The Dell XPS 15 is available with the following GPUs:
- Intel Arc A370M 4GB GDDR6 (Core i5 and i7 only)
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU 6GB GDDR6 (40W TGP, Core i5 and i7 only)
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU 8GB GDDR6 (40W TGP, Core i7 and i9 only)
- NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU 8GB GDDR6 (40W TGP, Core i7 and i9 only)
The base model has the Intel Arc A370M, and from there, you can upgrade to one of the NVIDIA discrete GPUs, with some limitations, as described in the CPU section above. The Intel A370M is a discrete GPU, but it’s fairly low-power and only performs slightly better than integrated graphics. The only advantage is that it has dedicated VRAM. The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40-series will perform significantly better than the Intel Arc A370M. That said, due to the laptop’s thin design and limited cooling, these NVIDIA GPUs run at a fairly low wattage of 40W, which is at the lower end of their 35-115W power spectrum. This means that while they have a fair amount of processing power, they won’t perform as well as another similar-specced laptop with a more effective cooling system. The choice of the GPU depends on your workload. All of the NVIDIA GPUs can handle demanding tasks; it’s just a matter of how smooth an experience you expect and how fast you want to complete your work.
For gaming, getting a model with an NVIDIA GPU is best. The Intel A370M can handle some lighter games, but you’ll have to play with low settings for the most part. The RTX 40-series GPUs will provide a much smoother gaming experience at 1080p and can even handle some games at 1440p. They also have better game drivers and features like DLSS (Deep Learning Super Sampling), Frame Generation, and ray tracing.
