Dell XPS 15 2-in-1 9575 benchmarks + temps

So I just got my Dell XPS 2-in-1 and I figured I would get some benchmarks and temp data out to anyone thinking about buying one. I will be updating this post as I get more info/run more benches.

Here are the specs:
8th Generation Intel i5-8305G
8GB DDR4-2400MHz Integrated
Radeon RX Vega M GL Graphics with 4GB HMB2 Graphics Memory
15.6" FHD

Stock Benchmarks:
Time Spy - 2253
Fire Strike - 6261
Time Spy Extreme - 997
Fire Strike Ultra - 1615
PCMark 10 - 4679
PCMark 8 Creative Accelerated - 5584
PCMark 8 Home Accelerated - 4219
PCMark 8 Work Accelerated - 5048
PCMark 8 Creative Battery Conventional - 14241
3DMark 11 Performance - 9299
3DMark 11 Extreme - 2228
Unigine Heaven Extreme -
RealBench 85,206 -
Farcry 5 benchmark on high settings -
Cinebench R15 - 103.57FPS, 640 cb, 153 cb

Undervolt (-150mv) Benchmarks:
Cinebench R15 - 107.02 fps, 725 cb, 160 cb
3DMark 11 Performance - 9438

Throttling:
Dell's claim:
"Performance that packs a punch
The best. From start to finish: One tiny chip houses both an incredibly powerful 8th Gen Intel® Core™ processor with custom Radeon® RX Vega M discrete graphics plus 4GB of dedicated high-bandwidth memory, so you’ve got the ultimate in creating and processing power in an impossibly thin machine. Get the performance you need for rich content creation, editing or viewing 4K content, high-powered gaming or mega-tasking"

This guy is going to need a good amount of work to run near its rated speed. I don't think I'll be able to get it there, but I'll sure try.

Completely stock prime95 causes the CPU to run at 95C and downclock to 2.9GHz while having the fans spin at their max ~5400RPM. I think Dell made the grill openings too small to allow enough airflow. These fans seem to be louder than the 9560 and if it is off of the table it makes an annoying whistling sound.

As a quick and dirty I undervolted by -100mv and at the same speeds/temps it now runs at 3.4GHz. Still super toasty so I am hoping for good things with a repaste.

I've been running through the logs and here is the quick summary for undervolting and Prime95 small FFT's for 20 minutes:
Stock - average temp 91.3C, max temp 96C, average clockspeed 3035mhz
-100mv undervolt - average temp 91.2C, max temp 94C, average clockspeed 3372mhz
-150mv undervolt - average temp 85.7C, max temp 89C, average clockspeed 3389mhz

Somewhat disappointing results from Realbench Stress for 15 minutes:
Stock - average CPU temp 79, average CPU speed 2774mhz, average GPU temp 68, average GPU speed 994mhz
-150 undervolt - average CPU temp 78, average CPU speed 2933mhz, average GPU temp 68, average GPU speed 993mhz

Looking at throttling reasons, it's dell's power limit throttling. Quite the bummer because temps are within reason to allow some additional clocks. I realize it's not a gaming system, but it would be nice if we could push it a little more.


TL;DR - temps and fan speeds are pretty crazy at full load on this guy. Dell seems to be limiting the max power to CPU/GPU package to around 41w. This guy throttles itself to around 2400mhz on the cpu when the GPU is being used, that's a 30% reduction in speed on the i5 model alone (will be more on the i7).

 

Quick repasting guide:
Remove the T5 screws from the bottom:


Dell used a ton of plastic clips to hold the bottom in place. I recommend using an old credit card to pry. A note about the part near the screen: the clips are best pried open by going from right to left on the above picture. This will help you not to break any. Remove cover:


There is a switch that seems to disconnect the battery, but I disconnected the battery anyway:


Remove the heatsink, don't forget about the 5th screw at the end near the fans:


Clean the thermal paste off of the cpu/gpu and heatsink. I use arctic clean but that's because I have a ton.

Apply new thermal paste. I actually spread it out this time because of the odd shapes of the die, but I don't know if that was better or worse than doing a line. Normally I do multiple test runs but sadly I was pressed for time yesterday and only did the one repasting. I used Kryonaut for paste btw.

Reinstall heatsink, I really am impressed with the quality of the heatsink this time around.

Reconnect battery/flip the switch.

Install rear cover. Boot up windows and check those temps.

