(Credit: Jeffrey Hazelwood/PCMag; Dell/Intel)
In recent weeks, I've been working and traveling with two versions of the latest Dell XPS, both powered by Intel's Core Ultra 300 (Panther Lake) processor. I wanted to see just what Panther Lake, which has been touted as offering much better graphics, means for laptop performance.
While outwardly identical, the two 14-inch laptops have very different processors. One has a very high-end chip, the Core Ultra X7 358H with ARC B390 Graphics, while the other has a lower-end version, the Core Ultra 5 325 with Intel Graphics. I'm used to some variation among versions within a chip generation, but this is the largest difference I've ever seen.
Beneath the Same Chassis, Two Very Different Systems
First, some background: Both chips are nominally 25 watts and are produced using Intel's new 18A process, which Intel claims is the industry's most advanced.
The Core Ultra X7 358H has four performance cores with a base frequency of 1.9GHz and a max turbo of 4.8GHz, eight efficiency cores with a base frequency of 1.5GHz and a max turbo of 3.5GHz, and four low-power efficiency cores with a base frequency of 1.5GHz. To this, it adds 12 of the company's Xe graphics cores and a 50 TOPS neural processing unit (NPU).
In contrast, the Core Ultra 5 325 has four performance cores with a base frequency of 2.1GHz and a max turbo of 4.5GHz, and four low-power efficiency cores with a base frequency of 1.6GHz. It has no standard efficiency cores and just 4 Xe graphics cores, but does have a 47 TOPS NPU. One difference is that the lower-end chip has a maximum power rating of 55 watts, while the higher-end one has an 80-watt rating.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)So what does this all mean for performance? Quite a lot. The top-end chip marks a significant performance leap. The lower-end one is better, but unremarkable. That’s a huge difference.
The High-End X7 Finally Delivers on Panther Lake's Promise
The higher-end Ultra X7 358H-based machine really lives up to the promise of Panther Lake. Graphics performance was clearly a standout, but it was also faster in standard applications, AI inference, and workstation apps. It didn’t quite match the performance I’ve seen on larger, heavier mobile workstations running Intel’s Arrow Lake processors, but it came surprisingly close. On the other hand, the midrange Ultra 5 325-based machine was a bit faster than last year’s midrange machines, but not by as much.
In standard benchmark tests, the 358H-based machine proved quite fast—30% or so faster than last year's Core Ultra 268V (Lunar Lake) systems on PCMark 10's Modern Office test. It tops systems based on AMD's latest Kraken Lake machines.
And then there's the Core Ultra 5 325-based version. It's not a bad performer by any stretch, but it couldn't compare to the other machine. (It didn't help that it had 16GB of memory while the higher-end version had 32GB.) In most tests, I found it faster than a similar mid-level Lunar Lake (the Core Ultra 5 226) but not as fast as the high-end Lunar Lakes.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)On some tougher tests I've run on many machines, the slower Dell took 47 minutes to run a large Excel model with a big data table, while the higher-end machine took 36 minutes, in line with the best Lunar Lake machines. Transcoding a video using Handbrake took 95 minutes on the slower machine, compared with 65 minutes on the faster one and 100-110 minutes on most Lunar Lake systems. (I couldn't get my MATLAB test to run on either XPS, though it works on other Panther Lake machines; I still don't know why.)
Performance vs. Endurance: Choosing Your XPS
There was one other big difference between the machines. The high-end laptop comes equipped with Dell's Tandem OLED touch display with a 2880-by-1800 display, one of the nicest displays I've ever seen. The lower-end device has a standard 1,920-by-1,200 display—not as crisp, but still quite good. (I like touch displays, and wish Dell offered a standard display with touch.)
I'm sure the displays contributed to the other big discrepancy I saw, in battery life. The high-end machine lasted about 14.5 hours on PCMark 10's Modern Office test with 100 nits of brightness—good but nothing special. The lower-end machine with the conventional display lasted over 33 hours on the same test. For lots of people, that's a game-changer. (To be fair, last year's Dell Pro with Lunar Lake and a similar display also had 30-plus hours of battery life.)
Elegant Hardware, But Not Everyone Will Love the Keyboard
Otherwise, the two systems are similar. Both are thin and relatively light, with the low-end machine measuring 8.26 by 12.19 by 0.60 inches and weighing 3.08 pounds (3.81 with the included 100-watt charger), and the high-end one coming in at .02 inches thinner and .07 pounds heavier.
Both have an 8-megapixel camera that seemed quite good, a quad-speaker audio system, and a large touchpad. Both have two Thunderbolt 4/USB-C ports on the left and another such port on the right, along with an audio jack. (I do miss USB-A and HDMI ports.) They come with Dell Support Assistant to keep the machine up to date and a Dell Optimizer program to prioritize specific applications.
Like previous XPS machines, these have a very flat keyboard, which some people will like, while others will not. Personally, I prefer a more traditional keyboard, such as the one Dell uses on its Dell Pro line, but I didn't have any trouble typing on the XPS.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)As I write this, a model with specifications similar to the low-end machine I tested (Core Ultra 5 325 processor, 16GB of memory, 512GB SSD, standard 1200p display) is selling for about $1,890 on Dell's site; while one with the higher-end specifications (Core Ultra X7 358H with Arc Graphics, 32GB of memory, 1TB SSD, and 2.8K Tandem OLED touch display) is about $2,880. Both are more expensive than last year's models, though, of course, prices across the board have gone up due to memory shortages.
Overall, the XPS is a really nice performance laptop if you're OK with a flatter keyboard than you'll find on most Windows laptops. While I love the tandem OLED touch display, personally, I'd go with the regular display (which I wish came with a touch option) for better battery life.
In the end, if what you're after is increased performance, especially when it comes to graphics and AI performance, the high-end X7 version with Arc Graphics is the clear choice.