The Zr GEN 2 workstation combines the best out-of-the-box validated Linux experience with some of the most powerful mobile hardware available. Recommended for software development, 3D modeling, Kubernetes clusters, AAA Steam games, machine learning, and content creation. Advanced CPU and GPU efficiency, along with Focus Power Tools and fan controls help it run cooler and quieter across all workloads.
Zip through single- and multi-core jobs with the cool and efficient Ultra 9 290HX Plus “Arrow Lake Refresh” CPU. This processor packs 24 cores, 24 threads, and 36 MB of Smart Cache. Combined with high-speed RAM, the CPU performance exceeds most mobile and desktop systems. Geekbench 5 tests show performance increases of 5% and 11% for single- and multi-core scores over the i9-14900HX CPU from the prior-generation model.[01]
While the performance bump is nice, the big story with this CPU is the leap in efficiency. Intel claims a 40% improvement over the i9-14900HX, and our experience supports this.[01a]
Get amazing performance and features with performance-tuned[02] NVIDIA® GeForce® RTX Blackwell GPUs. Fourth-gen ray-tracing and fifth-gen tensor cores provide a significant performance increase across all workloads tested, including machine learning, video editing, simulations, 3D rendering, and Steam games.
Compared to the prior generation, the 50-series GPUs provide substantially more and faster VRAM. This is important for certain workloads such as machine learning and rendering. The 5080 has 16 GB GDDR7 VRAM, up from 12 GB GDDR6 in the 4080. The 5090 has 24 GB GDDR7 VRAM, up from 16 GB GDDR6 in the 4090.
Each mobile workstation also has an integrated Intel iGPU with 4 Xe cores at 1.9 GHz. The Zr will remind you to use this GPU when on battery power to conserve energy. It provides strong desktop performance and is useful when you want to use all the VRAM of the NVIDIA GPU for tasks like ML or 3D rendering.
The Zr GEN 2 provides a compelling balance of performance, features, value, and reliability. It features premium build, with an aluminum deck and lid, and durable resin screen bezel, keys, and back panel. Everything you see, touch, and hear exudes quality, including Audio & Visual, Keyboard & Touchpad, and Focus Tools.
Enjoy world-class visuals with a large, bright, vibrant, and fast 18" display. Specs include WQXGA (2560 x 1600) resolution, 525 nits brightness, 100% DCI-P3 color, 240 Hz G-Sync, and wide viewing angles (> 135°).
Enjoy loud, high-fidelity audio with a crisp, 11-Watt, 5-speaker array — with a subwoofer! Join web meetings with no setup using the crisp, 5.0 megapixel 2880x1800 webcam and the integrated noise-cancelling microphone array. Protect your privacy with the integrated physical webcam cover.
The Focus Hardware System optimizes the display and sound by setting the correct kernel parameters and the nominal DPI for both the graphical desktop and virtual terminals.
Control your computer with precision. Light the keyboard LEDs with one of 65,536 colors. Type quickly and accurately with reliable scissor mechanisms and 3.5 mm of travel. Use two- and three-finger gestures on the precision glass touchpad to tap and scroll quickly through documents.
The Focus Hardware System optimizes the keyboard and touchpad: it adjusts the Hints Widget to provide guidance specifically for the model; it configures the touchpad driver sensitivity and multitouch support; and it provides a tool to set and preserve the keyboard’s LED color.
Make hard things easy with open-source Kubuntu Focus Tools. These are integrated with Kubuntu 26.04 LTS and are enhanced automatically with regular software updates.
Use System Rollback to take complete, cohesive snapshots of your system disk and restore them with a click. Open Power and Fan to control CPU power, brightness, frequency, and fan settings. Unplug the power to see settings adjust in real time to maximize battery life.
Get started fast with the comprehensive Welcome Wizard. Explore capabilities from the Feature Guide. Configure, install, and launch Curated Apps with a single click. Complete complex workflows in record time with Guided Solutions. Get enhancements automatically with Regular Software Updates. See the full list of Focus Tools here.
Communicate fast with high-speed Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Ethernet. Enjoy the ease of connecting just about anything to eight high-speed ports without expensive dongles or docks.
Rapidly communicate using technologies like 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi 7, and Bluetooth 5.4, whether at home, at work, or on the road.
Connect to anything, anytime, with all the high-speed ports you need. For example, you can surround yourself with three external 4K monitors, edit photos from a micro SD card, navigate with a wireless mouse and keyboard, and charge-and-debug a phone. All at the same time.
