1610ftw

That is a good situation to be in 🙂

If you are looking at 16" it is hard - if pressed I would probably right now go with the thick 7670 as there is a solution for fan noise from what I hear but only if I needed at most 32 or 64GB memory as I find the memory prices from Dell extortionist. HP will probably do nothing to address the fan issues - they have been lacking in that regard for years which is truly puzzling. It would be no problem to allow for manual adjustments with built in fail safes for people who overdo it.

With regard to hardware and performance the CreatorPro X17 / GT77 are overall the best DTRs of this generation, postiives: very high maximum CPU performance and still relatively high sustained performance best in class GPU performance very nice keyboard keys fans are generally very quiet and can be configured to one's taste extensive bios options regular memory that can be upgraded properly, up to 128GB 4 x NVME SSD slots, up to 32 TB relatively good battery life of 6+ hours relatively light weight at a bit more than 7 lbs Downsides: CPU and GPU are soldered (could be a concern when warranty has expired but you can get 4 years over here) Screens are UHD only the Case is very deep funny keyboard layout speakers have good volume but little bass for an overall underwhelming experience I will not comment on looks as they are not that bad imo, just not great. I doubt it is different versions as much as it is a generally less demanding review. Look at the CB R23 multicore result - very bad numbers for this model and for an 8+8 core HX processor in general but he does not even mention it as an issue, same for the GPU scores. He is not critical of that part of the performance so he may also be forgiving with regard to fan noise. In any case even if it now was more quiet the last generations that I have tested all had the annoying tendency to ramp fans up and down a lot - very annoying and nothing that can be circumvented as HP uses their own AI/ machine learning for the fans - one cannot make these things up they are so silly. With regard to Linux support I could not comment on that but if that is an issue it would indeed be a big downside.

Back in the days workstations used to have an optical drive and at least one and often 2 2.5" drives. Those drives took up space that would have been sufficient for 5 to 8 M2 SSDs and Lenovo dares o give us 2 - in a workstation this is laughable. Both @win32asmguyand @DarginMahkumwould obviously like to differ. With regard to fan noise HP have gone out of their way to shoot themselves in the foot with their lack of configurability and overzealous power limits for some time now - shame. This generation I would only go with an MSI - too many compromises with the others even though MSI do also have their issues..

OK, understood, looking forward to hear your thoughts! The problem will be that it is almost only an interesting solution for people who had an SLI laptop and who want more than one added NVME SSD as there is already a single NVME version out there. I always thought it was a bad use of board space to have only one NVME drive on a big MXM module!

I did a search and indeed mostly found links to Taobao or other Chinese sites. That is an interesting MXM to NVME card you have posted, do you have a source and price for it? And does it automatically configure the two NVME SSDs on there as a hardware RAID?

As Dell has been relatively quiet through all of that it is possible that the performance issues do indeed fail to make waves where it counts - does not bode well for the next generation either.

So the plan is to update our XMG Zenith variant of the P870TM-G with a better CPU and I am looking at the 9900 variants and the 10980HK. 9900K still seem to be hard to find at a good price so I have narrowed down the search to the 9900KF or the QTJ1 10980HK. @ViktorV are you aware of a good source for that QTJ1 10980HK chip?

I ran into this some time ago and had to switch from 6 cores to 8 cores - soldered CPU means buying a new laptop instead of getting a new CPU - no thanks to all the manufacturers of BGA books 😞

That is the reason why I was very sceptical of the value proposition of this generation - CAMM memory may catch on but until it does it can only be bought at Dell at their usual inflated prices for memory and storage. Try getting 128GB of normal memory for any other workstation from HP, Lenovo or MSI and then 128GB from Dell - big difference. You can get good aftermarket prices on regular modules that can be used for other manufacturers and therefore you can buy their workstations with minimum memory form the factory and save a lot. And when you sell the workstation you can sell off 2 or 4 of the modules you bought separately on the used market before selling your workstation as most people will be more than happy with less memory. Not so with Dell where you have to get one single module that is oversized for just about everybody else and that is very inflexible both when one is buying or selling as long as it is only available from them - bad deal until CAMM catches on.

How about having only one motherboard and then attach everything and be done? Doesn't get any simpler than that and users could do it themselves. We used to have this but not any more. As for the vapor chamber I completely agree that they should have it and I will go one further and suggest that the user can select the cooling solution he prefers for lower tier product in order to get maximum cooling. And excessive soldering is really horrible and producing needless e-waste, it also leads to hideously overpriced spare parts like a 2000$ vs a 500$ motherboard.

I think it has been posted here before. The funny thing is that they sent him two and both performed miserably. I think that the MSI laptops he had were about 50% faster and he probably hoped for similar performance but with an all around more businesslike approach from Dell - can't have it all as it turns out.

