Dell XPS 15 9570 review (i7, GTX 1050Ti, FHD screen)

62 Comments

  1. cadudesun

    June 8, 2018 at 3:57 pm

    Many thanks for the review! Looking forward to the forthcoming parts! I just got the 9570, my first XPS. I'm liking everything but the speaker/sound quality is disappointing. Actually, I am thinking I may have a defective product. Along with impressions like yours regarding the mediocre speakers, both speakers emit too much distortion, mainly on basses. For instance, in the song Strawberry Fields Forever (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UQK-UcRezE), all the time there is clear distortion from 70% volume level. At 100% volume, it sounds a bee hive! If Dell MaxxAudio is on, the distortion is worse. If I turn off MaxxAudio, the distortion is reduced, but you can still listening to it in many parts of the song above (for instance around the 20 seconds). I have all drivers updated. Do you have such bad distortion in your XPS 9570?

    • Douglas Black

      June 9, 2018 at 4:42 am

      I am not getting any distortion with that video – it might be they aren't secured properly inside the chassis (you could always take a look and poke them with your fingers just to make sure they are tight) but it most likely will require service to replace them.

  2. custom90gt

    June 8, 2018 at 5:34 pm

    Thanks for taking the time to do an actual review! Looking forward to more of your results.

  3. Alex R

    June 8, 2018 at 8:10 pm

    Hi Douglas, thank you for the review… I just received my 9570 touch, so far working ok with limited use, but will keep an eye on the temperatures…
    have you noticed a significant improvement with the Intel 9265 module, versus the stock Killer card? I'm thinking about installing the 9265 if I need to fix throttling issues (using your guide :)

    • Douglas Black

      June 9, 2018 at 4:42 am

      No experience with the 9265 unfortunately, but it is something I do plan to pick up in the near future. :)

  4. Alex R

    June 8, 2018 at 9:25 pm

    Do you have a suggestion for docking stations for the Dell XPS 9570? I'm thinking about the Dell "TB16 240W".
    Typical use is video editing mainly. Here's a link from Dell about this dock: http://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/19/sln301105/dell-thunderbolt-dock-tb16-information-and-specifications?lang=en

  5. Isaac Brody

    June 12, 2018 at 6:55 pm

    Have you undervolted the 9570 to see if Cinebench scores and overall performance and cooling improve?

    • Douglas Black

      June 12, 2018 at 6:56 pm

      I have undervolted to -120 and will rerun CB tomorrow.

    • Douglas Black

      June 13, 2018 at 5:44 am

      No change with the undervolt it seems. My UV re-run was 1115 average.

    • God

      April 19, 2019 at 11:32 pm

      The guy that did this review is a complete moron….I'm getting 16hrs battery life at 50 percent brightness and heavy on spotify and browsing

  6. Roger

    June 15, 2018 at 8:15 am

    Hi Doug, Great review. Looking forward to the 4K touchscreen review. Above you comment it is glossy, but the Dell website describes it (4K) as "anti-reflective". They say "anti-glare" on the FHD, no touch version. What is your take? Glossy screen makes me shy away from all touchscreens!

    • Douglas Black

      June 15, 2018 at 8:32 am

      Hi Roger,

      The FHD "anti glare" is your traditional matte screen. The uhd's anti-reflective is a glossy screen with a new anti-reflective coating, same as the XPS 13 9370. This new coating is a big improvement over last year's but I recommend checking a store in person first. It'll be the same as the 9370 if you can only find a display model of that.

  7. Hans Knaus

    June 21, 2018 at 6:41 am

    Erm… so this laptop is totally garbage? You're not serious, right? The laptop has bluescreens if I use the SSD it comes with? I am totally not going to swap it if I pay 2000Euros for a damn laptop. Also the TB3 bad performance seems also like a joke. This is just unbelievable… so there is not a single good laptop in 2018. Every single one has a damn big issue. Gigabyte Aero, Razer Blade, Zenbook Pro… all sh*t.

    • Alex R

      June 23, 2018 at 3:10 am

      The 9570 is pretty good, I have the touch version and it's working well. But please be sure to upgrade to the latest BIOS version (free from the Dell support website). So far the 9570 is by far the best laptop I've owned, and I've owned quite a few, including HP, Samsung, etc. I recommend this laptop. So far so good, knock on wood. Also, I have not noticed any problems with throttle/high CPU/GPU temps with this one, which kind of surprised me as I was expecting the same problems as the 9560. Again, so far so good, knock on wood again :)

  8. Roger Smith

    June 21, 2018 at 5:17 pm

    Hans, Maybe try Apple.

