The computer pulls a consistent 92-97 watts after it fully heats up. This seems to be a hard limit imposed by the OS - either heat related or power related. It is the same limit with the Dell dock or with the Apple supplied charger in my testing (I tested the power limits previously with the Apple charger, posted on some thread somewhere on this site).
When the GPU is active, at ~20w, the CPU is allocated 45w. It runs around 2.9ghz. When I turn off the external display the CPU is allocated an additional 18-22w and runs at 3.3-3.4ghz. This behavior is consistent using the Dell dock and the Apple supplied charger. It’s either a pre-determined cooling limit or a power limit, either way Apple is limiting the power draw to 92-97 watts, regardless of charger connected in my testing. Pushing the GPU to 30watts (all I could get it up to) pulled another 7-8w away from the CPU forcing it to run around 38 watts and 2.4-2.5ghz.
During the hour long handbrake transcode and playing around with the GPU the system never pulled below 88 watts and never above 97 watts after the initial spike and settle. The first 2 seconds used 140 watts, the following 5 used 120 watts, the following 3 minutes used about 105 watts and then it settled into 92-97 watts. The battery percent, as reported by the OS (so for whatever that’s worth) never dropped from 100% in my hour long test. People who run at full load 24/7, while I think they should have a desktop, may or may not run into problems.
All in all the behavior is consistent with my previous MBP (2016) and my previous Razer blade 15” (8750h, 2070mq). Though razer *never* lets their CPU pull more than 45 watts in high power mode, limited to 35 watts in normal mode.
I’m very pleased with the Dell dock at this point. DP 1.4, full speed downstream thunderbolt port, and 90 watts of power which is sufficient for my needs. If you know you’re going to be running full load 24/7 I’d probably recommend waiting for the 100watt pluggable Titan Ridge dock that was just announced so you don’t have to worry about it.
When the GPU is active, at ~20w, the CPU is allocated 45w. It runs around 2.9ghz. When I turn off the external display the CPU is allocated an additional 18-22w and runs at 3.3-3.4ghz. This behavior is consistent using the Dell dock and the Apple supplied charger. It’s either a pre-determined cooling limit or a power limit, either way Apple is limiting the power draw to 92-97 watts, regardless of charger connected in my testing. Pushing the GPU to 30watts (all I could get it up to) pulled another 7-8w away from the CPU forcing it to run around 38 watts and 2.4-2.5ghz.
During the hour long handbrake transcode and playing around with the GPU the system never pulled below 88 watts and never above 97 watts after the initial spike and settle. The first 2 seconds used 140 watts, the following 5 used 120 watts, the following 3 minutes used about 105 watts and then it settled into 92-97 watts. The battery percent, as reported by the OS (so for whatever that’s worth) never dropped from 100% in my hour long test. People who run at full load 24/7, while I think they should have a desktop, may or may not run into problems.
All in all the behavior is consistent with my previous MBP (2016) and my previous Razer blade 15” (8750h, 2070mq). Though razer *never* lets their CPU pull more than 45 watts in high power mode, limited to 35 watts in normal mode.
I’m very pleased with the Dell dock at this point. DP 1.4, full speed downstream thunderbolt port, and 90 watts of power which is sufficient for my needs. If you know you’re going to be running full load 24/7 I’d probably recommend waiting for the 100watt pluggable Titan Ridge dock that was just announced so you don’t have to worry about it.
