HP ZBook Fury 18" C94CGUT#ABA Meteor Silver 2024

The ZBook Fury 18 G1i packs a 98th percentile CPU and 64GB of RAM into a 3.53kg chassis that ranks dead last for compactness. The RTX Pro 5000 with 24GB VRAM is a standout for 3D and AI work. It's a desktop replacement in the truest sense, powerful but not portable.

The Core Ultra 9 285HX is the star here. 24 cores running at 2.8GHz base clock puts this CPU in the 98th percentile, which means it's basically the absolute best right now for mobile workstations. Pair that with 64GB of 5600 MHz DDR5 RAM, also 98th percentile, and you've got a machine that can handle 8K video editing, 3D rendering, and machine learning model training without breaking a sweat. The RAM is upgradeable to 256GB, which is frankly absurd for a laptop and exactly what some data scientists need.

The RTX Pro 5000 with 24GB of GDDR7 VRAM is a standout at the 91st percentile. That's workstation-class graphics with enough memory to hold massive 3D scenes or LLM weights entirely on the GPU. The 1TB NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD lands at the 80th percentile, which is solid but not spectacular. It'll load apps fast, but if you're working with huge datasets or raw 8K footage, you'll probably want to add a second drive. The display is impressive at the 91st percentile, with 2560x1600 resolution, 165Hz refresh rate, 500 nits brightness, and full DCI-P3 coverage. That's a screen built for color-critical work.

Against the Apple MacBook Pro M4 Max, the ZBook Fury trades blows differently. The MacBook is lighter, has better battery life, and Apple's silicon is no slouch, but the Fury's RTX Pro 5000 with 24GB of VRAM gives it an edge for CUDA-dependent workloads and 3D rendering. The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 is a completely different animal, far more portable but nowhere near this level of raw CPU and GPU performance. The Lenovo Legion Pro 7i Gen 10 and MSI Raider are closer competitors in the desktop replacement space, but the Fury's port selection at the 97th percentile, including Thunderbolt 5, gives it a connectivity advantage. The Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th Edition isn't even in the same conversation for this kind of work. If you need maximum compute and don't care about weight, the Fury is hard to beat. If you need to actually move around, every single competitor here is more practical.

Let's talk about that price tag. In the US, you're looking at anywhere from $8,214 to $10,638 depending on where you shop. That's a spread of $2,424 for the same machine, which is wild. If you're buying this, shop around. The lower end of that range is still a serious chunk of change, but for a workstation with a 98th percentile CPU and a 91st percentile GPU, it's not unreasonable compared to similarly specced desktop replacements. The CAD listing at $11,500 and the JPY listing at 2,630,405 are single-vendor prices, so you don't have much leverage there. The real question is whether you need this much power in a laptop form factor, because you're paying a premium for portability that barely exists.

The HP ZBook Fury 18 G1i is a desktop replacement that doesn't apologize for its size. With a Core Ultra 9 285HX landing in the 98th percentile for CPU performance and 64GB of DDR5 RAM matching that same top-tier ranking, this thing is built to chew through workloads that would make lesser laptops cry. The RTX Pro 5000 with 24GB of GDDR7 sits in the 91st percentile, which means it's one of the best mobile GPUs on the market right now. The 18-inch 2560x1600 display with 500 nits brightness and 100% DCI-P3 coverage rounds out a spec sheet that reads more like a compact tower than a laptop.

But here's the thing. This laptop weighs 3.53kg and ranks dead last in compactness, the 1st percentile. That's not a typo. You're not slipping this into a messenger bag and heading to a coffee shop. This is a machine that lives on a desk, maybe moves between offices occasionally, and laughs at the concept of working from an airplane tray table. If you need raw power and don't care about portability, keep reading. If you want something you can actually carry, this review will save you some time.

If you need to carry your laptop anywhere on a regular basis, skip this. The 3.53kg weight and 1st percentile compactness ranking make it genuinely unpleasant to transport. The 33rd percentile reliability score is also concerning for a machine this expensive, especially with no customer reviews to validate long-term durability. And if your work doesn't actually require a 24-core CPU and 24GB of VRAM, you're paying a massive premium for power you'll never use. A mid-range workstation or even a high-end gaming laptop would serve most people better at half the price.

The HP ZBook Fury 18 G1i is a beast of a workstation that delivers top-tier performance in nearly every category that matters for heavy compute. The 98th percentile CPU and RAM scores, combined with a 91st percentile GPU, make this one of the most powerful laptops we've seen in our database. But the 1st percentile compactness score is a real problem. At 3.53kg, this isn't a laptop you carry, it's a desktop you occasionally relocate. The 33rd percentile reliability score also gives us pause, especially at this price point. If you're a creator, AI researcher, or developer who needs maximum power and has a dedicated desk, this is a strong buy. If you need any semblance of portability, look elsewhere.