Dell Precision 7550 comes with almost everything you'd expect from a mobile workstation except for full-power Quadro RTX 5000 graphics

There are two major categories of mobile workstations: ultra-thin ones and traditional thicker ones. The former favors portability at the expense of features and performance while the latter comes with everything and the kitchen sink with little regard to size. The Dell Precision 7550 falls under the latter category to be one of the heavier 15.6-inch workstations we've tested at 2.8 kg in contrast to the thinner and more portable Precision 5550, but it has a notable drawback that we weren't expecting.

Unlike other full-size workstations like the Lenovo ThinkPad P53 or HP ZBook 17, the Dell Precision 7550 uses Quadro RTX 5000 Max-Q graphics instead of the full-power Quadro RTX 5000 variant. Max-Q GPUs are typically reserved for ultra-thin designs like the MSI WS66, Precision 5550, or Razer Blade 15 Studio and so to see it a larger workstation like the Precision 7550 is strange.

The performance difference between a Quadro RTX 5000 Max-Q and standard mobile Quadro RTX 5000 is not insignificant. The standard mobile Quadro RTX 5000 in the Acer ConceptD 9 Pro, for example, consistently outperforms the Quadro RTX 5000 Max-Q in the Dell by over 30 percent in both 3DMark and SpecViewPerf benchmarks.

The 15.6-inch Precision 7550 is still an excellent full-size workstation mostly because of all the other features the model offers. It's by no means slow, but if you absolutely require the fastest mobile Quadro graphics, then there are faster 17.3-inch options out there.