We benchmark all Focus systems extensively to optimize for compatibility and performance. We hope you find the highlights below helpful when assessing the capabilities of the Zr GEN 2. We encourage you to compare the results here with your device or others.
Run GPU-accelerated ML in minutes with the Focus Deep Learning Suite. It guides you to install Anaconda and then add and test TensorFlow, PyTorch, and Jupyter Notebook as needed. Develop with industry-standard PyCharm from the included JetBrains Toolbox.
We continuously validate, curate, and pin the Deep Learning Suite, graphics drivers, CUDA, cuDNN, TensorRT, and OptiX to always provide excellent performance, reliability, and compatibility across ML and GPU workloads. Improvements and maintenance are provided seamlessly through normal software updates.
We tested using Stable Diffusion 1.5 and Qwen3-0-6b tests. The TSMC “4N” lithography and fifth-generation Tensor cores make the 50-series GPUs faster, cooler, and more efficient.
| Model | Zr GEN 2 (18.0") | Zr GEN 2 (18.0") | M2 GEN 7 (16.0") | M2 GEN 6 (16.0") | M2 GEN 5 (17.3") | M2 GEN 5 (17.3") | M2 GEN 5 (15.6") |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU | RTX 5090 M | RTX 5080 M | RTX 5070 Ti M | RTX 5070 Ti M | RTX 4090 M | RTX 4080 M | RTX 4070 M |
| Stable Diffusion 1.5 | 143 Images | 116 Images | 94 Images | 92 Images | 127 Images | 118 Images | 80 Images |
| Qwen03-0-6b | 544 Gen | 534 Gen | 486 Gen | 482 Gen | 579 Gen | 528 Gen | 459 Gen |
| Video RAM | 24 GB | 16 GB | 12 GB | 12 GB | 16 GB | 12 GB | 8 GB |
GPU-accelerated performance is generally around 30x greater than CPU-only ML pipelines on the same device. Stable Diffusion and Qwen3-0-6b are found on the United Compute scoreboard in their respective tabs.
In addition to its much higher efficiency and cooler temperature, the Ultra 9 290HX CPU shows around 10% single-core and 11–13% multi-core performance improvements compared to the prior-gen i9-14900HX. The superior cooling and the high-speed DDR5 RAM enable the 8 performance cores, 16 efficiency cores, and 24 threads of the “Arrow Lake Refresh” processor to achieve peak performance.
| Model | Zr GEN 2 | ZR GEN 1 | M2 GEN 5 | M2 GEN 5 | M2 GEN 4 | M2 GEN 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CPU | Ultra 9 290HX PLUS | Ultra 9 275HX | i9 14900HX | i9 13900HX | i7 12700H | i7 11800H |
| GB 6 Single GB 6 Multi | 3,254 19,341 | 3,148 18,459 | 3,208 17,274 | 2,881 15,616 | 2,510 12,060 | na |
| GB 5 Single GB 5 Multi | 2,486 22,217 | 2,402 22,820 | 2,288 21,539 | 2,120 19,807 | 1,893 12,753 | 1,690 10,410 |
Experience unparalleled mobile GPU performance. The 16 GB RTX 5080 and the 24GB RTX 5090 are the most powerful GPUs we've ever offered in this form factor.
When plugged in, the GPU uses the highest available frequencies to provide maximum performance.[02a] Compare this with some laptops which throttle frequencies up to 40% to fit a bigger GPU in a smaller case. A full-speed GPU, like the one in the Zr, outperforms some frequency-throttled GPUs with nominally higher specs.
Run the most demanding benchmarks well over 60 FPS on High or Ultra settings. This GPU provides class-leading performance for video editing, simulations, 3D rendering, Steam games, and machine learning.