    • Hans Knaus

      June 21, 2018 at 5:53 pm

      @Roger Smith aaaaha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaa… very funny, NOT.

  9. db222jh

    June 23, 2018 at 6:39 pm

    Is there anyone besides Notebookcheck that is going to test the 4k panel of the 9570 extensively?

  10. Bogdan

    June 24, 2018 at 2:57 pm

    Hi Doug,

    I am interested in buying the 9570 with i7 and the UHD display. I intend to use it for photo editing and was wondering if it's a good choice. What's your opinion on that? Thanks!

    • Douglas Black

      June 24, 2018 at 3:00 pm

      Should be great with the screen. Though if money is an object and you are only doing photo editing, you could probably buy a 2nd hand 9560 with the UHD panel without much difference.

      • Bogdan

        June 24, 2018 at 5:58 pm

        Thanks, Doug! Actually, I think I’ll go with an FHD 9560 (2nd hand). It’s right in my budget and don’t think the diffrence in performance is worth the extra money.

  11. Lawrence W Diamond

    June 25, 2018 at 1:14 am

    Nice review.

    Are you able to test it with LatencyMon (or even some DAWBench scores)?

    I am not a gamer but I am looking for a new laptop for music production with Cubase. Since you are a DJ, I am wondering if you have any experience with DAW performance on the 9570?

    While some people have found the XPS 15 (either 9560 or 9570) useful for music production, there are lots of horror stories of terrible latency failures. The Killer Wifi card is a huge culprit (ndis.sys) and even with an Intel 9260 some people report terrible "uncorrectable" latency caused by ACPI.sys. I don't know if these people have done any of the power setting tweaks designed to improve DAW performance in Windows 10.

    Thank you in advance for any useful feedback.

    • Douglas Black

      June 25, 2018 at 2:52 am

      I have some experience with this and can bench when I have time, hopefully within a week or two

      • Lawrence W Diamond

        June 25, 2018 at 2:57 am

        Thank you. I really appreciate it. The other computer that I am considering is the Razer Blade 15 because Razer advertises their line for DAW use. I saw that you did a preview of the new Razer Blade 15. If you do a full review, a comparison in DAW performance would be most welcome.

      • Douglas Black

        June 25, 2018 at 3:26 am

        If one of us gets an RB15 I'll try to do that

      • Douglas Black

        June 27, 2018 at 1:03 pm

        Latencymon shows:

        60-900us for interrupt to process latency.
        Highest measure interrupt to process latency: 1619
        Highest reported IRS routine time: 275.11 (wdf01000.sys)
        Highest reported DPC routine time: 1755.9 (acpi.sys)

        Reported total hard pagefault count: 7683

      • gl

        August 17, 2018 at 9:23 pm

        On my 9560, the key to decent latency was to disable the C wait states in the BIOS, as well as SpeedStep or SpeedShift via Throttlestop (you can set up different profiles there so that SpeedStep/Shift can be toggled for general computing and battery life). I still don't know if it's amazing, but I can get decent live performance @ 48k with a TB3 Focusrite Clarett interface.

        Thanks for the 9570 review, the VRM thermals and performance upgrades are great. When they get to cheap 2nd hand prices that might be tempting.

  12. Sacin

    June 27, 2018 at 5:27 pm

    Excellent review!

    Kindly shed some light on actual or real-time battery backup in terms of minutes/hours of both 9560 & 9570 (for 56Whr) under various stress levels (from light usage to heavy usage).

    Thank you

    • Douglas Black

      June 27, 2018 at 7:53 pm

      I don't have the 56WHr for the 9570. The stock battery lasts me easily 8-10 hours with an undervolt with the FHD display. I had the 9560 with 56WHr though, and that usually just hit 5.5 hours.

  13. Coco

    July 26, 2018 at 11:10 am

    Very interesting review. I'm interest by what you said about the egpu performances, the xps 13 9370 with an egpu seems to give a better experience with gaming than the 9570 itself.
    The thing is, and I would be really glad that someone answer me because I would like to buy my computer very soon, I'm hesitating between the 15' 9570 (i7, 16GB, 4K) and thw 13' 9370 (i7, 16GB, 4K) + egpu (don't know which one I will use yet) for light gaming (arma III, rust, the division, pubg, frostpunk, …) and typing note at college.
    I'm looking for portability, battery life, and performance obviously.

    Thanks in advance !

