Dell's main intention with the 8th gen Kaby Lake-R XPS 13 was to boost CPU performance through improved temperature monitoring. Thus, this latest iteration was designed to run at higher core temperatures than the previous SKUs without negatively impacting user experience or raising surface temperatures to uncomfortable levels. Our tests more or less echo these claims as core temperatures can hover over 90 C when under heavy load without affecting needing to bump up maximum fan speeds. Surface temperatures will be slightly warmer on certain parts of the keyboard, but the palm rests and trackpad never become uncomfortable.

Other than the significant leap in CPU performance and minor improvement in GPU performance, there are no surprises left for this XPS 13 generation. The same pros and cons from our previous reviews remain. There is a case for purchasing the XPS 13 i7-7560U SKU instead of the i7-8550U SKU as the Iris graphics performs 18 percent faster than the UHD Graphics 620, but CPU performance is much slower by about 40 percent. Demanding applications that take advantage of the higher core count will absolutely love Kaby Lake-R and the new XPS 13. There's still room for improvement as the steady 2.5 GHz clock rate is a far cry from the rated 3.7 GHz. Thus, it will be interesting to see how other Ultrabooks sporting this same CPU will perform in the coming weeks.