XPS 15 9530 Upgrades

EDIT: The following pertains to the XPS 9530 from at least ten years ago, not to the new 2023 XPS 9530.

Your system supports a maximum of 16 GB RAM. You should buy a matched pair of two x 8 GB DDR3L, up to 1600 MHz.

Crucial is often the most compatible with Dell laptops. Here is Crucial RAM guaranteed to be compatible with your laptop. However, they don't currently show a 16 GB matched pair kit in stock, though you could check on Amazon or other Crucial retailers.

If you want to save some money, you could try one of the lesser brands. I recently bought a relatively unknown brand, Kuesuny, through Amazon for much less than the price of a big brand name. I installed it in an XPS of similar vintage to yours. I'm happy with it. I ran memory tests for a couple of days to thoroughly test the RAM when I first installed it. It performs well and saved me money.

You can upgrade your SSD all the way to 4 TB, if you want. Crucial's MX500 drives are good value, with almost the performance of higher-end Samsungs but at a more affordable price. Here are some Crucial drives. But, any major brand should be good.

Given the laptop's age, then the thermal compound has dried out and cannot adequately transfer heat away from the processor, and there may be a lot of dust inside the laptop and maybe inside the fan and heat fins. So, your laptop is unable to adequately cool itself. That will cause the processor to throttle (slow down).

You might consider an internal cleaning. Open it up to clean out dust. Disassemble the fan to clean out dust and fluff. I found a fair bit in two laptops I worked on recently. Remove the heat sink, remove the old thermal compound and apply new thermal compound before reinstalling the heat sink. Here's some information on what I did to an old XPS.

While you're in there, replace the CMOS battery. If it isn't dead, it soon will be. BIOS settings and date/time can't be saved without a functioning CMOS battery.

Whenever touching components or working inside a computer, wear a grounded wrist strap, also called anti-static wrist strap, ESD wrist strap, or ground bracelet. It's a cheap and sensible precaution. Rest the laptop on an anti-static mat or at least a reasonable alternative such as corrugated cardboard.

Yes, you may upgrade to 64 GB. Crucial is the most compatible with Dell laptops, and it's guaranteed so if it doesn't work you may return it. Here are Crucial RAM kits compatible with your 2023 laptop.

On that page you will also find compatible Crucial SSDs. Any major brand will be fine.

Whenever touching components or working inside a computer, wear a grounded wrist strap, also called anti-static wrist strap, ESD wrist strap, or ground bracelet. It's a cheap and sensible precaution. Rest the laptop on an anti-static mat or at least a reasonable alternative such as corrugated cardboard.

That is a 32 GB kit (two x 16 GB). What you want is a 64 GB kit (two x 32 GB).

If your system supports maximum 4800 MHz, that RAM will simply downclock (run more slowly) to 4800. It's common to buy faster RAM and have it downclock, if the faster RAM is more readily available or cheaper. Don't worry, it will not harm your system.

EDIT: @Quojo , I see that on Crucial's page for those kits, you can click to configure to 4800 MHz. The 64 GB 4800 MHz kit is cheaper than the 64 GB 5200 MHz kit.

Forget everything that I said. Once again Dell has reused a model number, causing confusion. So, I found the XPS 9530 that is ten years old, while you must be asking about the new one. If you had said in your first post that it was the 2023 model, I would have known.