AL123

I have one of the docks too so will give it a go when I am in the office on both power supply and dock see if there is any performance difference / power draw from the battery I figured the 300W figure was more about future proofing but will be interesting to see. The 330w power brick for this dock is a large rounded rectangle a bit bigger than the dock itself! But has some slots on the base so you could mount it under a desk to some screws. Also screw holes on the bottom of the dock I guess to stop them going walkies from hot desks. Big change for me is the power cable can now go left or right depending on where you want to place your laptop. Feels strange having so much power over USB-C but not noticed any issues with heat etc, plus the 280W laptop power supply is barely bigger than the GaN ones with the 7780. I did notice a dynamic PL1 figure which starts at the same 98W as the fixed figure but forgot to check what that went to under heavy GPU load, my assumption would be the CPU power limit would be reduced perhaps to 50W or less. Just happens that our workloads tend to be either CPU or GPU heavy nothing we do currently loads all cores on the CPU + GPU so it would be a synthetic worst case test really.

In Europe atleast everyone’s on holiday! Worst time to launch a new product. I had about half a day to test a Pro Max 16 and 18,last Firday with view to replacing a bunch of 7760s including my own! on leave myself now but so far pretty promising particularly on the Pro Max 18, surprisingly similar size to the old 7780 and even not that much heavier for a big upgrade in screen size. It’s still portable enough for me. Pro Max 18 has got and ultra 9 and PL1 98 watts PL2 160W IIRC. Heavy multithreaded load it averaged around the 100w mark. Seems a bit conservative but performance in real world was very good similar to the desktops we have with Ultra 9 285K running at up to 250Watts for heavy multithreaded tasks (80-100% load over a 30 min simulation) for graphics if has the RTX 4000 Blackwell and under heavy GPU compute load I was seeing 150-170W settling to around the 150 mark longer term, perhaps the intel max limits are more about the chips thermals/ optimum power window. Didn’t get to combined CPU/ GPU load yet. took the base off and the new layout is very impressive packaging, the 3 fan layout is interesting with 2 dedicated to normal cooling and the third being slightly lower and separated from the others, counter intuitively the grill above this third fan is blocked off. I believe this is designed to draw air from the intakes at the bottom of the chassis instead, pulling cool air over the ram/ ssds etc. oh and I didn’t realise one of the ssds was on the other side of the battery now rather than stacked with the other 3, wonder if this will be better or worse than the stacked slot. CAMM module also has its own thermal spreader/ heat sink, CSO-DIMM with interposer does not ( got one of each memory type) didn’t test the Pro Max 16 as much but certainly was louder under heavy load which means I’m leaning toward the pro max 18 for my own new laptop

I’ve been shown this In dell presentations was sure I’ve seen it in articles elsewhere but can only find HP claims. Spec sheet links are broken currently also. looking forward to seeing the reality and also how loud they are under heavy load!

I guess the new stacked cooling design complicates things also, easier to only offer the RTX Pro cards even if the physical design is the same, I suspect they would be cautious of adding a card with different vbios, drivers, support etc

Yeh our account manager said no GeForce this time but could be wrong, makes sense as the line up looks pretty similar in terms of specs for RTX PRO mobile and GeForce mobile at the high end but still could be proved wrong! &nbsp leas gap in price between consumer and pro cards now also

Worth looking at some RTX 5080 vs 5090 mobile reviews I think most have said the 5090 wasn’t worth the extra money so you might be better off with the RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell 16GB which I think is equivalent to the 5080 mobile. From what I have heard there won’t be any GeForce options on Pro Max Laptops, weirdly they added them to Pro Max Desktops though. For me it would be clearer if gaming cards were only in consumer/Alienware systems but I guess more choice isn’t bad so long as you know what you are choosing!

Interesting that the rated TDP is the same- 16 inch 170W and 18 inch 200W but the HP Zbook Fury 18 has a 330W charger vs 280W on the Pro Max 18. Both 16 inch models seem to have the same 280W power supply i suppose if your workload hammered The CPU, GPU, multiple SSD’S 280W might be a bottleneck but would be prettt niche. cooling system is also more similar to what I’ve seen in other 3 fan laptops with a much smaller third fan at the bottom I presume to cool RAM/SSD/ skin of laptop the Dell innovative cooling design/ packaging does look to have allowed the 18 inch model to be considerably smaller/ lighter than the Zbook Fury 18 G1i Looking forward to testing out the Dells to see how they perform

Odd the option for the bottom cover doesn’t seem to be on the USA configurator but is on the UK under “Chassis Options” https://www.dell.com/en-uk/shop/laptops-2-in-1-pcs/dell-pro-max-18-plus-laptop/spd/dell-pro-max-mb18250-laptop/xcto_mb18250_emea?redirectTo=SOC Before I noticed that the quotes I had just said “bottom door” as the chassis option which could easily be misinterpreted as having this quick access feature when in fact it did not. An extra £12 for it does increase max height slightly but only reason I can think not to have it is maybe some people don’t want easy access to drives for security. but still if you have physical access to the device the security is not great!

