HP ZBook 16" Fury 16 G1i Review

The HP ZBook Fury 16 G10 is a monster of a mobile workstation that's built for one thing: raw, unrelenting CPU power. With its Intel Core Ultra 9 285HX landing in the 97th percentile, this thing chews through code compiles and complex simulations like they're nothing. But here's the one thing you need to know: it's a one-trick pony. That incredible CPU is paired with a surprisingly weak GPU, and the whole package is built into a chunky, heavy chassis.

The CPU performance is genuinely shocking. A 24-core Intel chip in a laptop is no joke, and it shows. You'll fly through developer workloads. The real surprise, though, is how badly the GPU holds it back. The NVIDIA RTX Pro 3000 scores in just the 18th percentile. That means while your CPU is screaming, the GPU is barely keeping up, which is a major bottleneck for any serious 3D rendering or GPU-accelerated tasks. It's a weird, unbalanced setup.

Honestly, it's hard to recommend. The price is steep, floating between $5,102 and $5,278 depending on the vendor, and you're paying a premium for a wildly unbalanced machine. You get a world-class CPU shackled to a mediocre GPU. For this kind of money, you should get a complete package, not a specialist with a glaring flaw.

For a developer who needs max CPU power and doesn't care about GPU, the Apple MacBook Pro with an M4 Max is a more polished, efficient, and reliable alternative, though you lose some ports. If you need serious GPU grunt alongside a strong CPU, the MSI Vector 16 HX or Gigabyte AORUS MASTER 16 are gaming laptops that will run circles around this ZBook in graphics performance for similar money, though they might lack the workstation certification. The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i is another strong contender that typically offers a better balance.

Only buy this if your workload is 100% CPU-bound and you're glued to the HP/Windows ecosystem. For literally anyone else—creators, engineers doing visualization, or developers who also game—there are better, more balanced options out there. This ZBook feels like it missed the memo that a workstation needs both a strong CPU and a competent GPU.