Obviously a workstation can be different things for different people, it is not all about max performance. Also we have to put the performance aspect into perspective. Out of the box benchmarks do seem to look horrible but with some tweaks performance can increase substantially as has been demonstrated by you and others in this thread. At that level many people will be reasonably happy even if it is not all that it could be. Here is an example of an eGPU solution that you can connect to the bottom SSD-slot, seems to work well up to the RTX 4090 that apparently reaches over 30000 in TimeSpy in such a configuration:

There are other things one may want the Precision line for: up to 4 SSD slots up to 128 GB of memory lots of i/o and this is exotic but it may be important: easy to access SSD door for potentially adding an eGPU

Under normal circumstances I would agree but if they want to accommodate the upcoming new hardware they will have to do something about that cooling solution and total system power. I do not think that replacing the current heatsink design with a vapor chamber and allowing for higher power to CPU and GPU is out of the question even when coming from the current chassis!

I hope you get this sorted out. With no help from HP and a limited enthusiast community it won't be easy but if you only need 16" this has so much potential that it would be a shame not to realize it.

They are massive - you could probably fit a 21.5" screen in there:

Nope, that wasn't active but the GPU seems pretty hot at ca. 60°C. Mine has the Nvidia - I think it is the 8800. Time to repaste first but then I have always been annoyed by HP modulating the fans much too aggressively even though I am a fan of their DTR build quality and serviceability and of course of this one.

I do not think it has ever been different for the 7 series. Before I am not even sure there were any mobile GPUs that would have needed that much power 🙂 I agree that a mobile workstation should always be the most powerful in every generation and when it isn't then something is wrong. Unfortunately something has been wrong for the big workstation manufacturers for a very long time. It is rather embarrassing. The best example is the little MSI GE67HX that probably can be had for around 2000 with the 12800HX, the 3070Ti and a 240Hz OLED! Out of the box it will wipe the floor with every Precision in both GPU and CPU performance. It is small and it does not even have a vapor chamber but it has a big 330W power brick because it needs it 🙂 I do not think that they kept performance down because of that but because they never really thought it was needed that much. I am pretty sure that after this years' fiasco they will do better next year. And that is a pretty cool use case you have for GPUs, Dell will hopefully take notice.

I think that it is a bit unfair to criticize these specific Dell workstations for limited power on the GPU - it has always been that way and relatively speaking they probably kept about the same relation between their TGP and what Nvidia allows between this and the last generation. Now sustained power to the CPU seems to have even regressed a little in a time when CPUs need more power and not less and that should definitely be addressed especially when considering that on the CPU side their classic workstation competition is doing better. As for the power brick I am sure you could get a bigger one that is also used for the last 17" Alienware and it is not even that costly - keep the 330W version at home / in the office and use the smaller one for travel. Might be futile though when Dell has adjusted the power limits accordingly without a way to increase them. The last two workstations that I could think of with maximum power and bios capabilities were both from MSI - it is ironic that only MSI seems to be able to turn one of their gaming chassis into a workstation but that is probably because they do not feel the need to offer socketed GPUs these days. Dell, Lenovo and HP still do and that requires a different design for workstations and ironically in all cases subpar GPU performance when it used to be the other way round in gaming laptops with a socketed GPU.

Not sure in which world you live in but in my world there is currently not one decent (let alone great) 17"+ DTR whereas before we used to at least have a handful of them. On the other hand there are hundreds and hundreds of BGA books and some of them even pretend to be part time tablets.

I have no experience with them but they are thin and light and overpriced so an automatic pass for me.

At the moment there is only a hint to a Razer 18: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Next-gen-Razer-Blade-18-specs-leak-out-along-with-impressive-Geekbench-scores-for-Intel-s-i9-13900HX-mobile-CPU.667619.0.html Pretty sure there will be others and first models may be released in February. As next generation CPUs will be a lot more efficient for both AMD and Intel you will probably be able to get the same performance as this year with significantly less fan noise. Apparently it does not get very loud and has a lot less output than the X170 but subjectively sounds pretty good at its reduced volume. Please note that it does not have a webcam in case that is important for you.

The HP will always reach 98 to 100 with that kind of power limit and everything else stock as the fans do not run at max speed all the time when benching. Not good for top scores but may not be an issue otherwise. I would also guess that at 115/150 and 115/115 your scores would get even higher, both single and multiple runs. Also I think that @MyPC8MyBrainmentioned that somebody got a much higher ca 26K score on the 16 G9 so you may want to look for that score and check how he did it. I agree that If you are not sure if you want to keep it better to not use PTM7950. Personally I also did not like that I could not do any undervolting and adjust fans to my liking but I think that is the same with Lenovo.

If you want good speakers that may be difficult. I am not aware of any particular windows laptops of the last generation that have good sound to be honest but I can tell you that the MSI GT77 is seriously lacking bass so I cannot recommend it for the sound (but many other things). As Viktor has pointed out there are interesting TongFang and Clevo models but not sure about their sound quality. As you seem to be looking for something in the longer run you may wait until next year - as you will be in bed with your laptop the upcoming 18" models may be nice because of the 15% bigger screen size and they will probably be weighing a bit less than the X170 and you will be able to combine them with a relatively lightweight power supply when on the go.