Dell Pro Max 16 Plus Power Consumption
Suffice it to say, Dell’s desktop replacement laptop is not a lightweight system when it comes to energy needs. With a desktop-grade CPU and NVIDIA’s best laptop GPU packed inside of it, this system was designed for high-performance mobile computing at the cost of power consumption.
As a result, the power needs for the laptop are enormous. In order to feed all of these high-performance chips, Dell ships the laptop with a ridiculous 280 Watt USB-C power supply. Which, on the one hand, is the highest-output USB-C charger we have had come through our labs to date, and on the other hand, it is so high that it violates (or at least exceeds) the USB-C programmable power supply specification.
In principle, Dell’s power supply is a beyond-spec USB-C extended power range (EPR) power supply. It is rated to drive 5.83 amps of power at up to 48 volts, for a total capacity of 280 Watts, 40 Watts (0.83A) over the EPR limit. In practice, then, this may as well be a proprietary Dell power supply, as you will not find another 280W USB-C charger at this time.
USB-C specs aside, Dell has clearly put some work into developing their overpowered laptop charger. The company is using gallium nitride MOSFETs here, which offer much better energy conversion efficiency (and much lower losses) than silicon transistors. As a result, the adapter is relatively compact for its capacity, measuring about 162 x 89 x 23mm in size, or about one-third of a liter.
Final Words
With the Dell Pro Max Plus lineup, Dell promises the most power and performance amongst their various laptop families, and the Pro Max 16 Plus we reviewed today certainly delivers on those promises. Turning in some of the fastest CPU and GPU performance figures we have seen in a laptop thus far, the Dell Pro Max 16 Plus’s flagship configuration works hard to shine as a high-end workstation laptop.
Compared to its sibling, the simply ridiculous Dell Pro Max 18 Plus, the 16-inch version of this laptop line is far more balanced between performance and portability. It is still quite large and heavy, as it is meant to be a desktop replacement laptop, but in exchange for shrinking the 18’s desktop-sized screen, the 16-inch version of the laptop is able to retain all of the performance of the former while dropping a couple of pounds in the process. And importantly for Dell, that performance helps to keep the laptop more than competitive against similar 16-inch workstation laptops from its rivals, as well.
If not performance, then the real trade-off is price. This flagship configuration for the Dell Pro Max 16 Plus is $15,223 at current prices, and if you want to fill it up with SSDs, Dell can easily add a few grand more to that price tag. To Dell’s credit, this comes with a minimum 3-year warranty and next-day service, so the company is not skimping on supporting such a pricey laptop. We should also pause to mention that the website pricing is often much higher than the actual price companies pay with their Dell discounts, as many companies have generous discount programs with Dell. Suffice it to say, this is not going to be a laptop for everyone, be it due to its large size or its large price tag.
Still, for the segment of workstation users it is aimed at, they will find that the Dell Pro Max 16 Plus pulls out all the stops to deliver as much performance as possible for a 16-inch laptop.
Where To Buy
If you wanted to find the Dell Pro Max 16 Plus (MB16250) online, here is a Dell affiliate link.
