In addition to the abovementioned Ryzen 9 Pro 8945HS processor (8 cores, 5.2GHz boost) and Nvidia RTX 3000 Ada Generation graphics card (8GB of dedicated memory, 50W maximum graphics power), our ZBook Power review model includes 64GB of RAM, a hefty 4TB solid-state drive, and Windows 11 Pro. A second M.2 slot is available for further storage expansion.
Prices fluctuated during our review period; at one point, I saw our model listed at $6,818 on HP’s site before being discounted to a more reasonable $2,629. Better value can be realized in a Ryzen 7 configuration with an RTX 2000 GPU, 32GB of RAM, and a 1TB SSD, which was priced under $2,000. With competitors like the ZBook Fury 16 G11 and Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen 2 often exceeding $3,000, and the 16-inch MacBook Pro starting at $2,499, the ZBook Power stands out as a value choice.
The laptops we’re using for performance comparison include the MacBook Pro 16-inch ($3,649 as tested), the HP ZBook Fury 16 G11 ($3,564 as tested), the HP ZBook Studio 16 G11 ($7,283 as tested), and the Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen 2 ($4,019 as tested). All but the Studio are full-power mobile workstations that will outperform the ZBook Power, though they are considerably more expensive. We’ll try to keep things relative.
Productivity and Content Creation Tests
We run the same general productivity benchmarks across both mobile and desktop systems. Our first test is UL’s PCMark 10, which simulates a variety of real-world productivity and office workflows to measure overall system performance and also includes a storage subtest for the primary drive.
The next few such benchmarks stress the CPU, using all available cores and threads to rate a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench 2024 uses the company’s Redshift engine to render a complex image using the CPU or GPU. We run the multi-core CPU benchmark that works across all of a processor’s cores and threads—the more powerful the chip, the higher the score—and its single-core variant.
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Geekbench 6.3 Pro from Primate Labs simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning. We record its multi- and single-core scores; higher numbers are better. Our last CPU stress test is the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.8, which converts a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p resolution; lower times are better.
Next, we run a cross-platform content creation benchmark: Adobe Photoshop 2024 using the 1.2.20 version of PugetBench for Creators by Puget Systems. This test rates a PC’s performance for content creation and multimedia applications. It’s an automated extension that executes a variety of general and GPU-accelerated Photoshop tasks ranging from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving an image to applying masks, gradient fills, and filters.
The ZBook Power produced strong PCMark numbers, surpassing the ZBook Studio and coming close to the others. While its Ryzen HS processor lagged in Cinebench—falling up to 50% behind the ZBook Fury and ThinkPad and trailing the MacBook Pro by nearly double—it performed better in Geekbench and excelled in Photoshop. For tasks other than intensive rendering, the ZBook Power should hold its own.
Gaming and Graphics Tests
We test the graphics inside all laptops and desktops with three cross-platform gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark, Steel Nomad and its Light variant, Wild Life and its Extreme variant, and Solar Bay.
The Steel Nomad tests use the DirectX 12, Vulkan, or Metal graphics APIs, depending on the processor in play. Both are non-ray-traced benchmarks. Steel Nomad is built for high-end gaming systems and runs at 4K resolution, while the Light version runs at 1440p with less detail.
Wild Life and Wild Life Extreme are less demanding than Steel Nomad, though the two also run at 1440p and 4K resolution, respectively. This test aims to compare midrange Windows and macOS systems, tablets, and smartphones.
We turn to Solar Bay to measure ray tracing performance in a synthetic environment. This benchmark works with Vulkan 1.1 for Windows and Android and Metal for Apple devices, subjecting 3D scenes to increasingly intense ray-traced workloads at 1440p.
The ZBook Power’s RTX 3000 Ada GPU is capped at a maximum graphics power of 50W, significantly limiting its performance compared to the ZBook Fury’s RTX 3500 Ada and even more so against the ThinkPad’s RTX 4000 Ada. Meanwhile, the ZBook Studio, restricted to 70W, delivered mixed results—occasionally outperforming the Power, but at times falling short.
Workstation Tests
Our main measure of workstation performance is SPECviewperf 2020 (version 3.1), which renders, rotates, and zooms in and out of solid and wireframe models at 1080p resolution. The three subtests represent PTC’s Creo CAD platform, Autodesk’s Maya modeling and simulation software for film, TV, and games, and Dassault Systemes’ SolidWorks 3D rendering package.
Next up is Blender, an open-source 3D content creation suite for modeling, animation, simulation, and compositing. We record the time it takes for Blender 4.2 to render three distinct scenes to measure CPU and GPU rendering performance.
Finally, we also use PugetBench for Creators to test DaVinci Resolve Studio 18’s video editing performance on systems suitable for that challenging app. As with our Adobe Premiere test, these automated tasks and features push the CPU and GPU, letting us gauge real-world media creation speeds.
Although the ZBook Power’s RTX 3000 Ada isn’t near the top of Nvidia’s charts, it still outperformed the ZBook Studio and is perfectly capable of accelerating creative apps. Meanwhile, the Blender CPU tests further demonstrate that the Ryzen HS CPU can be used for rendering, albeit not as swiftly as a full-power mobile workstation.
The Power failed to complete our Premiere Pro video editing test, though this was because of a fault with the benchmark, not a lack of capability. It did, however, finish DaVinci Resolve just ahead of the ZBook Studio.
Battery and Display Tests
We test each laptop and tablet’s battery life by playing a locally stored 720p video file (the open-source Blender movie Tears of Steel) with display brightness at 50% and audio volume at 100%. We make sure the battery is fully charged before the test, with Wi-Fi and keyboard backlighting turned off.
To gauge display performance, we also use a Datacolor SpyderX Elite monitor calibration sensor and its Windows software to measure a laptop screen’s color saturation—what percentage of the sRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3 color gamuts or palettes the display can show—and its 50% and peak brightness in nits (candelas per square meter).
While there was no catching the MacBook Pro, the ZBook Power’s 16 hours of battery life is remarkable for a large-screened mobile workstation. As for the display, the ZBook Power offers a bright and colorful viewing experience, though it can’t match the ZBook Studio’s professional-grade DreamColor screen in color coverage.
