The HP Z2 G9 desktop workstation packs a severe punch, however the Z4 G5 beneath assessment right here (begins at $2,080; $6,691 as examined) takes that efficiency to the following degree. Our kitted-out take a look at pattern has a 24-core Intel Xeon w7-2495X processor, which provides a number of thousand bucks to the value by itself, together with 64GB of error-correcting RAM, skilled Nvidia graphics, and PCI Categorical 4.0 storage. It may well additionally match two high-end graphics playing cards and exterior NVMe bays. For getting issues carried out, that is HP’s ticket to the specific practice. The Z4 G5’s spectacular capabilities earn it our Editors’ Selection award amongst single-processor desktop workstations.
Huge on Energy, Not on Measurement
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
HP’s Z4 G5 sits halfway up its Z workstation lineup, which begins with the Z2 and goes past the Z4, the Z6, and Z8. The Z4 is the primary tier that’s thought-about a real workstation because it makes use of Intel’s Xeon workstation processors, particularly the newest “Sapphire Rapids” Xeon w3 via w7 chips. These processors present superior enlargement to Intel’s client “Core” chips, supporting 64 PCI Categorical lanes and 512GB of RAM.
Comparatively, the Z2 G9’s best choice, the Intel Core i9-13900K, tops out at simply 20 lanes and solely 128GB of RAM. Relaxation assured that the Z4 G5 gained’t run out of bandwidth even with a number of graphics playing cards and storage drives. The primary motive to step as much as the Z6 or Z8 is when you want greater than 24 processor cores or 512GB of RAM.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
Not like showy gaming desktops, the Z4 G5’s all-black exterior doesn’t drop many hints that it’s one of the highly effective towers out there on this dimension. It sits squarely within the mid-tower territory, at 15.2 by 17.5 by 6.7 inches (HWD), being barely longer and taller, however not wider, than the Z2 G9.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
HP’s Z4 case is usually comprised of stable metal and feels constructed to final. I weighed our assessment unit at 27 kilos. The tower even has built-in carry handles, that are useful for, if nothing else, safely getting it out of the transport field.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
The entrance panel has HP’s reflective emblem together with the mannequin title, the facility button, and many airflow perforations. The premium port panel seen right here has a common audio jack, a USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 port (5Gbps), and two USB-C 3.2 Gen 2×2 ports (20Gbps). It seems like our unit has a full-size SD card reader, but it surely doesn’t—that’s non-compulsory. The usual panel loses the USB-C ports and sticks with 4 USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
For fast entry to quick storage, the Z4 G5 can even include non-compulsory hot-swappable NVMe entrance bays later in 2023, which is what these clean plastic panels are for. The bays can be populated with optical drives or 3.5-inch drives.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
The motherboard backplane has six USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, Ethernet, and one other common audio jack. The cutout simply above the Ethernet port is the non-compulsory versatile port possibility. This space may be configured with one other USB-A, an extra USB-C port, or extra networking choices. The facility provide is on the prime of the tower; an auxiliary energy button is slightly below it.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
Our unit’s Nvidia RTX A4000 graphics card has 4 DisplayPort video outputs as an alternative of the same old three DisplayPort and one HDMI port discovered on client playing cards. Its single-slot cooler leaves the opposite 4 enlargement slots open, which embody two PCI Categorical 4.0 x16 and two PCI Categorical 4.0 x4. The graphics card is linked to the PCI Categorical 5.0 x16 slot.
Opening the Z4 G5: A Technological Surprise
It’s at all times particular trying inside a high-end workstation, and the Z4 G5 does a commendable job of displaying its newest know-how. The tower’s aspect panel tilts outward and away by pulling its launch deal with. The deal with may be fitted with an non-compulsory Kensington lock slot, and you will find a padlock loop in the back of the panel.