    • Douglas Black

      July 26, 2018 at 6:14 pm

      It's less hastle for the XPS 15. Once you tweak it a but you'll be getting enough performance for any of those games. The eGPU will work well enough but it will be less straighforward when you want to play and overall more expensive

      • Coco

        July 27, 2018 at 3:30 am

        Thank you for your quick reply. What do you mean by less hastle ? I never play game outside so the convenience do not really matter. I think that by "tweak" you mean undervolt, padding and pasting, and I'm ok with it. But what I am afraid is the weight of the computer for college…

      • Douglas Black

        July 27, 2018 at 5:09 am

        If you are not going to be moving the eGPU more than a couple of times a year and you are sure that you are willing to pay more money for the ability to have a smaller and lighter computer, go for the xps 13 9370.

      • Mickey

        September 2, 2018 at 12:54 am

        So I’ve been looking for a computer to pair with my 1080ti egpu because I want to play on it and take it to classes for college. I am in the same dilemma as coco and I still can’t decide between the spa 9370 and 9570. I want to be able to play bf1 online (which is a lot I expect I know) but I just don’t know if the i7-8550u can handle that, even with its higher 25 tdp. On the other side of the token this 9570 seems to struggle with egpu’s and it definitely has a capable cpu, so what is your opinion?

      • Douglas Black

        September 2, 2018 at 7:55 am

        I think you'll be fine with either. 4 cores will be fine for bf1 either way. It's just you won't be able to play anywhere but your home with the 13

      • Mickey

        September 2, 2018 at 9:33 am

        Yeah gaming in class wouldn't be a very good idea anyway lmao. I figure if I pair it with a cooling pad along with the new thermal design I should get a good performance out of the 8550u. Currently I have a Lenovo 720s and it also has an 8550u but for some reason it NEVER gets past 1992 MHz (might be due to the 15 TDP). Runs horridly with bf1 online, so hopefully the 9370 can do a lot better.

  14. Rook

    August 6, 2018 at 12:55 am

    I bought the exact config and got it pretty early (at the very end of May). I was wondering if you've tried out using Intel XTU to undervolt the system since I've gotten mine to hold a ~160mV offset pretty well. I'm in the middle of trying to get a better voltage/frequency curve set in MSI Afterburner for the GPU, but so far it seems I can get it to run upwards of stock clocks while undervolted (1711 mHz @ 875 mV). With this I should be able to get a pretty good thermal and performance improvement while pushing the system hard. In relation to your battery wear issue, I don't think it's a problem on all of them since mine reports 2% wear after using it for a few months in HWMonitor (and full 97 watt designed capacity).

    I've also done some searching about the audio popping issues, and it seems that right clicking on the sound control in the taskbar, selecting "Windows Sonic for Headphones" then selecting "Off" again right after will make it go away for a few hours. It's a bit annoying, but better than dealing with crackly audio.
    Overall I'm pretty happy with my unit so far, no unexpected issues and seems like it's gonna be a good decision for my use case.

    Thanks! Solid review.

  15. Somerandom

    August 7, 2018 at 3:13 pm

    I cannot believe or understand this review.

    Are you seriously telling us that for a PC that required A FRICKEN REINSTALL OF THE OS due to: "Unstable and buggy out of the box; required clean Windows installation" is only docked 1 star?

    By any reasonable and rational view, if a new laptop requires a fresh install simply to function as intended then it is not fit for purpose. To only take away 1 star for the list of negatives you have is utterly mind-boggling.

    This is a max 3/5 review and I have to question your logic and judgement.

    • Andrei Girbea

      August 10, 2018 at 2:17 pm

      I'll jump on to this until Doug gets to it.

      The things is, if you're after this kind of a form-factor and hardware, you'll have to accept the compromises. Having to reinstall Windows is a minor quirk imo if it fixes things. Yes, ideally that wouldn't be required, and you might not run into the same issues on your unit and might not have to do it, but if a reinstall addresses them, then hey, that's a small price to pay. It's a simple task and takes about an hour or so.

      The rating is of course subjective, but this laptop is, at this time, the best you can get with this kind of build, features and price, and it's a good buy if you're willing to accept those nits. Which btw I don't think would actually bother most users, aside from the instability and perhaps the lack of a cheaper FHD IPS touchscreen. In fact, I'd personally rate this a little higher than 4/5, given its niche and the competition.

  16. Malcolm Overbaugh

    August 10, 2018 at 2:44 am

    So for an engineering student looking to upgrade, this would be a good fit? Using AutoCAD, Solidworks, Fusion 360, etc.

