Hey folks,

I'm a cybersecurity analyst with a few years of experience and I'm looking to pick up a Dell XPS 15 primarily for occasional digital forensics work (disk imaging, memory analysis, VMs), as I want to transition more and more into the forensic analysis/incident response field. It won't be my daily machine more of a dedicated forensic/analysis tool and a laptop where I can train. My personal machine is a MacBook Pro 16" with an M2 Pro.

I found two solid deals:

Dell XPS 15 9510 – i7-11800H, 16/32GB DDR4, 1TB SSD, RTX 3050 Ti — $650 Dell XPS 15 9520 – i7-12800H, 16/32GB DDR5, 1TB SSD, RTX 3050 Ti — $900 Most of the deals for the 9510 are around $650–700, and the 9520 around $900–1000.

Do you think the 9520 in general is worth $300 more, or is the 9510 the better value for my use case?

Would love to hear your thoughts, especially from anyone who’s used either model — particularly in forensic work or running VMs.