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00:00Hey guys, I'm Tom the Tech Jap and if you're a regular on the channel, you'll know that
00:03I think the Dell XPS 13 is one of the best laptops you can buy.
00:08It's not perfect and it is still quite expensive, but I think as the horrible YouTube cliche
00:13goes, it's a good all-rounder.
00:15So I've actually teamed up with Intel who are very kindly sponsoring this video because
00:20they've asked me to basically test a laptop with one of their fancy new 11th Gen Tiger
00:25Lake chips.
00:26And I'm kind of curious not only how this performs, but also how fast it is in games.
00:31And to give some context, here is another Dell XPS 13, one I made earlier.
00:35This is actually the exact same spec, but the previous early 2020 model with 10th Gen
00:41Ice Lake processors.
00:43So this is going to be a perfect side-by-side to see just how much faster this is in games.
00:48So this is the XPS 13 9310.
00:51We've got the i7-1165G7 which of course also comes with their much faster Iris Xe graphics.
00:59Intel claims that chip for chip, this new design has around twice the gaming performance
01:04of the equivalent 10th Gen mobile CPUs.
01:07Although some chips lower down the stack still get Intel's older UHD graphics as we get on
01:12the 10th Gen chips.
01:13So the question is, do Intel's claims stack up?
01:15Is this significantly faster than last year's model?
01:18And is this a nice little mini gaming laptop that can now play games at 1080p?
01:22Well, the answer is kind of, sort of, yes-ish.
01:26Quick side note though, because some of the new 11th Gen chips, including the i7 I have
01:31in here, have a higher 12 to 28 watt TDP as opposed to the 7 to 15 watt on some lower
01:37end chips in the new range.
01:39But importantly, I actually measured this XPS with the higher power chip go way above
01:43even the 28 watt TDP range, briefly peaking in the high 40 watts.
01:48So basically it all comes down to the cooling and the fans of the particular laptop you're
01:53using.
01:54And this is another advantage of 11th Gen, the laptop being able to dynamically scale
01:58when in performance mode.
01:59And so it means laptops like the MSI Prestige 14 I have here, which is using the exact same
02:05chip, but because we have a slightly beefier cooling solution, you can see the keyboard
02:09lifts up a bit, the fans do roar up a lot louder as well.
02:12But this can actually go to an even higher TDP wattage level than the XPS 13 and crucially
02:18sustain it for longer.
02:19So even though the same chip, depending on the model you go for, you can actually get
02:23even more performance.
02:24But if I put the MSI back for one moment and then bring back all the 10th Gen XPS 13, during
02:32my Cinebench test, I actually recorded a 25 to 30% higher clock speed on the 11th Gen
02:37versus the 10th Gen.
02:39So we get higher clock speeds for longer and therefore better performance, and it didn't
02:43get any hotter or louder, which is pretty cool.
02:45Okay, enough waffle, let's get to the gaming and I'll be testing them at 1080p because
02:49even though these screens are 4K, that's maybe a little bit overkill for a 13 inch laptop.
02:55Now maybe a little bit naively, I tried boosting up Cyberpunk 2077 just to see if it would
03:00work.
03:01It wouldn't even start unfortunately, it just kept crashing to desktop.
03:05But who knows, future updates or driver optimizations may fix this.
03:09I also wanted to try the new Call of Duty, Black Ops Cold War, but unfortunately it just
03:13wouldn't even start on this either, neither would it on the old model or even the MSI
03:18Prestige 14.
03:19Maybe because they fall below the minimum spec requirement, but not the best start.
03:24So no Cyberpunk, no Call of Duty.
03:26But thankfully, Rainbow Six Siege worked fine.
03:29And this is one of my go-to test games, it's well optimized and it still looks pretty good.
03:34So I averaged a playable 33 FPS on the older 10th gen XPS, but it was pretty choppy with
03:40the 1% lows being just 18 FPS at times, which can feel kind of juddery.
03:45Now moving to the new 11th gen i7 and the average frame rate jumped from 33 to 51 FPS.
03:51That's a 55% uptick and honestly, it's night and day when it comes to playability.
03:57Dropping to medium high settings and I could hear a solid 60 FPS.
