Dell XPS 16 Creator Edition Opens for Pre-Order at $3,799.99 With Nvidia's RTX Spark

Dell's XPS 16 Creator Edition is open for pre-order at Best Buy from $3,799.99, making it the company's first XPS laptop built on Nvidia's RTX Spark chip. Notebookcheck reports that first units are expected on October 16, and Dell says its own website will sell the laptop soon.

What Dell announced

Donnie Oliphant, Dell's senior director of XPS, introduced the laptop in a blog post dated October 7, under the codename Montu. Dell describes RTX Spark as a single chip that combines a GPU, CPU and unified memory. According to Dell, the laptop offers an Nvidia Grace CPU with up to 20 cores, Blackwell RTX graphics with up to 6,144 cores and up to 128GB of unified memory shared between the two.

Notebookcheck, which reported the pre-order on October 9, lists a different configuration for the $3,799.99 price: an 18-core Nvidia N1X chip with 5,120 GPU cores, 32GB of unified LPDDR5X memory and a 512GB SSD. Readers should therefore treat Dell's headline numbers as the ceiling of the range and Notebookcheck's as the model on sale at that price. Pricing for higher configurations and other regions has not been published.

The screen and the body

The display is a 16-inch 3.2K Tandem OLED panel at 3,200 by 2,000 pixels and 142 pixels per inch. Dell lists 100 percent DCI-P3 coverage, a Delta E below 2 with Pantone validation, up to 1,000 nits of peak brightness, VESA DisplayHDR True Black 600 and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. Notebookcheck adds a touchscreen and a variable refresh rate of up to 120Hz.

The chassis is CNC-machined aluminium, 17.8mm (0.7 inch) thick, which Dell calls its thinnest high-performance XPS laptop. Notebookcheck puts the weight at about 2.02kg (4.45 pounds) and lists a glass touchpad and a 99Wh battery. Dell's post, as reviewed by Gadgets365, gives no battery life figure, so run time is unconfirmed.

Ports and connectivity

Dell lists three USB-C 4.0 ports with DisplayPort 2.1 and Power Delivery at up to 40Gbps, an HDMI 2.1b port, a full-size SDXC v7.1 card reader, a universal audio jack and a lock slot. Dell's own FAQ labels the USB-C ports "USB-4" while the body text says "USB-C 4.0," so the wording is not consistent. Notebookcheck lists Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6.0.

Feature	Dell's stated range	Listed pre-order model (Notebookcheck)
CPU	Nvidia Grace, up to 20 cores	Nvidia N1X, 18 cores
Graphics	Blackwell RTX, up to 6,144 cores	5,120 GPU cores
Memory	Up to 128GB unified	32GB LPDDR5X
Storage	Not stated in the post	512GB SSD
Display	16-inch 3.2K Tandem OLED, up to 1,000 nits	Touchscreen, up to 120Hz
Thickness and weight	17.8mm thick	About 2.02kg
Price	From $3,799.99 (Best Buy)	$3,799.99

Creator and gaming software

Dell says Blender, DaVinci Resolve, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premiere run natively on the machine, while MATLAB runs through Windows' Prism emulation. For gaming, Dell lists ray tracing, DLSS, Nvidia Reflex and anti-cheat support through Easy Anti-Cheat and BattlEye. Those claims come from Dell's blog and have not been tested by Gadgets365 or, as far as the reports show, by independent reviewers.

How it fits the wider launch wave

The XPS 16 arrives alongside other RTX Spark machines announced at Microsoft's Windows and Surface event on October 7. Gadgets365 covered Microsoft's Surface Laptop Ultra, which starts at $2,599. The Dell costs more at its listed price, but the two have not been compared on a like-for-like configuration, and Dell has not said what its cheapest model will cost.

What to watch next

Watch for Dell to publish prices for its other configurations and a date for sales on Dell.com. Watch for independent reviews once units ship, particularly on battery life, fan noise and how Windows software behaves on the Arm-based chip. Also watch for confirmation of the Best Buy shipping date, which so far comes from Notebookcheck and not from Dell's own post.

Published 9 October 2026. Gadgets365 will update this article as more information becomes available.