HP ZBook Fury 16 G9 workstation review: Dell Precision 7670 and ThinkPad P16 G1 alternative

[Redaktion]

The ZBook Fury 16 G9 is the first 16-inch mobile workstation in the Fury series. Though it comes equipped with plenty of features and even per-key RGB lighting, overall performance misses the mark by just a hair.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-ZBook-Fury-16-G9-workstation-review-Dell-Precision-7670-and-ThinkPad-P16-G1-alternative.723972.0.html

[LL]

A performance disappointment for the cost. We have here the main mistake of companies that think an workstation is a fashion statement or are only to be employed for CAD modelling and not for other 3D work. It is clear from the lack of cooling vents similar to gaming laptops this have insufficient cooling for high performance.

[Austin]

No 17.3inch model. Dell 7780 is now last remaining to offer bigger screen.

[NikoB]

A performance disappointment for the cost. We have here the main mistake of companies that think an workstation is a fashion statement or are only to be employed for CAD modelling and not for other 3D work. It is clear from the lack of cooling vents similar to gaming laptops this have insufficient cooling for high performance.

This series needs an urgent upgrade to Ryzen 9 7945HX, which consumes 2 times less and works exactly 2 times faster. With 4(four) usb40 ports (2x2 matrix). Panel screen is obsolete 4k version, slow response and frequency, bad color cover with AbobeRGB.

Of the "pro" options, there are only 4 M.2, which allows, like in MSI Titan 2022 (2023 already has only 3 slots and this destroys everything) to create a reliable RAID10 on 4 SSDs.

4 memory slots seems to give access to 128GB of RAM, but in light of the release of Zen4 Phoenix - which is faster than i9 and much cooler with support for 256GB on 2 slots, this already looks just pathetic in 2023.

The video card is morally obsolete a long time ago, as it does not support 8k monitors in lossless mode (there is no support for DP2.0+) like the latest AMD chips for professional series.

Such series are designed to rot in the warehouses of the manufacturer and rare sellers until they are sold at a significant discount or with a kickback to a purchasing manager in some company or just some companies that do not care about the price.

From the moment they were released into the series, they are no longer worth their money, if you evaluate them at the price that is stated here.

[Espio74]

I dong understand how this laptop has a higher score than the Zenbook 14 Pro when it's double the price and is worse in almost every category.

[Neenyah]

I dong understand how this laptop has a higher score than the Zenbook 14 Pro when it's double the price and is worse in almost every category.

While NBC's reviews are almost always pretty damn awesome, with scores it's the opposite and they seem to be random so it's best to disregard them. I mean check this acer for example - notebookcheck.net/Acer-Aspire-5-Spin-14-review-The-2-in-1-laptop-with-an-active-stylus.725375.0.html - with its absolutely hideous dogsh*t screen (57% sRGB, glossy, 235 nits on AC and 176 (center) on battery) yet that same screen gets pretty decent 75% instead of realistically 45% max. I mean quite literally Acer's 11.6" NETBOOKS from 2011-2012 were equipped with better screens than this one linked here.

The best thing to do is to read reviews, get your own conclusion according to your own expectations and just disregard scores altogether.

[graoIn]

I own the previous version Fury 17 G8. It manages to sustain a combined CPU+GPU TDP of 125W (45/80W), at low ambient temperatures (20C) that Notebookcheck does it's testing. But would start throttling above say 27C. Setting the Windows performance profile to 'Balanced' instead of 'High Performance' would limit combined TDP to 110W (30/80W) but then it's able to sustain it even at 32C ambient (perhaps upto 35C).
Looks the G9 would be able sustain 140W even at high ambient temperatures. This is a good improvement over G8. However, the new design where all the SSD and RAM slots packed closedly on one side of the motherboard looks a bit suspect from a thermal/throttling standpoint (when fully populated).

[Davvvvvvid]

I own the previous version Fury 17 G8. It manages to sustain a combined CPU+GPU TDP of 125W (45/80W), at low ambient temperatures (20C) that Notebookcheck does it's testing. But would start throttling above say 27C. Setting the Windows performance profile to 'Balanced' instead of 'High Performance' would limit combined TDP to 110W (30/80W) but then it's able to sustain it even at 32C ambient (perhaps upto 35C).
Looks the G9 would be able sustain 140W even at high ambient temperatures. This is a good improvement over G8. However, the new design where all the SSD and RAM slots packed closedly on one side of the motherboard looks a bit suspect from a thermal/throttling standpoint (when fully populated).

True. Imagine the heat when all 4 SSDs are installed. The active SSD transfers its heat directly to the one below or above it. When two stacked SSDs are stressed at the same time, there is nowhere for the heat to go but to cause thermal damage to those SSDs. It looks nice to put them together, but workstations are not for fashion shows...

[Neenyah]

I had a chance to "work" on this exact laptop yesterday, for about 15 minutes (work = surfing the web). Typed a hell lot of text on monkeytype.com to test the keyboard and... it's meh. It's not bad but it feels fairly cheap like those Apple's butterfly keyboards with deeper key travel and it sounds like hitting two thin plastic plates together with some weird "echo" after releasing each key (the sound is identical for each key so no chance that every single one is broken, lmao). Everything else seems pretty solid.