Pictures of the VRM area:
Sorry my cell phone camera was dirty, lol


Results:
Here is a quick and dirty. At stock volts running prime95 temps were only 1C cooler since the processor is power throttling. With a -150mv undervolt, temps were ~6C cooler than just the undervolt alone.[/SPOILER]

 

Gaming Results
I was messing around with Farcry 5 and it runs pretty well. The fans sadly run at max the whole time and are pretty loud but the machine itself runs pretty cool because of dell's power throttling. I didn't run FRAPS like I should have to get some FPS numbers so maybe I will do that later.

With the repaste alone the average CPU temp is 71C, average GPU temp is 67C, average CPU speed 2.8ghz, and average GPU speed ~1ghz.

With the repaste and undervolt the average CPU temp is 70C, average GPU temp is 65C, average CPU speed 3ghz, and average GPU speed ~1ghz.

My guess is with better airflow the fans wouldn't have to spin at an annoying 5400rpm to keep the temps at the same level. A laptop cooler may help that, but I don't have one to test.

Video Encoding
Doing some encoding tests now.
I have a 4k HEVC file of Deadpool. I am using handbrake and the "Super HQ 1080p30 surround" preset and only encoding the first chapter of the movie since I don't have all day to watch it.

Stock - able to power throttle the cpu - 11 minutes and 57 seconds
-150mv - no power throttling of the cpu - 11 mins and 16 seconds

During the test the fan noise with the undervolt isn't too unbearable, it gets up there but nothing like at stock voltages. Not a huge difference in time, but that's for a short video. Doing the whole movie would take an extra 19 minutes.

 

If you have time, please run RealBench StressTest & Unigine Heaven.

They both are free and push the XPS units hard. RealBench is nice because it is a good all-around test of CPU & GPU.

Looking forward to your results here. Big upgrade if you can get this running closer to published specs. . .

 

Those are on my list to run. I will run them at stock and then with the undervolt to see how different temps are as well. It's hard to not repaste right away but I want to get some good numbers before I do, lol...

 

It would be fantastic if the -150mv undervolt is stable. That is 6* temp reduction and a good jump in clock speeds with Prime95. As this is the same basic architecture as the Skylake & Kaby Lake but a bit tweaked, I'm suprised it is so happy to undervolt. Maybe the chip quality has ramped up with all the years of production.

On a few XPS models I could get stable -170mv on 6300HQ and -120mv on 770HQ; I know you had plenty to test. The -120mv undervolt did not have much of an impact on thermals but -170mv really cooled things down. . .

 

Yeah I'm shocked that it undervolted so well. Thinking back, my i5's have always undervolted better than my i7's though. I tried up to -170 and it was passing prime but when I exited prime I got a BOSD... I think my best undervolt was my first ever 9550 at -180mv though.

 

Added some more benches as well as results from realbench stress test to the thermals section. Looks like Dell limited the power going to the CPU and GPU at the same time. Will hurt gaming for sure, but at least it'll run cooler. The fans really scream on this though, pretty much max RPM doing anything intensive.

 

I think you may actually improve thermals if you remove the Gortex material. It is meant to insulate the heat from the user, which means the aluminum chassis is not dissipating heat. If you don't care about a warm bottom, getting the chassis to be a heat spreader is good.

 

I'll take a look at it when I repaste but until I can get a used back panel I likely wouldn't go to that extreme so I can keep my warranty. I really wish they would have made the spacing in the fan grills just a little bit bigger. You can tell it really limits airflow.

 

That "power limit throttling" flag on the 9550 and 9560 was sometimes that pesky ambient temp sensor hitting 77C, so was somewhat mislabeled. I have no idea with the 9575 but you will soon enough.

Of course RealBench StressTest beats the daylights out of the XPS units with underpowered VRMs so throttling could be caused both by high temps you show & by excessive current draw.

Thought Dell would get this stuff sorted after 3 generations. . .

 

That's what I had thought at first, but it's not it this time. Ambient temps don't surpass 68C on the hottest. Dell is definitely limiting the power going to the CPU/GPU here. It throttles even before the fans turn on, lol. I could always try to remove the dell dynamic platform drivers and see what it does.

 

I suppose a cynic might say Dell's engineers are getting better at preventing their laptops from performing to spec . . .

 

Don't let a certain person hear that, it's a lie I tell you...

*on edit* looks like Dell is limiting the CPU and GPU to ~41.5W combined. Looks like going from an i5 to an i7 would be a total waste with heavy usage. Sucks you have to get an i7 to get 16gb of ram.

