XPS 13 9360: New owner, mac convert, and upgraded SSD and paste

So I bought a new XPS 13 i5-256-QHD+ touch with finger print and rose gold from the outlet.

Great price and great system. I am coming from a Macbook Pro 2012 i7 8gb. It was a great laptop and my 3rd macbook but I saw no value in new mac PC for the last several years. the OS has gone stale and there locked store was growing more and more stale as windows 10 improved and the cloud took off.

and for 2x the cost at 1/2 the power this was a no brainer. I have a hardcore rig for gamnign at home. 

i7 7700k at 5.2ghz, 32gb, water cooled, 1080TI OC, VR etc so I didnt need a gaming laptop just general use for web, travel, camera downloads, light home office stuff and light gaming.

It does all of that great and surpsingin how strong the 620HD is. I can play Grid Project Cars Assetto and most 2 yr old games no problem at 1400x900 with med graphics and even some CMAA at 30-50FPS range.

I heard about temp and wifi issues.

1: DISABLE the firewall McAfee ***. I found out after a day that was causing my delays. Uninstalled i am at 230MB on a 200MB service!!!

2: HEAT: I never had coil whine or heat issue but once monitored it does get hot. It idled at 45C and SSD was about 38C. Under XTU 5min test it would get up to 88C and after 10min of gaming the HW MONITER would hit 95-97C range. It would quickly settle into 60 range during most tasks.

I repasted the heatsink (twice) first time I did it bad and learned. I also added 1.5MM thermal pad over the heatsink and SSD it touches the back lid. I was able to doubl up on the heatsink and still closed with nice click.

Temps in XTU were around 75C and Geekbench was consistent after that. Under gaming it sits right at 80C max so I say a 15C drop is pretty good. Plus my battery life seemed to increase.

I did not undervolt, it didn't seem to impact FPS or Geekbench so why bother with startup stuff? The power manager by Dell has added new battery settings which I think cut power down enough that in Balanced or Low mode I have seen 10-12 hrs on light use.

Geekbench 4 I was around 3750 Single Core and 7500 multi

Userbenchmark was all excellent except for the drive.

I changed the PM961 out for a 960EVO 500GB. In Samsung and Crystal mark I was getting around 500-800 for both read write for the PM961.

With the EVO I was at 1800 1600 and crystal 1400/1200 for best case.

It seemed really low but I guess the XPS has only 2x channels so it is crippled. Otherwise I would be seeing closer to 3000/1800.

It was a simple swap and clean install the system really is snappy.

It boots from cold start in 25sec into the desktop! In hibernate it is less then 5 sec.

General use it is fast and I am pumped for the gaming. I am looking forward to road trip RTS and old Car racing!!!