1. Introduction2. Dell XPS 13 (9360)3. Testing Methodology4. Testing: CPU5. Testing: GPU6. Testing: System-related7. Testing: M.2 and USB Interfaces8. Testing: Thermal Dynamics and Power Consumption9. Testing: Battery10. Closing Thoughts11. View All Pages

M.2 interface

To test the speeds of the PCIe, M.2 SSD that ships with the XPS 13, I ran CrystalDiskMark and ATTO Disk Benchmark.

Interesting results here: the ‘read' speeds are quite high at around 1700 MB/s, but ‘write' speeds of around 430 MB/s are comparatively slow, especially for a PCIe drive. This should not make much difference to most consumers, as the XPS 13 is not aimed at those likely to be writing large files on a regular basis.

USB 3.0 bandwidth

To test the XPS 13’s USB 3.0 Type-A ports, I plugged in an OCZ Trion 150 SSD via a SATA-to-USB 3.0 5Gbps adapter, which uses the ASMedia ASM1053 controller. We reviewed the SSD HERE, finding it delivers good speed at a budget price. Most importantly, it is capable of saturating the USB 3.0 bus, allowing us to test the speeds the two USB 3.0 ports delivers. To test this, I ran both CrystalDiskMark and ATTO Disk Benchmark on the Trion 150 drive.

As we would expect, the USB 3.0 results are right at the limit of the 5Gbps ceiling.

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