New 16-inch and 18-inch mobile workstations deliver new chips with higher TDP
HP has revealed more details about the HP ZBook Fury G1i, the latest generation of its high-end mobile workstation, now available in a new 18-inch form factor alongside the familiar 16-inch model.
According to HP, the ZBook Fury G1i delivers a significant performance boost over its predecessor, the ZBook Fury G11 — thanks not only to its choice of next-gen Intel Core Ultra 200HX Series 2 processor and Nvidia RTX Pro Blackwell GPU, but also due to its higher power envelope.
The 16-inch model now supports up to 170W Thermal Design Power (TDP), while the 18-inch pushes that even further to 200W, compared to just 145W in the G11. To manage this additional thermal load — and to maintain optimal acoustics — HP has introduced a new ‘hybrid turbo-bladed’ triple-fan cooling system.
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Naturally, power delivery also gets a boost: the 16-inch model peaks with a 280W PSU, and the 18-inch a 330W unit, both up from 230W in the G11.
The ‘Arrow Lake’ Intel Core Ultra 200HX Series 2 processor is considered ‘desktop class,’ and the top-end Core Ultra 9 285HX features 8 Performance cores, 16 Efficient cores, and a Max Turbo Frequency of 5.5 GHz on the P-cores.
Its integrated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) delivers 13 TOPS of INT8 AI acceleration — typical for Arrow Lake chips — but this falls short of the 40 TOPS NPU requirement for Microsoft’s Copilot+ AI PCs.
However, in high-end mobile workstations like this, the bulk of AI workloads are expected to be handled by the discrete GPU. The top-tier Nvidia RTX Pro 5000 Blackwell (24 GB GDDR7) is said to deliver up to 1,824 TOPS of FP4 performance — making it suitable for high-performance AI inference and training.
For years, major OEMs have played it safe with power, typically capping the TDP of top-end mobile workstations at around 145W. But with chipmakers increasingly leaning on power to flex more processing muscle, sticking to these conservative limits has meant a lot of potential performance has been left on the table.
The ZBook Fury G1i supports up to 256 GB of RAM—the highest ever in a ZBook—via four user-accessible DIMM slots, with tool free access enabling future upgrades.
For storage, the system offers up to 16 TB across four PCIe Gen4 NVMe M.2 SSDs. To maximise read/write performance, one of those slots also supports a high-speed PCIe Gen5 NVMe SSD, available in 1 TB or 2 TB capacities.
There are several display options on the 16-inch, going up to a 4K (3,840 x 2,400) HP DreamColor OLED – 120Hz, 500 nits and 100% DCI-P3. The 18-inch is limited to a WQXGA (2,560 x 1,600) LED with 500 nits and 100% DCI-P3, plus a ‘high frequency’ 165Hz refresh rate – a first for mobile workstations, says HP.
The HP Lumen RGB Z Keyboard takes a professional-focused approach with per-key LED backlighting that can highlight only the keys relevant to specific tasks such as editing, modelling, or design.
It comes preloaded with default lighting profiles for popular applications like Solidworks, AutoCAD, Illustrator, and Photoshop. Users can also customise and program their own colour-coded hotkey combinations to suit other software workflows.
The three-button touchpad is designed to aid 3D modelling, where the middle button can be used to control certain application functions such as moving or rotation.
Other features include an Integrated power and optional fingerprint button, a Thunderbolt 5 port with USB Type-C and a singling data rate up to 120Gb/s, and a 5MP IR camera with 88° wide field of view and support for Windows Hello.
The webcam sensor is ‘AI-enhanced’ enabling several smart features designed to boost privacy, security, and power efficiency. It can detect onlookers behind you – prompting you to activate HP SureView or blur your screen – automatically dim the display when you’re not paying attention, and lock or wake the device as you walk away or return. Meanwhile, for a better conference call experience, AI-Based Noise Reduction filters both inbound and outbound background noise – like dogs barking, paper rustling, and sirens
The 16-inch HP ZBook Fury G1i measures 359 × 249 × 27 mm and starts at 2.43 kg, while the larger 18-inch model comes in at 403 × 289 × 27 mm with a starting weight of 3.52 kg.
What AEC Magazine thinks
For years, major OEMs have played it safe with power, typically capping the TDP of top-end mobile workstations at around 145W. But with chipmakers increasingly leaning on power to flex more processing muscle, sticking to these conservative limits has meant a lot of potential performance has been left on the table.
HP is now bucking this trend with the ZBook Fury G1i. Both the 16-inch and 18-inch models break new ground, with the latter pushing the TDP to 200W — clearly taking advantage of its larger chassis. HP claims this delivers a 30% performance boost.
While that’s a significant leap forward, it may still fall short of what you might get from a gaming-inspired system. In the past MSI has packed workstation-grade components into laptops with combined CPU/GPU power pushed as high as 270W.
Still, one must not forget that the ZBook Fury G1i is a true enterprise-class machine, where performance must be carefully balanced with thermals, acoustics, reliability, and portability. HP’s new triple-fan cooling system will be key to maintaining that equilibrium — and one to watch closely.
