18 PCWorld JULY 2020NEWS DELL DEBUTS XPS 17
The left side
of the new
XPS 17 9700
features two
Thunderbolt
3 ports and
a wedge-
style lock.ethernet, but it is the latest Killer
AX1650 Wi-Fi built on an Intel
chipset.SERVICEABILITY
As you read earlier, the XPS 17
9700 features two DDR
SO-DIMM slots and two M.2 slots.
That’s a plus only if you can get to
those slots without having to
remove the motherboard (which
many inverted designs use).
While we didn’t get a picture
of the inside bottom of the XPS 17 9700, Dell
officials said it’s not an inverted design.
Removing the bottom will allow fairly easy
access to the M.2 and SO-DIMM slots.PORTS
The left side of the XPS 17 9700 features two
Thunderbolt 3 ports which support x
connections. There’s also a “wedge-style” lock,
which we think is a generic name for Noble’s
wedge lock, not Kensington’s old Security Slot
nor Kensington’s newer Mini Lock.
The right side of the XPS 17 9700 gives
you two more Thunderbolt 3 ports, ananalog headset jack, and an SD card reader
that Dell said is UHS-III complaint. That last
bit means the card reader can theoretically
hit 624MBps transfer speeds, versus the
312MBps of UHS-II slots when used with a
fast SD card.COOLING
One technique Dell used to shrink the overall
size of the XPS 17 9700 was to build vapor
chambers for heat dispersion, instead of
traditional heat pipes. Heat pipes use pipe-
shaped conduits to wick heat from the CPU to
the heat sink and fans. Such designs areThe right side of the XPS 17 9700 features two more Thunderbolt 3
slots, a UHS-III card reader, and analog headset jack.