Dell has accidentally published near-final specifications of its upcoming XPS 15 notebook due to be released early next year. The Dell XPS 15 computers are designed for performance-demanding users seeking near bezel-less laptops with above-average performance at a moderate price with a plenty of upgrade options. The new XPS 15 9560 will receive Intel’s Kaby Lake processor, NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1050-series graphics as well as some other optional upgrades not available on current-gen, but will retain the internal architecture and external design.

According to the listing (now removed from the website) Dell’s upcoming XPS 15 9560 notebook will use either a dual-core Intel Core i3-7100HQ, a quad-core Core i5-7300HQ or a quad-core Core i7-7700HQ CPU. The aforementioned chips are not yet formally announced, but it is known that they are based on the Kaby Lake microarchitecture and will thus offer improved performance compared to predecessors due to higher frequencies, Speed Shift v2 technology and other refinements. For those who opt for iGPU rather than a discrete model it is important to note that the Kaby Lake CPUs also has an improved video encoding/decoding engine.

The next key enhancement of the XPS 15 9560 over the current-generation XPS 9550 will be NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 1050 GPU with up to 4 GB of GDDR5 memory. NVIDIA has yet has to announce a mobile version of the GeForce GTX 1050, but it is highly likely that the product is based on the GP107 GPU featuring the Pascal architecture and up to 768 stream processors, similar to the desktop version. The new graphics chip should offer a decent performance upgrade when compared to the GeForce GTX 960M used in the current-gen XPS 15. Meanwhile for those planning to play demanding games it makes sense to look at the GeForce GTX 1060 or 1070, which means the Alienware 15.

Since the new Dell XPS 15 9560 will retain the chassis of its predecessor, it will support similar InfinityEdge 15.6” display panels: an IPS FHD (1920×1080) or an IGZO UHD (3840×2160) with 100% AdobeRGB color gamut and touch support. Physical dimensions of the unit also remain intact with the predecessor: it weighs around 1.8 kilograms and is up to 17 mm thick.

For storage, the new Dell XPS 15 will use either Seagate’s SSHDs or PCIe SSDs with up to 1 TB capacity. Meanwhile, due to improvements of Kaby Lake’s memory controller, the new laptops should be compatible with DDR4-2400 memory, offering an additional performance boost over DDR4-2133 used today.

As for connectivity, the XPS 9550 uses Rivet Networks' Killer 1535 802.11 2×2 Wi-Fi + BT 4.1 controller, has one Thunderbolt 3/USB 3.1 Type-C port, two USB 2.0 headers, an HDMI output, a 720p webcam and an SD card reader, which essentially means that there is nothing for the XPS 9560 to upgrade here (at least, not without a major redesign of the whole PC). However, since the XPS machines are often used like workstations, Dell decided to add a fingerprint reader with Windows Hello support as an option.

Since Dell has already taken down the XPS 9560 product page (technically, it is there, but without any data), so prices and exact final configurations / availability dates remain under wraps. Still, being a close partner of Intel and NVIDIA, Dell is typically among one of the first to release PCs based on the new CPUs/GPUs. Therefore we expect the new systems to arrive shortly after CES in the usual XPS 15 price range that starts at $999 and ends at ~$2500 for high-end models.

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Sources: PCMag, WindowsCentral.

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  • Ro_Ja - Monday, December 26, 2016 - link

    I have been trying to find a laptop powered by an i3 Skylake in our country but all I see are laptops with
    920M
    920MX
    930MX
    940M
    940MX

    I can deal with 940MX but not 930MX and below, I wouldn't see much difference in performance when the HD 520 or HD 530 is closely par on those and they are killing my choice list! So I stuck with AMD this time.
  • archon810 - Monday, December 26, 2016 - link

    So the keyboard layout on this refreshed XPS 15 is exactly the same? Meaning it's missing PgUp/PgDn/Home/End dedicated keys? I can't believe they keep screwing it up with all that real estate. Developers and power users need these keys.
  • Zhongrui - Monday, December 26, 2016 - link

    Dell XPS laptops have horrible quality. I had a couple of XPS laptops before, all had various problems, for example, wifi died within the 1st month, and died again after DELL replaced the wifi card a couple of times. Go with Macbook Pro. You deserve a good laptop!
  • Xajel - Tuesday, December 27, 2016 - link

    I hope to see a hybrid between XPS 15 and Alienware 15, or to be exact a bumped up version of XPS 15, with 1060 instead of 1050(ti), with the same quality thin bezel 15" display and a little bit thicker to handle the 1060 and a little bit larger battery... the main competitor will be Razer blade 14" it will have almost the same spec. but the display will be larger at 15.4" and the design will be much better than Razer's one... basically the smallest possible 1060 laptop with 15" display. not sacrificing battery life..

    My main usage is productivity including Adobe software and starting to learn Maya also that's why a no smaller than 15" display is a must and the better GPU is good ( for better 3d viewport performance and GPU accelerated video rendering speed )... but I would love to have some casual gaming also... having such system will make it a true desktop replacement for me as it will be strong enough to replace my desktop PC and also portable enough to carry it anywhere... at home I'll keep my old PC as 24/7 + Plex server and get some sort of docking solution to use the laptop instead on the big screen...
  • Lolimaster - Tuesday, December 27, 2016 - link

    The Raven Ridge APU for mobile will pretty much kill gaming machines with dedicated gpu's except the highest end.

    1024SP Vega class gpu 4c/8t,
  • TheinsanegamerN - Tuesday, December 27, 2016 - link

    only if

    A) AMD actually gets this chip out. The kaveri mobile APUs were nearly 10 months late to market. AMD had serious issues getting their low power parts out.

    B) OEMs dont screw AMD again. AMD needs to ensure we are getting quality parts, IE no cheap plastics, RMA wired for single channel even with two sticks, 768p screens, 5200RPM hard drives, cheap plastics, ece.
  • Spunjji - Wednesday, December 28, 2016 - link

    Word to this. I WANT Raven Ridge to succeed, but Intel and NVIDIA don't. Historically AMD don't execute so well even on their great products, either.
  • SharpEars - Tuesday, December 27, 2016 - link

    High glare touch panel if your want 4k. I'll pass on this junk.
  • Lolimaster - Tuesday, December 27, 2016 - link

    It would be better if they ditch the horrible 16:9 in favor of 16:10 or 3:2 displays.
  • Spunjji - Wednesday, December 28, 2016 - link

    Dell: Making Apple's notebook division look useless since 2015.

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