Processor and RAM

Both the XPS 13 and Surface Laptop 4 offer speedy performance. But which of the laptops is faster?

As mentioned, the Surface Laptop 4 can be configured with processors from AMD in addition to Intel CPUs, a major difference from the XPS 13. Notably, however, the AMD processor options are not from AMD’s latest Ryzen CPU lineup, the Ryzen 5000. Instead, the Surface Laptop 4 offers AMD Ryzen 4000 processors. The 15-inch Surface Book 4 AMD model comes with the Ryzen 7 4980U, while the 13.5-inch AMD model currently can be configured with the Ryzen 5 4680U.

For the Intel-powered Surface Laptop 4 models, the processors come from Intel’s 11th generation of Core i chips. Choices include the Intel Core i7-1185G7 for either size, with an additional option of Core i5-1135G7 for the 13.5-inch model.

Dell’s new XPS 13 also comes with 11th-gen Intel Core processors. Choices consist of the Intel Core i3-1115G4, Core i5-1135G7, Core i7-1165G7 or Core i7-1185G7. That means that, for the top-end Intel CPU configurations of the XPS 13 and Surface Book 4, the processors are identical and performance should be comparable. But the XPS 13 does get a speed advantage over the AMD-powered Surface Laptop 4 models, based upon recent benchmarks. For instance, Geekbench 5 scores for the Core i5-1135G7 and Ryzen 5 4600U show the Core i7 winning out both in single-core and multi-core tests. The performance advantage should most noticeable on more-demanding, multi-core tasks, according to the Geekbench 5 results.

Both the XPS 13 and Surface Laptop 4 offer a further performance boost with up to 32 GB of RAM available. Other configuration options are for 8 GB or 16 GB of RAM.