| Model[07] | Zr GEN 2 (18.0") | Zr GEN 2 (18.0") | M2 GEN 7 (16.0") | M2 GEN 5 (17.3") | M2 GEN 5 (17.3") | M2 GEN 5 (15.6") |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU | RTX 5090 M | RTX 5080 M | RTX 5070 Ti M | RTX 4090 M | RTX 4080 M | RTX 4070 M |
| Superposition Medium 1080p | 305/40,707 | 248/33,095 | 192/25,843 | 247/32,990 | 207/27,664 | 136/18,140 |
| Superposition High 1080p | 229/30,543 | 186/24,832 | 141/18,788 | 184/24,533 | 156/20,841 | 103/13,744 |
| Superposition Extreme 1080p | 101/13,500 | 82/10,976 | 64/8,470 | 82/10,996 | 70/9,411 | 48/6,377 |
| Heaven 4 Medium[08] | 538/13,539 | 437/11,007 | 343/8,652 | 426/10,735 | 371/9,348 | 263/6,621 |
| Heaven 4 Ultra[09] | 311/7,830 | 264/6,638 | 197/4,961 | 249/6,278 | 210/5,288 | 137/3,452 |
Render Blender scenes faster than >99% of all devices tested with the RTX 5080 M. This is greater than the most expensive proprietary Unix® laptops.
Besides the amazing GPU hardware, the OptiX rendering library provided with NVIDIA RTX GPUs is usually many times faster than OpenCL or CPU rendering used by non-NVIDIA systems.[11]
| Model | Zr GEN 2 (18.0") | M2 GEN 7 (16.0") | M2 GEN 5 (15.6") | M2 GEN 5 (15.6") | M2 GEN 5 (15.6") | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU | RTX 5090 M[12] | RTX 5080 M | RTX 5070 Ti M | RTX 4090 M | RTX 4080 M | RTX 4070 M |
| Score | 8,650 | 7,771 | 5,688 | 8,504 | 6,734 | 4,198 |
We believe that the Zr GEN 2 delivers an excellent balance of OS integration, validated Linux support, performance, reliability, and value. Here are the technical details to help you decide if this system is right for you. If you have questions, please call 844-536-2871 or write TellMeMore@kfocus.org.
| OS and SOFTWARE |
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|---|---|
| DISPLAY |
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| PROCESSORS | Intel 15th-Generation “Arrow Lake Refresh” Core Ultra 9 290HX PLUS Processor
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| GRAPHICS | The Zr Gen 1 contains both a discrete GPU (dGPU) and an integrated GPU (iGPU). One can use the iGPU to maximize battery life or free up VRAM for GPU compute.
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| MEMORY |
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| STORAGE |
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| CHASSIS |
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| BATTERY |
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| POWER SUPPLY |
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| KEYBOARD |
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| NETWORK AND BLUETOOTH |
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| TOUCHPAD | Large Precision Glass Touchpad with Multi-Touch and Scroll
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| WEBCAM |
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| SOUND |
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| PORTS |
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| INTERNAL SLOTS AND EXPANSION |
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| COOLING |
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| SECURITY |
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| WARRANTY |
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[01] Unless otherwise noted, benchmarks were run on AC power with compositing disabled and the CPU set to high-performance mode with the linear fan curve. Max GPU temperature was 73° C and the max fan volume was 42 dB, measured two feet from the screen center.
[01a] See graph by Intel shown at CES 2025.
[02] [02a] NVIDIA RTX 5080 M and RTX 5090 M GPUs can be configured to use lower power limits; the Zr is configured to provide up to the maximum 175 W TGP when needed.
[04] Versus CPU-only ML pipelines.
[07] Unless otherwise noted, all GPUs shown are mobile variants. Scores are shown in the form Average FPS / Composite Score.
[08] Heaven Medium settings include medium quality, 1080p resolution, normal tessellation, and 2x antialiasing.
[09] Heaven Ultra settings include Ultra quality, 1080p resolution, normal tessellation, and 8x antialiasing.
[11] Blender results links include RTX 5070 Ti (5688), RTX 3080 Ti (3936), and RTX 4060 (3828). RTX 5070 Ti testing done using Blender 3.6 to provide accurate comparison with prior, 3.x-version benchmarks.
[12] Blender result for RTX 5090 is estimated based on publicly available scores with a maximum score of 8850RTX 5090 laptop GPU.
FREE SHIPPING: Applies to shipping to continental US and Canada. All orders are fully insured and signature verified. Shipping costs to other locations are reduced by an equivalent value which varies by model.
KUBUNTU 26.04 LTS + KFS: All Kubuntu Focus Systems will now ship with 26.04 LTS with the Kubuntu Focus Suite of tools, optimizations, and support, maintained for your system for a minimum of 3 years after last sale.
29 JUNE 2026: We are finalizing integration of Kubuntu 26.04 LTS with KFS to all systems, and expect to ship the first units with this OS on 29 June 2026.
HAVE QUESTIONS?Call 844-536-2871 or write
TellMeMore@kfocus.org | GET FOCUS MERCH
