I had a lot of luck adding thermal pads on a bunch of components on my xps-15. But the fact that I can alleviate the issues makes me wonder why they're not doing that at the factory.
I have a 9560, and would not have bought it if I was aware of the thermal issues. I'm very angry that this is even legal - Dell (and the other OEMs, including Apple) should be required to put big red signs everywhere if their customers cannot fully use the computer without buying it.
By default, just stressing the CPU makes it downclock to the minimum of 800 MHz and the computer becomes unusable. Undervolting the CPU in Linux took an hour, now I can run it at max and the temp goes to 70/75 degrees with no performance issues. But using both the CPU and Nvidia GPU kills everything, since the GPU heat also spreads to the CPU. On Windows you can underclock the GPU but it doesn't make a big difference. Playing Overwatch at minimum settings and 1080p should work well on the GTX 1050, but I have to resort to hacks like limiting the CPU to 70% speed and putting a 70 FPS limit in Overwatch to keep the GPU from burning itself. And even then it stays at 90-95 degrees and sometimes crashes. Training neural networks was a bit more doable but still not fun.
I have no idea how they put a 6-core i7 in the 9570 without it melting down. And this new 5GHz one seems similarly ridiculous.
TL;DR just buy a gaming laptop - they're cheaper for the same specs and generally have a sturdy build. You might not get 10-12 hours battery and will need to carry around a charger, but the thermal issues are not worth it. Plus you get an Ethernet port included usually, and more USB ports.
https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/thinkpad-p/Thi...
One thing that I've found is very important is to clean out the fans often, otherwise dust builds up and prevents cooling. Just unscrew the plate on the underside of the laptop and blow / brush / pick out the dust that's built up (both the fan intake and the fan outlet). Doing this every few months has been a game changer for my 9550.
Of course, the OLED is pretty great. I hope more laptops use it soon. Sad I'll end up waiting about six years before replacing, if I can get away with it.
Also, Dell had better fix their bios bugs. The bios has issues, they reduced the tjmax for the nvidia gpu a few updates back, there are sleep bugs, processor state bugs, audio bugs, and many others. If Dell wants to pitch a premium machine, they'd better ship a premium firmware with it.