04:01Not too bad and the frame rate never dropped below 37.
04:05But what about this little known game called Fortnite?
04:08While there's good news here as well, at 1080p with medium settings, the 11th gen i7
04:13averaged 36 FPS up from 26 on the last gen model.
04:17Which was just too weak for Fortnite.
04:20Too weak Fortnite.
04:22So getting over 30 FPS here makes all the difference, although I did still suffer from
04:26some stuttering thanks to some pretty dreadful 1% low frame rates on both machines.
04:31Moving on to Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which is still quite a workout for integrated graphics.
04:36On 10th gen, I was averaging around 11 FPS and could only get a playable frame rate by
04:41dropping to the lowest settings at 720p.
04:44The 11th gen on the other hand was up around the mid 20s at 1080p on high.
04:49So this is actually 2 to 2.5 times as fast and while still not ideal, it makes it into
04:54a game that you can actually play.
04:56I'd still drop some settings back to get a solid 30 and reduce some of those choppy
05:00feeling 1% lows.
05:02But overall this is maybe the biggest improvement I've seen and it feels so much better.
05:07In CSGO, it's an old one but it checks out.
05:10And again at 1080p with high settings, the new XPS averaged a very respectable 43 FPS.
05:16But it wasn't that much fun to play thanks to some serious and regular frame drops.
05:21Reducing the frame rate to 30 did smooth things out a little bit though and I can't really
05:25complain when average frame rates were double what I got on 10th gen.
05:30Things are looking up with League of Legends though which was totally playable on either
05:34machine with both managing well over 100 FPS at 1080p with very high settings.
05:40I even pushed it to 4K on very high and I averaged 39 FPS on 10th gen and a full 60,
05:474K 60 on 11th gen.
05:50And finally, for the benchmarking nerds among you, in 3DMark Time Spy, the 11th gen was
05:5547% faster and is actually faster than Nvidia's discrete MX250 GPU.
06:01While in Cinebench which is more CPU intensive, 11th gen had a 21% lead.
06:07But don't forget, it's not just performance that's had an improvement here.
06:10Battery life is also quite a bit better.
06:12In my standard YouTube battery test, the 11th gen XPS 13 lasted nearly an hour and a half
06:17or around 20% longer than the older XPS.
06:21And this has a lot to do with Intel's more efficient SuperFin process.
06:25And to be honest, I'm pretty surprised it lasted that much longer given it's still
06:28based on a 10nm design and with much higher clock speeds and power limits.
06:32So faster CPU and GPU, longer battery life.
06:36We also get faster memory.
06:37This now supports LPDDR4 4266MHz RAM to be exact.
06:42We also get Wi-Fi 6 support as well as Thunderbolt 4.
06:45There's a lot new here.
06:47So while I've been mainly concentrating on the XPS 13, there are of course loads of
06:51alternatives with 11th gen chips.
06:54So can the 11th gen XPS 13 moonlight as a light gaming laptop?
06:59Well, sort of.
07:01It depends on the game really.
07:02And if you're playing some older titles like CSGO, League of Legends, even Rainbow Six
07:06Siege, then actually you can get pretty impressive frame rates.
07:09And I'm seeing anything from 50 to 100 to even 300% improvements in performance with
07:15this over this.
07:17So even though we still have a couple of issues, Cyberpunk and Call of Duty just didn't run
07:21unfortunately, across the board in terms of sheer performance, 11th gen, particularly
07:25Xe graphics is a huge upgrade.
07:28But let's be realistic.
07:29This still isn't a premium gaming experience and we really shouldn't expect it to be.
07:34But overall, I'm still very impressed.
07:3611th gen is a worthy upgrade this year, particularly in the graphics department.
07:40But what do you think of the new 11th gen chips and also the XPS 13?
07:44Would you be tempted to buy one of these or even just upgrade your current laptop?
07:47And if you are using your laptop for games, what are you playing at the moment?
07:51Let me know in the comments below.
07:53Thank you so much for watching, guys.
07:54If you do want to see more from me, then don't forget to hit that little subscribe button
07:57down below.
07:58And I'll catch you next time right here on the Tech Chap.