 

The numbers don't lie.

When you disassemble, get a good photo of the VRM and we can trace the mosfets to datasheets to estimate max power range.

 

I'm sure I fudged them someway. Oh well it's still faster than every computer in the world even when throttling. It destroys my 12 core desktop at 4.8ghz for sure...

On a more serious note if I run prime95 and even a light GPU usage tool (RTHDRIBL) it throttles the CPU back to ~2700mhz and 27 watts.

Anything else I should run before I repaste? I'm getting antsy, lol.

 

Love the childish behaviors. I did not say faster than anything I said faster than it's competition...but as I said, you are crazy. buying computers you hate and rag on all day long. WOW you are a special kind of …….well...you know. It's like me buying an asus. I would never because it is crap. Then going over on the asus fourm and *****ing about it to all the Asus owners and calling them out on it....you are touched my friend.....Might as well sell the dell and buy the HP like you said you wanted in the beginning. It's such a better deal for what you are getting. Why did you even buy the dell? It's like taking back a woman that cheats on you constantly.....instead of kicking the ***** to the curb. Oh well I guess some people like that kind of crap. SMDH.

 

Go threadcrap someone else's thread. I never said dell was terrible, but I did say their designing and engineering leaves a lot to be desired. I was happy with my 9550 and 9560 after a lot of work went into them, I wanted to see if this 9575 would follow suit. I'm not going to praise dell and turn a blind eye when they have glaring issues (nor would I with any other manufacturer). This is a thread with evidence based information for anyone looking to buy a 9575 so move along unless you have benchmarks or something else to contribute.

 

Actually, I think that @kojack might have found the winning formula here. Reading Dells marketing material, watch some hyped up video reviews but don't actually get the unit to experience its problems

 

Well repaste has been done and I will work on getting pictures/etc up time permitting today.

 

a guide would be great! first timer here

 

Wow! Surprising temps! Pretty disappointing since they like went overboard with this new technology for cooling...guess they're still using crap thermal paste.

 

Mass production with paste rectangles printed on the heatsinks.

 

So I don't have time today to get pictures posted sadly. I'll leave it at this, the heatsink is actually really nice and yes they used too too too much thermalpaste. Repasting however offers some pretty sad results because the laptop power throttles before it thermal throttles. This was helped with a good undervolt, but there is only so much we can do. I still think that the crazy small/stylish fan grill is to blame. If I pick up the laptop when it's working away it whistles like no tomorrow... If only Dell would have thought about that instead of making it look like a cool MBP or something. Oh one plus, there seems to be a battery disconnect switch so you don't have to disconnect the battery when working on it (ymmv, I didn't really test it out too much).

So far I think for a non-high performance convertible with the ability to do a little more its great. If I were gaming/video editing/doing solid modeling on it, I'd probably get something else. I do like the keyboard a heck of a lot more than I thought I would though.

 

I would try to boost the Power limits & time in the buggy "Intel XTU" software. There are settings for short and long categories.

XTU was the only software that accessed all the registers and demonstrably worked on my XPS 9550 and 9560. There are other ways around this without XTU but they are even "less elegant".

You need to keep opening Intel XTU every few days as the settings don't stick so well. And seem to get blown out when you go into sleep or hibernate or have a M$ Windows "incident".

Also, use somewhat "reasonable" power limits in XTU, which I think are now higher than factory given that you undervolted and improved thermals. If you put stupid high limits (like 100W...) the laptop will just ignore your settings. For example, on my 6300HQ, I use 65W long & short (vs factory 45W & 55W I think) and use max time for both.

Alternatively, you could try disabling Intel Dynamic Platform & Thermal Framework.

These are dangerous tricks so you need to monitor temps and stability carefully or face potentially terrible results. Run at your own risk!

 

Yeah I had pondered that before. Temps would be a big concern since they already hit in the mid 80s. I'll let you know what I figure out, trying to be good and study today, lol.

 

Actually, according to NBC the i7 yielded very little benefit in their tests.

And, I remember distinctly reading before the 9575 release that Dell had limited the package to 45W but it wasn't in their marketing materials. I think someone asked Frank Azor on twitter but no response. Looks like the 45w part turned out to be true after all....

 

Do this.