    • Andrei Girbea

      August 10, 2018 at 2:09 pm

      I'll jump to this question. I'd say yes, but only if you're after this kind of form-factor and you're willing to do some tweaks (at least undervolt) to deal with throttling to some extent. You'll get better performance with full-size laptops though, and for less.

  17. Jack

    August 13, 2018 at 6:52 pm

    I have an i7 9550 + Aorus gaming box 1080 and I would say it works pretty well (plug and play). Just wondering if the i7 9570 with 4 PCI lanes will offer better performance? I play with egpu to 4K tv and sometimes use the internal laptop display (travel a lot). Play all sorts of games from Fortnite to AAA titles. I read that the 4 lanes v 2 lanes only really benefited for the internal laptop display scenario (return TB3 traffic). I am wondering if this daughter board (Apline Ridge) is on the 9550 also ? Thank you for any advice and nice review btw.

    • Douglas Black

      August 15, 2018 at 7:18 am

      I believe it's the same board, just different implementation. It will run better on the 9570, but not 1500 USD better for sure

      • Jack

        August 15, 2018 at 7:56 am

        Thank you for your reply Douglas. I am due to receive a replacement for my 9550 (Dell warranty repaired in 4 different countries on 8 occasions) in December so I think they will be all out of 9560 stock by then so I assume I will receive a 9570. So it will not be costing me anything. Are you saying with "different implementation" that the 9550 has TB3 piped directly to the CPU and the 9570 has TB3 to the Alpine Ridge daughter board and then to CPU ?

      • Douglas Black

        August 15, 2018 at 9:39 am

        No, they both have the same setup. Just one has 4 lanes instead of 2.

  18. Bonita Diamond

    August 18, 2018 at 7:00 am

    Thank you for the great review of Dell xps. I have liked the 15.6" Lenovo Ideapad that I've had almost 3 years. But the hinge to open and close has cracked. Now I have the lid propped on the broken side and the laptop is no longer portable. so I'm researching for the next computer. I don't need a 2 in 1. I am not a computer gamer. I use my laptop primarily for writing , and managing (storage and organizing ) of digital photos, some editing such as cropping, color saturation, exposure and removing unwanted elements in the image…. but I'm more likely to use the in-computer photo software than to use Adobe. I actually prefer Corel to Adobe.
    I had planned to purchase the xps 15 9560 with 512GB SSD with non-touch screen, FHD .
    Now I am wondering if I should purchase the 9560 or move up to the newer model of 9570. What do you recommend. and yes I'd rather save money than spend just to say I've got the newest!!! But if the newest is really better then I'll do that. I'll appreciate your advice.

    • Douglas Black

      August 18, 2018 at 7:14 am

      Hi Bonita,

      The main difference by far is the CPU/GPU performance. If you are doing multi-threaded workloads with every core or want to play games, the 9570 has enough advantages that it's worth the extra few hundred. If you just want to use it for writing and photos, then I don't see why the 9560 wouldn't do you just fine. But make sure you are getting it for less than the 9570 by around 4-500 USD.

  19. piotr

    September 1, 2018 at 2:11 am

    What about music production? Is this the best laptop to buy in this price? i7-8750h, 16RAM 512SSD, FHD.

  20. Tobias

    September 22, 2018 at 10:38 pm

    I'm trying to scan the internet for information about DP 1.2 support with MST (Display Chain), without news for the Dell TB dock.

    Are some of you able to share your results? I would love to know whether it's working as expected, but also if it Will Work with a hub with DP1.2+USB+TB(to power) fx.

    And i'm talking about native DP1.2, not DisplayLink 😊

  21. George Spyros

    November 6, 2018 at 5:15 am

    Thanx for the review. Great info.
    I also got the laptop and had very bad bsod, driver power state failure. It was the samsung 970 evo that caused this incompatibility, and nothing seemed to help (tried ahci-raid etc). I tried everything but it was the ssd to blame. Rock solid with its oem hynix sk512.

    I just thought i should mention it, because you are the first review i've read that had crashes due to the ssd.

    It took me 10days with countless of fresh installs etc, to isolate the problem and the ssd was the last thing i would suspect…

  22. Gadgetmang

    November 7, 2018 at 3:29 am

    Very happy with mines and have exact specs reviewed.

