The Dell XPS 17 Powers Up With the Nvidia RTX 3060 On Board

The Dell XPS 17 powers up for video editing with the RTX 3060 on board

Dell has announced an upgrade to its popular XPS 15 and XPS 17 laptops, bumping up the graphics up to the latest Nvidia GPUs. Lining up with Nvidia’s own announcement, these laptops now have the latest Nvidia Studio drivers and RTX 30-series graphics.

The XPS 15 can now be configured with the RTX 3050 Ti or 3050, while the XPS 17 can handle up to the RTX 3060 (with an option for the 3050 Ti). Those might not sound overly impressive if you’re used to the higher-end GPUs found in gaming laptops, but not all versions of these laptop GPUs are made equal. Dell made it a point to note that the RTX 3060 in the XPS 17 is the 70-watt version.

The XPS 15 and 17 have always been impressive laptops for video editing and other graphics-intensive content creation, and the RTX 30-series will no doubt sweeten the deal.

Aside from graphics, these new Dell XPS laptops are strengthened by new Intel processors. They now come with the 11th-gen H45 Tiger Lake chips, which are built on Intel’s 10nm SuperFin architecture. You’ll have to pay top dollar for the Core i9 models, but the starting Core i5-11400H now comes with six cores, which is two more cores than in the previous generation. That configuration is meant for more causal use, as it doesn’t feature a discrete graphics card. If the performance holds true, they’ll likely be among the best laptops you can buy.

The XPS 15 tops out at the Core i9-11900H, while the XPS 17 gets the option for the unlocked Core i9-11900HK. Intel hasn’t specified how much overclocking will be possible in a laptop this thin just yet.

The XPS 15 and 17 remain some of the thinnest and sleekest large laptops you can buy, especially considering the caliber of performance you get. That hasn’t changed this time around, nor has the option for super-high resolution 3840 x 2400 displays. These are calibrated for 100% on the AdobeRGB color scale, making them ideal for precise color grading.

The Dell XPS 17 starts at $1,450. This base configuration comes with a Core i5-11400H, integrated Intel UHD graphics, 8GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, and a 1920 x 1200 resolution screen. The XPS 15, meanwhile, starts at $1,250 for a nearly identical configuration. Both laptops can be configured up to 64GB of RAM and 4TB of NVMe SSD storage.

Dell hasn’t shared exact details on when these new laptops will be made available, but said they should go on sale sometime in the summer.

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