Dell G15 5520 – Top 5 Pros and Cons

Despite already having Alienware, Dell doesn’t shy away from offering gaming devices in their own name, with the G-series being a decent offering in the budget segment, which is filled by the IdeaPad Gaming 3i, the Nitro 5.

Today we have the Intel-powered variant of the 2022 Dell G15, which carries the Alder Lake H-series and two RTX 30-series GPUs with pretty decent power limits. There is a good display selection as well, starting with a 120Hz FHD display, an excellent entry point.

Today we present you with LaptopMedia’s top 5 picks about the Dell G15 5520.

Dell G15 5520: Full Specs / In-depth Review


3 reasons to BUY the Dell G15 5520

1. Upgradeability

The laptop has a chunky chassis, which has enough space on the inside for good upgradeability. There are two SODIMM slots that fit the new DDR5 memory modules, while for storage, you can see two M.2 slots. Both of them support Gen 4 SSDs.

Here is our teardown video, where you can see how to access both the RAM and Storage slots on the Dell G15 5520.


2. Performance

The performance of the laptop is really good, considering its price. We have either the Core i5-12500H or the Core i7-12700H, of which we tested the latter. These two CPUs can be paired with either the RTX 3050, RTX 3050 Ti, or the RTX 3060. Our model features the 3050 Ti, with the full 95W TGP.

CPU benchmarks

As you can see, the more affordable G15 can trade blows with notebooks much more expensive than it, mainly the Nitro 5, a device that has leveled up to be part of the mid-range segment, along with the Vector GP66 from MSI, an absolute powerhouse.


GPU benchmarks

Compared to last year’s G15, the 3050 Ti is a bit less performing, but it’s still among the best.


3. Cooling

The laptop uses a good cooling solution, with two big heatsinks, four heat pipes, and two fans. However, when you open the laptop you have to take out the whole motherboard if you want to access it for cleaning and repasting.


Max CPU load

Intel Core i7-12700H (45W TDP)0:02 – 0:10 sec0:15 – 0:30 sec10:00 – 15:00 min
Dell G15 55203.62 GHz @ 2.78 GHz @ 90°C @ 111W3.41 GHz @ 2.68 GHz @ 91°C @ 98W3.18 GHz @ 2.49 GHz @ 83°C @ 87W

The Core i7-12700H does really well, maintaining a clock speed of 3.18 GHz on the P-cores for a prolonged period of time. It also goes way past its 45W base TDP, which is great to see.

Real-life gaming

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 TiGPU frequency/ Core temp (after 2 min)GPU frequency/ Core temp (after 30 min)GPU frequency/ Core temp (Max fan)
Dell G15 55201802 MHz @ 73°C @ 90W1800 MHz @ 74°C @ 90W

For some reason, the G15 still can’t hit the max 95W TGP on the RTX 3050 Ti for the second year in a row. This time, however, clock speeds are a bit lower than last year’s notebook.

Gaming comfort

Comfort is quite good, as most of the hot elements of the cooling have been moved to the back. This way, the parts behind the monitor might reach 48°C, but the keyboard remains cool, at 38°C. As for noise, there’s plenty, as high fan speeds are necessary if you want to see the laptop do as well as it does.


2 reasons NOT to buy the Dell G15 5520

1. Battery life

The battery life with the smaller 56Wh battery pack isn’t that good, but we still squeezed out 6 hours and 17 minutes of Web browsing, or 5 hours and 44 minutes of video playback. Now, we conduct the battery tests with the Windows Better performance setting turned on, screen brightness adjusted to 120 nits, and all other programs turned off except for the one we are testing the notebook with.


2. Input devices

The keyboard and touchpad aren’t the best, as Dell can learn a thing or two from their Alienware brethren, about how to implement a good keyboard. Despite the chunky profile of 26.9 mm, the key travel is mediocre, while the feedback is alright. We’ve seen ThinkPads with better-feeling keys, while the touchpad is small and the surface doesn’t preposition you for a good experience. With that said, it’s fairly responsive.


All Dell G15 5520 configurations:

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tvh2k
tvh2k
1 year ago

>while for storage, you can see two M.2 slots
This is wrong. You can clearly see that there’s no second M.2 header on the motherboard. I was fooled when ordering the the G12 5520 (with Intel i5-12500H) recently. Others have reported that the AMD version does still have the second header.

harsh
harsh
1 year ago
Reply to  tvh2k

threre is another slot on right side