run Crysis 3 at ultra settings 

 

at 200x120

[Nowak]

I kinda want one to see what quad-core ULV CPUs are like...

[Drak3]

7 minutes ago, dizmo said:

They make pretty thin notebooks with HQ series CPUs don't they? I don't think I'd downgrade to a worse cooling solution if that was my intent. Though I think the idea is pretty stupid to begin with. You can buy a desktop system with a one tier lower GPU, and get virtually the same performance...without causing degradation to your ultrabook.

The 2017 15" MacBook Pro starts with a 7700HQ, and can be upgraded to the 7820HQ or 7920HQ. Don't know about the second 2 CPU options, but with the 7700HQ and a Radeon Pro 555, I can comfortably game on it whilst it is sat upon my lap.

2 minutes ago, Daring said:

I kinda want one to see what quad-core ULV CPUs are like...

Willing to bet it's like a 7700?HQ, with a base of 1.1GHz and Turbo 3.0 of 2.1GHz, and a weaker iGPU.

[Nowak]

2 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Willing to bet it's like a 7700?HQ, with a base of 1.1GHz and Turbo 3.0 of 2.1GHz, and a weaker iGPU.

Yeah, it's 7700HQ. And... yeah, it'll most likely be like a slower 15W 7700HQ. Which makes me want to bench it against my Aero 14 and its 7700HQ OwO

[DrMacintosh]

yawn

[Drak3]

Just now, Daring said:

Yeah, it's 7700HQ. And... yeah, it'll most likely be like a slower 15W 7700HQ. Which makes me want to bench it against my Aero 14 and its 7700HQ OwO

I want to bench it against my MBP, but I have no intention of buying another laptop with a U SKU, and my Pro 4 is doing just fine.

[Nowak]

Just now, Drak3 said:

I want to bench it against my MBP, but I have no intention of buying another laptop with a U SKU, and my Pro 4 is doing just fine.

I haven't owned a laptop with a U SKU in a few years. Also, you can never own too many laptops  

 

~ guy with 9 laptops

[Drak3]

Just now, Daring said:

I haven't owned a laptop with a U SKU in a few years. Also, you can never own too many laptops  

 

~ guy with 9 laptops

I can. They don't take up enough space, so I limit myself to one in use per OS family. Acer Aspire with a 3rd gen i5m and Ubuntu, the 2017 MBP w/ Radeon Pro 555, and base i5 Surface Pro 4.

[DocSwag]

22 minutes ago, dizmo said:

They make pretty thin notebooks with HQ series CPUs don't they? I don't think I'd downgrade to a worse cooling solution if that was my intent. Though I think the idea is pretty stupid to begin with. You can buy a desktop system with a one tier lower GPU, and get virtually the same performance...without causing degradation to your ultrabook.

Laptops are usually bigger though (XPS 15 for example is physically just larger than 13) for extra cooling and most notably more battery to supply the CPU. I don't personally know of a 13" laptop using an hq CPU.

22 minutes ago, Enderman said:

I wonder how good the iGPU is gonna be...

The same as previous Intel iGPUs. As a matter of fact the new iGPUs are identical to the old ones except they're being marketed as "UHD" instead of "HD" due to a display controller change. Everything else is the same. From Anandtech's article:

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During our pre-briefing it was categorically stated several times that there was no change between the two, however we have since confirmed that the new chips will come with HDCP 2.2 support as standard for DP1.2a, removing the need for an external LSPCON for this feature. Other than this display controller change however, it appears that these new UHD iGPUs are architecturally the same as their HD predecessors.

 

[dizmo]

12 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

The 2017 15" MacBook Pro starts with a 7700HQ, and can be upgraded to the 7820HQ or 7920HQ. Don't know about the second 2 CPU options, but with the 7700HQ and a Radeon Pro 555, I can comfortably game on it whilst it is sat upon my lap.

Willing to bet it's like a 7700?HQ, with a base of 1.1GHz and Turbo 3.0 of 2.1GHz, and a weaker iGPU.

Yeah. I have a Samsung Series 9, and it can't game without a laptop cooler.

Older though, so I'm sure the gen to gen architecture has something to do with that.

6 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

yawn

Sorry, no Apple logo here. Move along.

[dizmo]

2 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

Laptops are usually bigger though (XPS 15 for example is physically just larger than 13) for extra cooling and most notably more battery to supply the CPU. I don't personally know of a 13" laptop using an hq CPU.

Yes that's basically my point.

[Drak3]

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

Yeah. I have a Samsung Series 9, and it can't game without a laptop cooler.

Ooh, that's a little sad.

 

1 minute ago, dizmo said:

Older though, so I'm sure the gen to gen architecture has something to do with that.

I'm holding onto my Acer for as long as I can. The magic that older laptops have just isn't captured in modern devices, and it makes me sad. Makes me extra sad when I look at my S4.

[DrMacintosh]

12 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Sorry, no Apple logo here.

What does Apple have to do with this? I'm not impressed with laptop CPUs from Intel. That is all. 

[DocSwag]

7 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

What does Apple have to do with this? I'm not impressed with laptop CPUs from Intel. That is all. 

Why not?

[DrMacintosh]

2 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

Why not?

One they aren't out yet, and two I haven't seen any benchmarks. When I hear that Intel is upping the core count and keeping the wattage the same I do not think highly of the performance of these parts. They have to be significantly more efficient otherwise this is just spreading the workload around to more threads while keeping roughly the same performance. 

[Guest lilbman]

57 minutes ago, DocSwag said:

Personally I think the main reason this is nice is for ultrabook gaming, potentially with eGPUs. With most games being able to use 4 cores now this could give a nice gaming performance jump with a decent gpu.

Ultrabook gaming?

 

Sigh.

 

Ultrabooks aren't meant for gaming.  They're meant for web browsing, scrolling through Facebook, and watching cat videos, not playing games.  Most of them can't even keep the processors itself cool, much less with a dGPU in there too.

 

We've seen how thin-and-light gaming laptops usually go down.  Take the Razer Blade-it looks nice, its thin, light, and powerful, but it gets super hot.  Imagine an ultrabook.

[MoonSpot]

39 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

yawn

So maybe I wasn't the only one that heard @TaranLMG patented fart soundFX after reading the thread title.

 

P.S. Taran plz ease up on the subliminal behavioral conditioning.