Dell has just announced a bumper crop of updates for the Dell XPS 15 2020, Dell XPS 17 2020, Dell Gaming lineup and Alienware hardware. But, something is missing and that something is Ryzen 4000.
Technically, Dell hasn’t missed the boat on Ryzen 4000. It’s more the case that no one noticed. Dig deeper in the recent Dell announcements and you’ll see the Dell G5 now has a Ryzen 4000 version, dubbed the Dell G5 SE.
The AMD version comes in at £1019, which is £150 less than the Intel equivalent. With the welcome price difference and AMD’s famed multi-core performance, why is there no Ryzen 4000 model of the Dell XPS?
Related: AMD Ryzen 4000
With the impressive chops shown by the AMD Ryzen 4000 chip in its short lifespan – we loved how it shone in the Asus Zephyrus G14, making budget portable gaming even more viable – it’d be easy to say “Put the Ryzen 4000 in everything!” However, there’s a specific case to be made for the new XPS 15 and XPS 17 laptops.
Let’s take a look at how AMD’s best Ryzen 4000 mobile processors compare to the Intel ones available on the new XPS models:
| Base clock (GHz) | Max clock (GHz) | Cores / Threads | TDP (W) | |
| Intel Core i7-10885H | 2.4 | 5.3 | 8 / 16 | 45 |
| Intel Core i7-10875H | 2.3 | 5.1 | 8 / 16 | 45 |
| AMD Ryzen 9 4900H | 3.3 | 4.4 | 8 / 16 | 45 |
| AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS | 3.0 | 4.3 | 8 / 16 | 35 |
As you can see from the specs table, while Intel offers higher frequencies, the AMD Ryzen 4000 series offers comparable performance at a cheaper price. The AMD Ryzen 4000 chips also feature powerful integrated graphics, unlike the Intel UHD graphics featured on the XPS 15 and XPS 17’s current Comet Lake mobile processors.
This means that if you don’t opt for a graphics card, you’ll still have enough grunt to dabble with video games and creative apps. And even if you do opt for a Nvidia graphics card, having a powerful integrated graphics could still help with the workload and potentially save on battery life.
With the new larger XPS models, Dell is touting their creative capabilities and plans on designating some models as a “Creator Edition” for that very reason – even giving the XPS 17 an Nvidia RTX 2060 GPU to give it some true graphical clout. However, if Dell truly wants to offer the best creator performance for your dosh, then an AMD Ryzen 4000 version would make a ton of sense.
Related: Dell XPS 15 2020
As we’ve seen with the Dell G5 SE, the AMD Ryzen 4000 range enables Dell to give customers the option of a cheaper model with a negligible hit to specs. The Dell XPS 15 starts at £1599 ($1299 in the US for a cheaper model) and the XPS 17 at $1499 (UK pricing to follow).
With AMD Ryzen 4000, Dell could likely shave more than £100 off these XPS models as it has with its gaming offering – making these premium Dell products even more competitive in the creator and gaming space.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.