HP ZBook Firefly 14 G9 laptop in review - Mobile workstation with more performance after updates

In our original review of the ZBook Firefly 14 G9 (and also the larger ZBook Firefly 16 G9 with identical cooling) we were surprised about the low power limits of the components because the Core i7-1265U was only allowed to consume 12 watts after a short peak of 25 watts and the Nvidia T550 just 20 watts. Of course, this had a massive impact on the performance, and HP was also surprised by the results, which led to some updates from the manufacturer.

The graphics card is now allowed to consume 30 instead of 20 watts and the power limits for the processor were raised to 33/51 watts. These values were also achieved, but HP has minimally reduced the performance again with further updates. Theoretically, the values of 33/51 watts are still valid, but the value is no longer stable.

Due to the increased power limits, the Core i7-1265U in the ZBook is now much more competitive than with the old settings, especially under short-term load, and there is now also a clear advantage over the old model. Due to the increased power limits, the Firefly 14 can now also access the full single-core power of the performance cores, which in the case of the Core i7-1265U requires around 21 watts at 4.6-4.7 GHz. However, the situation does not look really good because the clocks fluctuate during multi-core load and we would have preferred a constant level here. It simply has to be said that the high power limits quickly lead to very high chip temperatures, which the cooling must first cope with. Just because Intel allows a maximum consumption of 51 watts in the U-series CPUs, it does not always make sense to set the limits higher.

Subjectively, you do not notice the higher performance in everyday scenarios, but the performance is now 13% better in the synthetic benchmark PCMark 10.

After the updates, the dedicated T550 GPU from Nvidia is now allowed to consume 30 instead of 20 watts, and in the GPU benchmarks the advantage is 10-20%. Thus, there is now also a clear advantage over the old Nvidia T500. However, it is also true that the performance is not completely stable after the latest updates and the results are a few percentage points lower, for example, the 3DMark Time Spy stress test is also just not passed.

The higher performance is also noticeable in the gaming benchmarks, as we see an advantage of 10-20% over our original test here as well, depending on the title and settings.

The GPU is limited to 20 watts in battery mode, so the ZBook falls back to the old level here. More GPU benchmarks are listed here.