XPS15-9520 owners?

[Gonzo]

Who has one, who wants one?

I do as mines about 5 years old now.

Does it have native speedshift for a start?

Thermal performance, what's it like?

 

 

[Custom90gt]

Sadly I haven't even seen any reviews on it, I assumed it wasn't available yet but it seems that you can order it.  Every XPS for the past several models has had native speedshift. Thermal performance will not be good. It hasn't been good in any XPS and the 12th generation Intel is a power hog that runs hot. 

[MartinRo]

I'm currently waiting for the delivery. The XPS 9720 had been ordered by my company 2 weeks ago, don't know the exact delivery date (as it is an leasing computer that is ordered by a sub company).

 

Regarding thermal performance I'm not that sure about it performing that bad. The last year model had a significant better thermal footprint than the models before, but we will see.

[Aaron44126]

6 hours ago, MartinRo said:

Regarding thermal performance I'm not that sure about it performing that bad. The last year model had a significant better thermal footprint than the models before, but we will see.

 

XPS 17 has a pretty interesting thermal system with DOO fans and a vapor chamber.  This document describes it (see page 2-3) — it's about the Precision 5750 but XPS 17 uses the exact same chassis / cooling setup as Precision 57X0.  (This was for the 2020 / 10th gen model.  11th and 12th gen models don't seem to have changed the cooling system up much.)

https://www.delltechnologies.com/asset/en-us/products/workstations/industry-market/precision-thermals-brief-042320.pdf

 

XPS 15 has a more "traditional"-looking cooling system but it also looks like newer ones also have DOO fans to help keep the surface temperature down.

 

On 5/26/2022 at 6:22 AM, Custom90gt said:

Thermal performance will not be good. It hasn't been good in any XPS and the 12th generation Intel is a power hog that runs hot. 

 

Obviously XPS is on the thinner side and won't have thermal performance in line with a more beefy laptop.  You can help reduce temps & fan noise somewhat by running without turbo boost enabled when you don't need it, and in the case of 12th gen, booting CPU-consuming background tasks to the E cores.  (A tool like Process Lasso can set CPU core affinity for certain processes and have it stick between different launches of the process, or across reboots.)

[Gonzo]

Thanks for the replies. I'm guessing like most dell products that it doesn't support self encrypting drives? 

[Aaron44126]

5 minutes ago, Gonzo said:

Thanks for the replies. I'm guessing like most dell products that it doesn't support self encrypting drives? 

 

They don't support it with a password from the BIOS (AFAIK), but you can use it from the OS (i.e. BitLocker) — hardware encryption available if you set up the configuration appropriately and the drive supports it.

 

I don't see self-encrypting drive bundled with the system as an option with current XPS 15/17, but you can get it with Precision 5X70, or purchase your own drive.

[Custom90gt]

The XPS 15's thermal cooling solution is basically the same that it's been since the redesign of the XPS, really no excuses from Dell.  I've had laptops of the same thickness with much better thermal performance.  Having said that, it'll be find for non-strenuous tasks.

 

9550 (released 2015):

 

9520:

 

It looks like NotebookCheck's review is finally up:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/2022-Dell-XPS-15-9520-3-5K-OLED-laptop-review-Skip-or-buy.621506.0.html

 

"If the CPUs in the XPS 15 9500 or 9510 were too slow for your specific applications, then the 9520 would be worth considering. Its 12th gen Core i7-12700H can offer 70 percent and 40 percent faster multi-thread performance than the 10th gen Core i7-10875H and 11th gen Core i7-11800H, respectively, without significantly impacting battery life. The inherent boost to integrated graphics performance can also be enough to satisfy most office users without needing to upgrade to any pricey discrete Nvidia options.

Power users will appreciate the significant gains in processor performance over Intel 11th gen or 10th gen options. For more basic or moderate office tasks, however, the extra horsepower of the 12th gen series may not be worth the price uptick. 

Outside of CPU performance, however, the experience remains the same as on the XPS 9510 or even 9500. The Nvidia GPU has been downclocked from the 9510 and so the benefits of faster DDR5 RAM has been minimized. Certain changes that we would have loved to see like higher refresh displays, a higher resolution webcam, proper Wi-Fi 6E support, or a privacy shutter continue to be absent. If the faster 12th gen CPU is not appealing, then you can instead purchase the XPS 15 9510 which has the exact same display and GPU options as our 9520 but at lower prices."