Milwaukee Hole Dozer for large diameter holes; Finish with Swiss micro files and some sandpaper. Fibreglass mesh screens.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/extreme-thermal-mods-2007-macbook-pro-3-1.810471/

 

So I put up a quick repasting guide with some pictures. I'll try to get more data this week on thermals. I also measured the fan grills and the openings are 1mm whereas the 9560 openings are 1.5mm. The 9560 didn't whistle like this guy does, lol.

 

hahaha. That might be irritating but I can imagine some pitches would be enjoyable in the right circumstances.

 

Only if the fan profiles would play whistle while you work...

 

Do they whistle on all the different fan profile modes? I'm torn between this and the 9570 - most reviews praise the 9575 for having overall lower fan noise than the outgoing 9560, but you beg to differ? Or are you running things in max performance mode when you get the irritating fan noise?

I'm hoping for a great egpu companion with a bigger screen than my current 13" ultrabook...I'm thinking this laptop will do fine connected via eGPU. My only hesitation is that NBC connected to the same box I have (Aorus Gaming Box) - and said they couldn't get it to work driving the internal display.

 

Sadly I can't comment on the egpu stuff.

The whistling is only there when the system is working full tilt and it is elevated off of the table. Basically the limited airflow keeps them quiet. When the fans are at a low RPM they don't whistle or cause any unpleasant sounds. If I have time I'll try to make a recording.

 

If you elevate the back of the laptop just a bit, say with a pencil or highlighter does it whistle?

You might search here for egpu information

https://egpu.io/forums/

 

So I just tried propping up the back while playing a little farcry 5 and the high pitched noise is pretty much unbearable to me without headphones. It does run ~8C cooler but the fans don't budge from max RPM. A laptop cooling pad may be what it needs to get air without being super annoying but I don't have one to test. Really would have been nice of the dell engineers to think this one through, although typically marketing somehow overrides them. On the desk it's not too bad though.

 

Updated post 3 with some temps from farcry 5. The temps are great, the fan speed and power throttling are not. I guess I can't have my cake and eat it too, lol.

In playing with the laptop as a laptop it is very nice. I like the build, don't find the 15" clunky in tablet mode, and enjoy the glossy screen as long as I'm not outside. Battery life seems to be great as well. I am still weighing if I should keep the laptop or not, but I have a few days to figure that out.

 

That sux.

Doesn't everyone prop up the laptop for lower temps?!?!

Drilling bigger intake vent holes in the case bottom might solve the problem. But we won't know until you try. . .

 

Hah, if I had a spare cover for it, I would totally do it. Actually what I would do is machine out the existing vents. I wish I still had access to a cnc mill

 

Has a driver update solved the Far Cry 5 problems on the Vega GPU? Lisa Grade was saying it wasn't good with FC5.

How do you like the 1080P screen? I am worried that going from my MBP 2016 with 1600P screen will be rough, but for media and games at 1080P, it's still ideal over odd resolutions or weird resolutions on my MBP (which I often run in 1680x1050 for games).

Finding the perfect laptop is always tough - I've been wrestling with this, the new 9570, the GS65, and the Aero 15X, and even the updated Spectre x360 15 (with MX150). I'm gonna try the i7 9575 w/1080P as my primary device. Enough GPU power to play most of my games library on the go, but will hopefully pair well with my eGPU (1070). I got it for 15%, and will also get an add'l 15% ebates cash back - so it was also one of the better deals with a 2 year premium warranty.

I have yet to run across truly quiet notebooks, especially when gaming. The only way to cut noise has been use an eGPU with a 2m cable, which I currently do with my Macbook Pro 13.

I like how cool the bottom of the 9575 seems to be based on yours, Notebookcheck, MobileTechReview (she said it was cooler than the Spectre x360) and other comments I've read. I tend to use my laptop, well often on my lap, or in bed, etc. NBC's measurements put it much cooler than even my Macbook Pro, which still warms up under load along the bottom.

 

I haven't ran the stock dell drivers with far cry 5 so I have no idea although I do recall Lisa having issues. You do have to select the card in the Far Cry options menu to get it to work though, maybe she spaced that part out?

I do like the 1080P screen, but I've always been a fan of 1080P vs 4k for a variety of reasons. If you do photo/video editing you will likely be disappointed but otherwise I think it's just fine for daily use. I'm surprised how bright the screen actually gets. This is one of the first non-matte screens that I've been happy with.

If you're not going to use the 2-in-1 functionality, I think any of the others would be a much better gaming laptop. The Aero15 is an awesome laptop (too bad gigabyte gigasucks when it comes to support) and the new GS65 is a great laptop (who know MSI could build a GS series with decent battery life).