    I ran Heaven with the latest Bios & Video drivers:

    Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0
    FPS:
    138.3
    Score:
    3485
    Min FPS:
    9.4
    Max FPS:
    250.8
    System
    Platform:
    Windows NT 6.2 (build 9200) 64bit
    CPU model:
    Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8750H CPU @ 2.20GHz (2207MHz) x6
    GPU model:
    Intel(R) UHD Graphics 630 23.20.16.5037/NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti with Max-Q Design 25.21.14.1634 (4095MB) x1
    Settings
    Render:
    Direct3D9
    Mode:
    1280×720 2xAA windowed
    Preset
    Basic

  23. Mahdi

    January 11, 2019 at 4:23 pm

    Hi, thanks to your complete review. I am an engineering student and I'm looking forward to upgrading my laptop. Now I'm working with a Microsoft Surface Pro 4. The fact is, the battery life of the SP4 isn't really enough for even a half-day at university (it only lasts 3-4 hours on web-browsing). So I'm looking for a light (less than 2kg) and powerful laptop with long battery life in order to leave my charger at home. Also, the ports are important, as I'm not willing to have different card readers (the XPS 13 supports USB-c only :-|, leave alone a full-size sd card). I was pretty much sure about buying the 9570, but the fact is Dell has sanctioned my country, meaning that I'm going to get zero "Dell Support", and reading your opinions I became afraid of taking the risk and buying it from Amazon. Is the "Dell Support" a must-have, according to numerous issues mentioned? And if not, have you any suggestions in mind?
    Thanks in advance

    • Douglas Black

      January 11, 2019 at 5:04 pm

      X1 extreme is the answer. Can you get it in your country? Absolutely don't get the dell without support. The thinkpad will be more repairable due to availability of parts I think

      • Mahdi

        January 20, 2019 at 11:18 am

        Thanks for the reply and your suggestion
        For the X1 series, the Carbon edition is available here. But the fact is, in my country guarantee means almost nothing :) so I'm thinking to get my laptop either way from somewhere else and have it shipped for me. Besides, I couldn't get to love the design of Lenovo's laptops :)) Could you possibly think of any other choice with a more modern look?

      • Douglas Black

        January 20, 2019 at 8:04 pm

        I'm sorry to hear you can't get reliable service in your country. I hope there is a way to contact lenovo and let them know about the situation there.

        If the aesthetics of thinkpads aren't your thing, the next best bet would be Dell latitude for features and support

      • Mahdi

        January 21, 2019 at 10:18 am

        Yeah that's what politics cause, and we are paying the price for it :))
        Anyway, special thanks for your kind help
        I really enjoy your website and wish you luck

      • Douglas Black

        January 21, 2019 at 10:46 am

        Thank you!

  24. Felo G

    April 22, 2019 at 4:04 am

    i know this might be late however in the bios version that i have (1.8 i think) there's an option to charge the battery in adaptive or standard mode. standard mode removed the 10% battery wear that showed up on hwinfo and used the entire 97whr that i have. putting it back to adaptive showed 10% wear again

    • Douglas Black

      May 11, 2019 at 9:07 am

      Interesting to note… thank you for sharing!

  25. ND

    July 27, 2019 at 10:11 am

    Is there an extra slot inside the cps 15 9570 for hdd?

    • Douglas Black

      July 28, 2019 at 9:33 am

      There is, but you'll need to order the 57Wh battery SKU to be able to access and to connect to it.

  26. bittricks

    October 26, 2019 at 5:45 am

    Caveat Emptor

    This is my experience with Dell Support.

    I purchased a Dell XPS 15. At the time of purchase I also bought 2 years of extended onsite, premium and accidental insurances. Plus, I used a Mastercard that would add 2 additional years to each of those warranties. My warranty would run from 2017 until 2019 (for Dell proper) and then 2020 to 2021 via Mastercard.

    At the moment, I have a problem with the XPS 15 that needs fixed. When I signed into my Dell account, the warranty is listed as only being 1 year. Plus, my original fully itemized invoice for both the laptop and the warranty service contracts doesn't exist any longer in Dell's systems. Heck, I'm not even in their accounting system any longer, but they made sure that the XPS 15 service tag was connected to both my name and email address.

    Dell Warranty division said, "Contact your Mastercard. Have them call us. We will call you to extend your warranty for 1 year for $300. And then at that time the Mastercard can submit their claim."

    Really. The rep was told to say that (he got off the phone 3X to talk to the decision maker at the Dell India center). Basically, I was told "Sorry about your luck. Now get lost…"

  27. William Stanaland

    February 29, 2020 at 11:30 am

    I'm reading this article right now on my Dell XPS 15 (9570) and I definitely agree that you shouldn't purchase this laptop with the impression that it's going to be a fantastic gaming PC. While it plays games like Fortnite & Overwatch exceptionally well, the laptop WILL run hot when used for gaming for extended periods of time.

    -William Stanaland

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