1610ftw

Yes that is possibly true about the manual fan control and I guess that I could live with fans that are as well behaved as the ones in that I had in the 7760. Sorry to hear that you could not get the locking issue fixed. It inspires little confidence to see all of that happening with the workstation that potentially is the most powerful between the big three manufacturers.

It is a sorry state of things that the big three workstation laptop manufacturers Dell, HP and Lenovo seem to have no way to manually control their fans. At least Dell used to be decent when it comes too keeping fans quiet most of the time while not reducing power. HP seems to have an issue going back to the early Zbooks and to a lesser degree Lenovo, too.

Sorry to hear that you are missing the door - would that door be for the PCIe 5.0 slot? I am also surprised about the number of different bottom designs - do you not have the one in the picture you posted above but a third option?

I would like to have a look into the service manual for the Pro Max 18 Plus but it seems a part number is needed for that - does anybody have it? Shame that connectivity is effectively reduced by one port with all current TB5 eGPUs as they only allow up to 140W power delivery and therefore one of the USB-C ports has to be occupied by USB-C power delivery even in cases where only proper CPU performance is desired. Also I take it that there is still no fan control option for these so hopefully the Pro Max 18 Plus fans have enough hysteresis?

Plastic if done well is also my preferred material for the palm rest. 233W is substantial but I guess that they did not really do the math on that one when the dock delivers up to 300W yet the biggest power brick is limited to 280W. I am checking egpu.io every few weeks ad I would have thought that by now we would have numerous TB5 eGPU solutions but that doe not seem to be the case. In fact at least over here it is for now only the - very spartan - Razer box.

That sounds excellent regarding the palm rest! It makes me want to check it out, this always was something I did not like at all. The CPU at 30W in combined loads seems to be a very low though, aren't you CPU limited in most games with such a low power uptake? Ultimately the way this is designed it seems to be a good option for people who can make use of an external GPU so that all the power budget can go to the CPU when docked.

With W10 support and the performance you are getting it looks like a keeper. I am surprised that at 180W combined load with a 280W power supply it still drains the battery, Dell needs to look into that. Is the palm rest still rubbery?

200 to 215W combined seems pretty good given that you still deem system noise acceptable and that it can be sustained for some time. Best implementation for power limits this gen may come from Lenovo from what I have seen in a 9i review, looks like they have a couple of sliders to dial that in from within Windows which is pretty cool as it also allows to use less than the combined maximum power limit to go below the manufacturer defaults.

Interesting discussion, can somebody please update me on max CPU, GPU and CPU-GPU combined load for these? 175W to the GPU of course seems nice but not really that much of a benefit when total power for GPU and CPU combined is 200W which I recall was the number given by Dell for the Pro Max Plus 18? @win32asmguy I will be interested to hear about your impressions of the Pro Max 18" compared to the Clevo X580 when it comes to the output you can achieve at a a fan noise that is acceptable for you. Having been able to go from an essentially empty bios where you cannot do anything (Clevo) to one where you can adjust it all (Uniwill) must have been great and I assume that the Dell may be not as bad but still closer to the Clevo when it comes to adjustment options. I am still stunned how bad the Clevo bios is - it essentially gives no advanced adjustment options at all except for memory when oveclocking is enabled. That is not worth it however as it messes up the CPU performance that is worse with overclocking enabled than out of the box without it. @AL123 Congratulations on your 18", it seems like a logical choice this year unless more than 128GB memory is needed on a given budget - 256GB memory at CAMM 2 prices will really drive up the price! Same old story it seems with HP - impressive hardware hampered by crappy automated fan control and stupid decisions when it comes to sustained power levels. It is quite an achievement to reduce the max CPU power uptake to 85W with a vapor chamber and the 18" form factor but count on HP to get it done and at the same time annoy customers with stupid "AI" fan logic that cannot be bypassed.

Review at notebookcheck, looks pretty good: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Legion-9-18IAX10-review-Lenovo-s-first-18-inch-gaming-laptop-is-almost-a-home-run.1110106.0.html They are getting a few things wrong I think as I am pretty sure it has TB5 and there is also a version with a matte screen.

My eyes are not getting any younger so I would never settle for something smaller than the biggest available size 😉 But if you consider 16" then there are of course more choices as you can also include the regular Lenovo Thinkpads. Just check what you really need - if you could actually make use of more than 128GB then the selections gets a lot smaller but if 128GB is enough then there is a lot more to choose from as you can get away with two memory slots. As for the GPU I would go with Nvidia to be on the safe side - better to not run into unforeseen issues.

A workstation with 18" and with the option to upgrade to more than 128GB is rare. In order of pricing these are your candidates that I would look into when you may want more than 128GB and non-garish looks: Clevo X580 Lenovo Legion 9i Dell Pro Max 18" HP Zbook Fury G1i 18" I would consider the Clevo to possibly not being robust enough for the kind of work you want to do and as for the Lenovo I am not sure, you may want to research that. The Zbook seems to be built like a tank and very serviceable and it takes normal memory up to 256GB, as do the Clevo and Lenovo. The Dell only does so up to 128GB, above that you have to buy some hideously expensive memory from Dell themselves or third party offers that also are very expensive. I would think that build quality of the Dell is up there with the HP or maybe only a little bit behind and longevity should not be an issue with both. I prefer the cleaner surfaces of the HP and it seems to be available at reasonable prices when you do not need the maximum GPU option: https://www.lap4worx.de/hp-zbook-fury-g1i-18-zoll-98l71et https://www.lap4worx.de/hp-zbook-fury-g1i-18-zoll-98l73et In any case, you should spec them out with for example 192GB bought at the best possible price which for all but the Dell would be aftermarket and you can also minimize SSD size, only get the smallest possible one with your order and use your own to complement or replace what is in there, these have 4 SSD slots! Don't forget to check the warranty you need, that is probably not that easy to get at 60 months but 36 will be no problem at all for all the above choices. Oh and you can get a replacement GPU for the 7750 for very cheap: https://www.ebay.de/itm/205066228932 So you will be able to shop around a bit while you keep using it.

Unfortunately I strongly dislike colors that are not a neutral black / silver / grey base color and these are what - blueish / turquoise? And do they still have the rubber-finish on the palm rest? Also not a fan of the inverted mainboard design that makes maintenance a pita. Too bad Alienware has decided to go that way. With that being said I love that they don't give a shit and make these quite deep and heavy and also the cherry keyboard is great and of course the cooling.

Thanks, that third run looks rather pathetic! I imagine temperature differences would be a bit higher if it wasn't for thermal throttling but still not nearly as high as with mine. Clearly there is little to be gained from running the CPU at 145W. Probably closer to 120W are needed to avoid excessive thermal throttling.

The lower core temps seemed fine with one SSD and 4 memory sticks, but after your post I wanted to make sure and went down to two memory sticks in slot 2 and 3 - no change unfortunately. Only having three instead of four screws for the CPU part of the heatsink probably doesn't help. The heatsink is the same as the one in your pictures and here so that should be OK: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/schenker-key-18-pro-e25-3/5.html Waiting now to hear from the reseller. That Dell Pro Max 18 Plus (naming inspired by Apple?) looks nice and I would have considered it if they had regular memory - but then you probably would have avoided it so now I look forward to hear how you like yours. Did you order it with the 5090? Regarding gear2 and 4 I completely agree - it is a very unfortunate limitation and I would hope that somebody can come up with a way to make switching between the two options possible, at least when only using two memory sticks.