I am typing all of this with the laptop on my lap and it is running super cool without the fans on. The bottom of the laptop feels nice and cool to the touch.

I also got 15% off military and 15% ebates on this one, but I'm not sure if I'll keep it. All said and done it's still 1 grand for a laptop with a 128gb ssd (sata) and 8gb of non-upgradeable ram. Not really a tremendous value. I couldn't imagine spending $1300 on it for sure. Sadly the i7 is a total waste due to power throttling. They should have offered the i5 with 16gb of ram, I would have got that instead.

 

Intel has new Vega drivers listed on their website. I'll give them a shot. I hope it fixes the 1 second pause that I get when I open new browser tabs or when clicking on the battery icon.

*on edit*
False alarm, even though they are dated today it is the same driver as the NUC uses.

 

Im returning mine because of how ridiculously hot the bottom of the laptop gets. Just watching videos - I cant possibly use this on my lap.

 

Are you gaming with it on your lap or something? I guess I don't do real intense stuff with it on my lap so it stays nice and cool.

 

Also so far I haven't had any luck increasing the TDP limits with XTU. I've tried slowly raising short and long power limits in increments of 5 but it doesn't seem to make any difference. I may have to disable dell dynamic platform drivers and see where I end up.

 

Do you run ThrottleStop at the same time? Actually you should probably not run ThrottleStop and XTU at the same time as they keep fighting each other rewriting in registry.

I think ThrottleStop only writes to 2 registeries on TDP limit (so does not work on the XPS in this area) whilst XTU might have access to (all?) 3.

Intel XTU settings are (somewhat) persistent even after turning off the laptop (unless you reset, uninstall XTU or there is some Windoze crash etc). So if you set XTU just one day but only run ThrottleStop afterwards, you probably want the settings mirrored in both programs.

My point here is if you are using ThrottleStop make sure TDP settings are the same as they are in XTU. And don't run the programs at the same time. Also make sure to increase short & long times. . .

 

No I'm not running them at the same time. I'm only running XTU right now to test raising the Power Max levels.

2-3 seconds after the GPU is turned on it goes into power limiting and throttles down (by 600mhz). I've tried small increments in power max but that doesn't make any difference.

Also messing around with stock voltages, the laptop will only run the CPU at 2400mhz. That is 1ghz off of what it could/should be running at for those people that don't think throttling would effect anything real world. I suppose a 30% drop in performance doesn't mean anything though. The i7 will be even worse mind you.

 

Just watching Netflix. I wouldnt expect this to heat it up unbearably - but it does. Ridiculous

 

Humm, sadly I'm not a netflix user so I can't test it out. What were you doing? 4K videos? I will try some later to see if I have similar issues.

 

My deal breakers on the other laptops:

GS65 - really close to picking this one, but it's still over 2 grand (and I would get the 1070 version to make the 144mhz screen worth it), and has sub 6 hour battery life, poor build quality, and Dave Lee said it's terrible to get to the internals.

Aero 15X - looks fantastic, still costs over 2 grand, and is loud as hell from the NBC reviews. Poor availability in the US, so I imagine support is atrocious.

9570 - I don't need 6 core - I'm not doing encodes, and the gaming difference is negligible. Dell also completely removed any mention of gaming for the 9570 in it's product description, whereas the 9575 features the term gaming prominently.

The 2018 Spectre x360 (non Vega) could be a great eGPU system, but last year they capped TB3 to 2 lanes, and I'm betting it's the same, plus it's even larger 2-in-1 than the 9575.

My ideal vision with the 9575 is hot-swap eGPU capable machine with a 15" screen ideal for media and games. I'll use the eGPU at home (so then the internal CPU can be at full power, and disable the Vega chip) - that should run cool and quiet. But on the road, I can take the 9575 and still play most of my game library (especially the many lesser intense titles) without issue. The 2-in-1 form factor seems nice for flexibility in media consumption.

When I use the eGPU on my Macbook, it works very well, and MBP barely turns the fans on - but that two core CPU and 8gb of ram does get in the way, especially when I want to play Battlefield 1. I considered the 15" but damn, $2400 is just a lot of cash. At that point, I would pick up the Surface Book 2 again.

Sorry for the spam - it's off topic here

 

This doesn't make any sense - no laptop, even old one's I've used have issues playing Netflix. I should say my experience with the Netflix Windows Store app has been less than ideal. Have you tried just using edge to interact with Netflix?