Inside The Dell XPS 15 2-in-1: Cooling Intel Kaby Lake G

[Guest]

We sat down with Dell at CES 2018 for a look inside the new XPS 15 2-in-1 that features Intel and AMD's latest technology fused onto a single Kaby Lake G package.

Inside The Dell XPS 15 2-in-1: Cooling Intel Kaby Lake G : Read more

 

[eenoch]

Seriously? Kayby ...KB (lake) ... G? KBG? Very funny.

 

[anbello262]

Seriously? Kayby ...KB (lake) ... G? KBG? Very funny.

Sorry, I don't get the joke. Care to explain?

 

[alextheblue]

I didn't think anyone would cram the 65W variant of KBL-G in such a thin device. Even with cTDP down. Impressive. I was thinking not-quite-ultrabook thickness devices.

 

[castlevanity]

it would make sense and probably sound "funny" if it was KGB... but KBG ??? *shrugs

 

[John Philips]

Do this new processor comes with the Spectre and Meltdown enhancements?

 

[hannibal]

No, and the next Intel prosessor neither.
First new generation prosessors 2019 or 2020 may be Meltdown fixed.

 

[golfinglibrarian]

Seriously? Kayby ...KB (lake) ... G? KBG? Very funny.

Sorry, I don't get the joke. Care to explain?

I this the OP is a bit dyslexic. I think he was thinking "KGB", as in Russian Intelligence.

 

[Valantar]

Here you can see the board that houses the fans placed upside down on the front of the notebook. This gives you a mirror image of the cooling apparatus and lets you see the large silver radiator in front of the fans.

That doesn't quite make sense.
a) the PCB is a different colour
b) the PCB is far too narrow to be the same board (yet it has ports on both sides, so it's not a PCB meant to connect to an I/O daughterboard (which would explain its small size))
c) the fans on the upside-down board are clearly spaced more closely than the ones in the chassis
d) this is slight speculation, but the heatsink is far smaller than the apparent surface area of the heatpipe array/exhaust vents on the PCB in the chassis.

Given the width of the board, this seems to be for another PC entirely. Given that the XPS series is small for its display size, I'd think that board is for a large 13" device.

 

[PaulAlcorn]

Here you can see the board that houses the fans placed upside down on the front of the notebook. This gives you a mirror image of the cooling apparatus and lets you see the large silver radiator in front of the fans.

That doesn't quite make sense.
a) the PCB is a different colour
b) the PCB is far too narrow to be the same board (yet it has ports on both sides, so it's not a PCB meant to connect to an I/O daughterboard (which would explain its small size))
c) the fans on the upside-down board are clearly spaced more closely than the ones in the chassis
d) this is slight speculation, but the heatsink is far smaller than the apparent surface area of the heatpipe array/exhaust vents on the PCB in the chassis.

Given the width of the board, this seems to be for another PC entirely. Given that the XPS series is small for its display size, I'd think that board is for a large 13" device.

You are correct, thanks for catching that! I took photos after, and I believe I snapped a pic with the wrong board. Text amended.

 

[Valantar]

Here you can see the board that houses the fans placed upside down on the front of the notebook. This gives you a mirror image of the cooling apparatus and lets you see the large silver radiator in front of the fans.

That doesn't quite make sense.
a) the PCB is a different colour
b) the PCB is far too narrow to be the same board (yet it has ports on both sides, so it's not a PCB meant to connect to an I/O daughterboard (which would explain its small size))
c) the fans on the upside-down board are clearly spaced more closely than the ones in the chassis
d) this is slight speculation, but the heatsink is far smaller than the apparent surface area of the heatpipe array/exhaust vents on the PCB in the chassis.

Given the width of the board, this seems to be for another PC entirely. Given that the XPS series is small for its display size, I'd think that board is for a large 13" device.

You are correct, thanks for catching that! I took photos after, and I believe I snapped a pic with the wrong board. Text amended.

I guess there are levels to my perception - if I'd read the part about the 13" model I might have recognized the board (and cooling setup) as the one pictured there as well 😛

I have to say I'm surprised how small the size difference between the two is. A shame Dell doesn't sell in retail, I'd love to see these in person. A Ryzen Mobile version of the 13" version (especially given the 27W cooling capacity!) would be very, very attractive.

 

[bigdragon]

The XPS 15 2-in-1 is really impressive. Lenovo beat Dell to the quad-core, good graphics, Wacom tablet market last year with the Yoga 720. I've been very happy with it. I want to see competition in this market segment continue to expand! I love having a do-everything machine on hand.

 

[lorfa]

That bottom bevel really bothers me for some reason :-/

 

[Lutfij]

Interesting to see apparatus from other industries being applied to a mobile computing device. In fact they should think about introducing ceramic coated heatsinks to help with more heat dissipation.

Nice write up, Paul! 😉

 

[Mirek Goldberg]

@ANBELLO262
KBG ----> KGB got it now?

 

[DGurney]

A MicroSD reader? Why bother?

And too bad Dell is still peddling only dumb glossy screens on these systems.

 

[thuck777]

Irreplaceable, solder RAM is a NO GO for me. That's just unacceptable in any system. If the RAM goes bad, the system has to be bricked; that's ridiculous. Moreover, this design precludes updating and expanding RAM over time. I had been interested in this system, prior to this unfortunate revelation.

 

[Valantar]

Irreplaceable, solder RAM is a NO GO for me. That's just unacceptable in any system. If the RAM goes bad, the system has to be bricked; that's ridiculous. Moreover, this design precludes updating and expanding RAM over time. I had been interested in this system, prior to this unfortunate revelation.

While I agree with you in principle, how common is faulty RAM? The only faulty RAM I've ever come across was a stick of my 9-year-old DDR2-1066 (running at 2V!) failing last spring and something throwing up BSODs on my girlfriend's 3-year-old laptop a while back.

Then again, here in Norway faulty RAM would get me a repair or replacement on any pre-made PC less than 5 years old, so it's not really an issue here. I guess good consumer protection laws make you lazy, or some such.

Still, I agree that replaceable and upgradeable RAM is great, but in this case it just can't fit inside the case, at least without significantly reducing battery capacity.

Personally, I'm hoping for a new mobile DIMM standard, either dual-channel single DIMMs (i.e. 2x the pins and traces - less than ideal, but I'd rather take one replaceable DIMM than none at all) or significantly smaller size (including the mounting mechanism).

 

[tonytopper]

I wonder why Dell opted to not use the Kaby Lake-G in their 13 inch laptop. Will it just not fit in a 13 inch offering? If it could fit into a 13 inch shell that would be a compelling product.

 

[Valantar]

I wonder why Dell opted to not use the Kaby Lake-G in their 13 inch laptop. Will it just not fit in a 13 inch offering? If it could fit into a 13 inch shell that would be a compelling product.

I suspect it would require a significantly thicker laptop than what they want for their XPS line - just look at how much they had to do to fit it in the 15" 2-in-1, which is significantly larger and roughly the same thickness. You'd essentially need to fit the same cooling system inside a ~30% smaller chassis, which would significantly impact battery size or motherboard layout. Just look at the size difference in the 5th picture in the article between the current 25W cooling solution in the 13" (and its motherboard) and the ~55W cooler in the 15" 2-in-1 - it's not subtle.

Me, I'd gladly take a thicker 13" laptop with this chip inside (given a sufficiently low weight, preferably <1.6kg), but I suspect Dell wants their XPS lineup to always be impressively thin, small and light all-round.