Here's the discussion on that Dell issue. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7205759 "Simply said, the sound card outputs at max 10W, and the speakers only can take 6W in, and neither their BIOS or drivers block this."
That's actually good design - the intention being that any clipping can only be due to software (which you can fix), not underpowered amplification hardware (which you can't).