Acoustic Performance
Acoustic recordings are taken while the system sits at the desktop under minimum load. Then we run 3DMark's FireStrike 1.1 and take the measurements again once the sound has settled to its maximum. All fans were left to the defaults. We recorded audio from a 1m distance from the base unit at approximately the same level.
The Dell XPS 15 makes virtually no noise at all when not under load – the 40dB recording is basically the ambient background noise in our test area. Even under load, whilst the fan does noticeably spin up a few notches eventually, the final result is hardly a pain on your eardrums. This is a pretty quiet notebook overall.
@James Morris, did Dell confirm support for eGPU enclosures through that Thunderbolt 3.0 port? Merely having the port isn’t enough, system BIOS level support is also needed for it work.