Seems they haven’t updated the configurator this is the supported dock for the Pro Max Plus laptops https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-pro-thunderbolt-5-smart-dock-sd25tb5/apd/210-brqs/docks it can do 300W power delivery over a single USB C so a little bit of future proofing. Significantly higher cost of course though. what we really need is an adaptor to dual usb-c for our existing precision 7000 series laptops. The current WD19 DCS we have will only do 230W so not enough for the new Pro Max Plus and this new docking station will only do 130W over a single usb-c to the old precision models as that is their max We aren’t going to upgrade everyone’s laptop over night so this is going to make hot-desking tricky for us, where as for years even if you forgot your power supply you were fine. see also

I agree options to make laptops more usable without a mouse are sorely missed. Although I most miss the physical left, middle and right buttons for working on CAD it’s almost essential so without a mouse I find laptops unusable now as far as naming Latitude = Dell Pro (can be Pro, Pro Plus or Pro Premium) XPS= Dell Premium Precision = Dell Pro Max (old 3000 series) Dell Pro Max Premium (old 5000 series) and Dell Pro Max Plus (old 7000 series) inspiron = Dell, Dell Plus no idea what happened to Vostro I guess that is just forgotten

The videos and photos of the new Dell Pro Max laptops in the press release are the equivalent of the old 3490 and 3590/3591 entry level laptop workstations Linus tech tips commented the new Dell Pro Max 14 was one of the best keyboards he has used in years so I guess your eyes are not deceiving you it is a conscious decision from dell! About 8 mins into the below video (can’t link to specific time on my mobile) hopefully we will see similar on the new Pro Max Plus ( replacements for the 7680 and 7780)

Nice overview of Arrow Lake Mobile here still reserving judgement until we see reviews but it seems like the efficiency improvements will make a big difference in the new workstation laptops

I can’t remember about announcements in previous years but it’s usually summer before we see the high end workstations become available so maybe those leaks of the Pro Max 16 & 18 Plus were just really early. Hoping now Hp have announced their 18 inch workstation laptop we will hear more from dell

Linus tech tips did a good job of explaining the brand changes and somehow go hold of a Pro Max 14 (replaces precision 3490) and Pro Max 16 Premium (replaces Precision 5690) although that one wasn’t finalised specifically wise the lack of being able to tell which generation is which without referring to an obscure model number is an big downside for me. atleast with apple it’s M1, M2, M3,M4 etc

Yeh it’s not just us many of the articles I believe are wrong having presumably watched the briefing! For workstations atleast you know it has to have Max in the name. the Premium does seem to be about materials but yeh I thought it was the slim laptops too! interesting HP beat Dell in confirming they are launching an 18,inch laptop with 3 fans and 200W TDP sound Familiar? Maybe some of the many Dell staff affected by layoffs got hired by HP Theirs says spring but often they seem to launch things but you can’t actually buy them. https://www.hp.com/us-en/newsroom/press-releases/2025/future-of-work.html

These new Pro models are not equivalent of XPS, they are what was Latitude for business use. Anything with Pro in the name is the Latitude business/office range. The Replacement for the XPS will be known as Dell Premium but aren’t due until summer until then the current XPS will be sold

We have started to see them at the lower end for HP atleast, I think it a mix of AMD having less established solutions for enterprises including. Features like V-Pro management, ECC support, plus i always have suspicions Intel try whatever they can to ensure these big brands stick with them. with AMD winning in data centres a lot more enterprise customers are becoming comfortable with AMD so I have hope. However I appreciate its significant Extra work from development to support like drivers to add a second CPU vendor.

Unlikely due to complexity and space constraints inside the laptop but it would be a nice design if the “bulge” only lifted the laptop at the rear when in use and when turned off tucked back into the laptop chassis! I agree it looks large from those pictures but will have to wait for more angles to be sure how much of an issue it is. less USB ports is also a shame but atleast it sound like only one port will be used by the docking station vs 2 by the current WD19 DCS docking station.

Ah good spot would be disappointing if it isn’t better than the Alienware M18 layout. Hope they are going away from the old 7000 series layout where the heat was concentrated at the top left. Even if it was performing fine users would complain about that/ get worried the system was overheating

All very interesting based on previous releases I’m doubting we will actually by able to buy these before mid year but who knows with a leak this early. It would fit with the prediction for high end next gen mobile graphics cards from NVIDIA also. Also very curious about the 3 fan layout, I’ve only really seen it on Alienware systems where IIRC the third fan was significantly smaller. I’m hoping for more innovation here from the ex Precision R&D team

Single thread performance regressed for first gen ultra H series CPUs vs 13th gen core CPUs if you can I would wait, expect to see things announced at CES in January and available not that long after if history is a guide.

Dell went to 165W over a single USB C for the 5680 and 5690 which sorted that issue, and for everything else they have done 130W over USB-C for many years well before the new USB 4 /PD3.1 standard than allows 240W. Nothing to say Dell won’t push it beyond 240W over a single USB-C connector 😉

Intel have only announced 14th generation HX CPUs which lack professional features such as VPro Enterprise and support for ECC memory. Read into that what you will…. https://www.anandtech.com/show/21213/intel-unveils-14th-gen-core-hx-series-processors-raptor-lake-mobile-refresh-with-thunderbolt-5#

Unfortunately not I have a 5680 with RTX 3500 I believe the vapour chamber is reserved for the RTX 5000 only. Performance for a GPU compute task using NVIDIA iRay was about 10% less than in the Precision 7680 with the same card so not too bad for the smaller chassis. No difference for me with the WD19DCS

Good find! if we went with the manual sizes it would be pretty much the same as the 7680 sim model albeit a bit lighter. I also note they don’t quote the weight with the 99.x whr battery only the smaller one which isn’t available at launch. I suspect the 5680 will be more like 2kg with the larger battery still an appreciable amount lighter than the 7680 which would be a bigger thing for us, the 7680 is already pretty compact but quite hefty.