[Gonzo]

On 5/27/2022 at 9:04 PM, Aaron44126 said:

 

They don't support it with a password from the BIOS (AFAIK), but you can use it from the OS (i.e. BitLocker) — hardware encryption available if you set up the configuration appropriately and the drive supports it.

 

I don't see self-encrypting drive bundled with the system as an option with current XPS 15/17, but you can get it with Precision 5X70, or purchase your own drive.

I already have a 2TB Samsung 980 Pro, this 9560 never supported hardware bitlocker though. Dell have a habit of not having the options in the BIOS to allow it to work.

[Aaron44126]

2 hours ago, Gonzo said:

I already have a 2TB Samsung 980 Pro, this 9560 never supported hardware bitlocker though. Dell have a habit of not having the options in the BIOS to allow it to work.

There are extra steps needed.  You have to wipe the drive and enable hardware encryption with a Samsung tool, do a fresh Windows install, and set up group policy to allow hardware encryption for BitLocker.  (Windows defaults to software encryption unless you override with group policy, because not all drives support hardware encryption without easy bypasses.)  There is no BIOS setting needed other than TPM enabled.

 

Group policy – https://admx.help/?Category=Windows_10_2016&Policy=Microsoft.Policies.VolumeEncryption::FDVEDrive_Name

Set up Samsung drive – https://helgeklein.com/blog/how-to-enable-bitlocker-hardware-encryption-with-ssd/

Fresh Windows install is required after enabling hardware encryption on the drive.  If you want to use an existing install, you need to do a new install and then replace the C partition only with your old install. – https://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/05c0e0a2-79b1-4eff-837d-376ff97da0ce/hardware-encryption-is-not-enableable-after-a-system-image-backup-is-restored?forum=win10itprosecurity (last few posts)

[Rockstar]

Hi, 

 

nice to see this forum coming back!

 

I changed to the 9520 from my 9560. I got the i9 Oled version and quite like it. I got the i9 version because of its overclocking/undervolting capability and set a -110mV undervolt via Throttlestop. Sadly virtualisation has to be disabled as Dell did not put out a BIOS that let you set voltages yet.

Speed shift has a toggle in Bios so we don´t have to hassle with EFI shell. I tried that and extracted Bios but something seems to be different this time. I could sent the file if someone like to have a look.

 

It´s a really thin chassis but Dell(or Intel) seems to have improved thermals/throttling. In my 9560 it was quite hard to get it not slowing down PL1 limits. 

Only grain of salt for me is the Bios missing options for the unlocked CPU. 

 

Edit: I repasted with Kryonaut and put in a 2TB 980Pro as second SSD (you need this second heatsink from ebay/amazon/...)

 

[Gonzo]

I took the plunge last week, they had next day delivery on the 1tb 32gb one with the OLED screen.

I have to say I'm impressed but the bitlocker side of things has pissed me off.

 

I've found SED options, SSD password options but it seems to still be missing the eDrive features. I stuck a 2tb 980 pro in alongside the 1tb it comes with, I setup the security with the Samsung Magician, secure erased via BIOS as the Samsung tool wouldn't boot and put windows 11 pro on. It only seems to do software encryption still.

 

I'm stuck and out of ideas for windows bitlocker hardware encryption now.

[Aaron44126]

6 hours ago, Gonzo said:

I'm stuck and out of ideas for windows bitlocker hardware encryption now.

 

Hardware encryption is disabled by default in Windows these days due to rampant vulnerabilities / poor implementation by SSD makers.  If you want to use it, you have to enable it via Group Policy (gpedit.msc) or Windows will force software encryption.  (I posted a link above on what group policy setting it is.)

 

It is also important that the drive is in the "ready to enable hardware encryption" state before Windows is installed on it.  It sounds like you did that.  (You can get it to enable hardware encryption on an existing Windows install but it requires jumping through hoops that are not documented.)

 

If you have done a new Windows install, have the disk showing encryption "ready"/"enabled" in Samsung Magician, and have enabled hardware encryption via Group Policy, then it "should" be working...  I'm not sure how important it is to secure erase with Samsung's tool.  I ended up taking my drive to a different system to do that.  It seems like getting it to boot with legacy boot (not UEFI) is easier.

 

If your drive was encrypted with software encryption before you made the group policy switch, you will of course have to decrypt it and then turn on BitLocker again in order to get it to switch to hardware encryption.