Traeger Ironwood XLvs Pit Boss Navigator 1600

One tier up from the Woodridge and the Navigator 850, the same argument gets louder. The Ironwood XL is Traeger’s precision machine — insulated, instrumented, $1,999.99. The Navigator 1600 is Pit Boss doing what Pit Boss does: nearly twice the cooking surface for $800 less. At the mid-market that gap was $150, and we gave the duel to Pit Boss. Up here it’s the price of a second grill, and the question sharpens into something worth answering carefully. What exactly does $800 buy when both grills already smoke, both hit 500°F, and both talk to your phone?

Capacity & hopper: it isn’t close, again

1,593 vs 924 Square inches. The Navigator 1600 offers 72% more cooking surface than the Ironwood XL — three racks against two — and carries 30 lb of pellets to Traeger's 22.

Pit Boss builds a bigger machine and doesn’t apologize: 65 inches wide and 205 pounds against the Traeger’s 59 inches and 199. Two full packer briskets is the Ironwood XL’s stated ceiling; the Navigator swallows that and keeps going. If your problem is a graduation party, this round is the whole duel and you can stop reading.

Temperature accuracy: what the instruments found

This is the round Traeger’s $800 is supposed to buy, and the evidence says it does. Smart Combustion adjusts fuel and airflow continuously, and the Ironwood family holds a genuinely tight window — Traeger claims ±3°F, and independent reviewers rate its temperature management among the best in pellet grilling.

For a smoker, that matters more than it sounds. Thirty degrees is the difference between a brisket that renders on schedule and one that stalls past dinner. It’s fixable — clip on your own probe thermometer and cook to the reading you trust, which experienced smokers do anyway — but it’s an $1,199 grill asking you to buy an instrument it should have included.

Cold-weather holding: the round with a quote in it

Pellet grills lose this fight to physics. A single-wall cabinet radiates heat, the controller compensates by feeding more pellets, and below freezing the grill can simply run out of authority. The Ironwood XL’s fully insulated double wall is the direct answer, and reviewers report it holds through sub-freezing cooks with only a modest bump in pellet use where single-wall grills climb 30% or more.

If you live somewhere winter is theoretical, this round is worth nothing to you. If you were planning to smoke a turkey in November, it may be worth the entire $800 by itself.

Searing: a tie neither brand will enjoy

On paper Pit Boss wins walking away — pull the Flame Broiler lever, expose the fire, and the Navigator advertises 1,000°F direct flame. The Ironwood XL has no direct-flame mode at all.

In practice, independent testers keep landing in the same place: the Navigator’s high-heat grilling underdelivers against the spec, and Traeger’s searing gets rated “meh” by the same reviewers, who note that most pellet grills sear poorly regardless of what the lever promises. Pit Boss offers a capability Traeger doesn’t and doesn’t fully deliver it; Traeger doesn’t offer it and doesn’t pretend to. If searing steak is a priority, the honest answer is that neither of these is your steak grill — a $200 charcoal chimney and a cast-iron pan will outperform both.

Price & value: $800 is $800

$800 The gap. That's roughly 40 twenty-pound bags of hardwood pellets, or a very good separate searing grill, or most of a second Navigator 850.

Pit Boss delivers more grill per dollar here by a margin that isn’t arguable — about 1.3 square inches per dollar against Traeger’s 0.46. The Navigator also discounts more readily than the Traeger does, so check before buying; the Ironwood has quietly come down from $2,199 since the Woodridge line launched beneath it, but it doesn’t chase promotions the way the Pit Boss lineup does.

Where they’re genuinely the same

Both top out at 500°F, both run Wi-Fi with a phone app, both ship two meat probes, both use porcelain-coated steel grates and take any brand of hardwood pellet. Both need a real footprint and a helper for assembly. And both make excellent barbecue — the ceiling on a pellet grill’s output was raised past most cooks’ skill years ago, and neither of these is what stands between you and a good brisket. The difference is how much attention the grill needs from you to get there.

The verdict

For most people at this price: the Traeger Ironwood XL. Spending $2,000 on a pellet grill is a decision to buy precision — if grate space per dollar were the goal, the sensible move is a Navigator 850 and $1,300 in your pocket. Precision is exactly what the Ironwood delivers and what the testing keeps finding the Navigator short on: a probe reading high, a cabinet that struggles when the weather turns, and a support line that suggests not cooking in it.

Note that we’re not making a warranty argument here, because Traeger doesn’t have one. Its famous 10-year coverage applies to the body not rusting through; the controller, auger and fan get 3 years, against Pit Boss’s 5. Buy the Ironwood for the instrument, not the paperwork.

Buy the Pit Boss Navigator 1600 instead if volume is the actual problem you’re solving. Nothing Traeger sells at any price gives you 1,593 square inches, and for $800 less you can clip on a $100 dual-probe thermometer, cook to numbers you trust, keep the heavy smoking to the warmer half of the year, and still be far ahead. It’s the better buy for a crowd. It’s the worse instrument.