On Thursday, Dell updated its largest XPS clamshells to include the latest mobile chips from Intel. The 12th Gen Alder Lake chips are now available in 17-inch and 15.6-inch XPS versions.
Both XPS 17 and XPS 15 are now available with Intel Core i5-12500H or i7-12700H. The former has four high-performance cores (P-cores), eight efficient cores (E-cores) and a turbo clock speed of up to 4.5GHz, while the latter has six P-cores and eight E-cores and can reach up to 4.7GHz. To get Intel’s most powerful i9-12900HK, which has six P-cores and eight E-cores and can hit 5GHz, you’ll have to get an XPS 15 with a smaller screen. It will be available in the XPS 17, which makes sense since it’s the biggest and most expensive XPS around April 18, a Dell spokesperson said.
The updated XPS 17 and 15 are only available with integrated Intel graphics, but for more graphics power, you can set up machines with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 (4GB GDDR6) running at 60W. The XPS 17 will also include an option for the RTX 3060 (6GB 60W) in April, while you can currently get the XPS 15 with the RTX 3050 Ti (4GB 45W).
The laptops come with 8GB to 64GB dual channel DDR5-4800 RAM and 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB PCIe 4.0 NVMe SSD. With a pair of M.2 slots, the laptops support up to 8TB.
The updated systems use the taller displays introduced by Dell last year. 16:10 screens have a resolution of 1920 x 1200; a 3840 x 2400 screen is available for a lot of money. Either way, Dell says the screens are pretty bright, up to 500 nits. That’s unless you get an OLED panel that can go up to 400 nits and has a resolution of 3456 x 2160.
The largest XPS laptop has four Thunderbolt 4 ports. There’s also an audio jack and an SD card reader, but no USB-A or HDMI. The XPS 15, meanwhile, only has two Thunderbolt 4 ports and a third UBS-C (3.2 Gen 2) port, as well as a 3.5mm jack and an SD card reader.
The updated Dell XPS 17 and 15 have a similar pricing structure to the previous models, which are mostly still available on Dell’s website. The refurbished XPS 17 is currently $1,849 to $3,409, while the new XPS 15 is $1,449 to $3,194.
Editor’s note: Information about future configuration options has been added to this article.