The 11-by-11-inch motherboard relies on the Intel W790 workstation chipset. The crown jewel right here, although, is the Xeon w7-2495X 24-core processor, which has a 225-watt (W) base energy and a 270W most turbo energy. It’s an actual problem to maintain from overheating, however the Z4 G5’s large air cooler is as much as the duty. The Sapphire Rapids Xeon chips have a comparatively large bodily footprint in contrast with Intel’s Core chips, which helps them dissipate the thermal load and makes air cooling sensible. I do not discover vital noise from the Z4 G5 even when it’s working beneath full load.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
HP’s plastic shroud over the CPU heatsink additionally covers the eight DDR5-4800 DIMM slots with lively cooling. Eradicating the shroud is well carried out by releasing two tabs. You will not must disconnect any wires both: The shroud has a tiny energy connector that plugs immediately into the motherboard.
Our tower’s 64GB of RAM is made up of 4 16GB sticks to reap the benefits of the Xeon w7’s quad reminiscence channels. The underside half of the motherboard has the talked about PCI Categorical slots. Forward of them are two M.2 2280 PCI Categorical 4.0 drive slots, each populated and lined with steel heatsinks. To their proper, an consumption fan behind the enlargement card assist brackets is well-positioned to offer airflow to the underside half of the chassis. Two toolless 3.5-inch bays are simply above it. For extra storage, HP sells enlargement playing cards with M.2 slots.
HP backs the Z4 G5 with a three-year guarantee. Home windows configurations with greater than six cores require a fairly dear Home windows 11 Professional for Workstations license. Included software program is proscribed to HP’s apps, which embody its Wolf Professional(Opens in a brand new window) safety suite. HP claims this tower additionally has hardware-level safety. We don’t have a manner of testing that, but it surely seems to have extra resilience than you’d discover in client {hardware}.
Testing the HP Z4 G5: 24 Cores on Faucet
Our $6,691 Z4 G5 take a look at unit has the quickest CPU out there on this chassis, the 24-core/48-thread Xeon w7-2495X, which has a 2.5GHz base clock velocity and a turbo enhance as much as 4.8GHz. It’s paired with 64GB of quad-channel DDR5-4800 error-correcting code (ECC) RAM, two 1TB PCI Categorical 4.0 storage drives (separate drives, no RAID), and an Nvidia RTX A4000 graphics card with 16GB of its personal video RAM.
Pricing for our unit is the single-unit worth. Companies and enterprises shopping for this tower are more likely to obtain reductions for getting in bulk, so evaluating costs of workstations isn’t actually useful.
In actual fact, our Z4 G5 configuration is barely high-end in its CPU, not less than so far as workstation {hardware} goes. HP will embody as much as 512GB of RAM, many extra storage drives, and as many as two 48GB Nvidia RTX A6000 graphics playing cards. AMD Radeon Professional graphics playing cards are additionally out there.
We pitted the Z4 G5 in opposition to different equally outfitted workstations for our comparability charts. The one latest entrant is the aforementioned HP Z2 G9, which has an RTX A4000 like our Z4 G5 however pairs it with an Intel Core i9-12900K. We additionally included the 64-core Lenovo ThinkStation P620. I’ve additionally included just a few older fashions, just like the Asus ProArt Station PD5 and the Dell Precision 3650. Each are entry-level mid-tower desktops that examine higher with the Z2 G9 than our Z4 G5, however current some thought of the broader choice out there.
Productiveness and Content material Creation Exams
Our first take a look at is UL’s PCMark 10, which simulates a wide range of real-world productiveness and workplace workflows to measure total system efficiency and in addition features a storage subtest for the first drive. The Z4 G5 nearly matched the ThinkStation P620, although it couldn’t catch the Z2 G9. It might appear shocking {that a} lower-tier workstation may carry out higher, however that’s commonplace in non-workstation-specific testing like this.
We use three extra benchmarks, activating all out there cores and threads, to fee a PC’s suitability for processor-intensive workloads. Maxon’s Cinebench R23 makes use of that firm’s Cinema 4D engine to render a posh scene, whereas Geekbench 5.4 Professional by Primate Labs simulates well-liked apps starting from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine studying. Lastly, we use the open-source video transcoder HandBrake 1.4 to transform a 12-minute video clip from 4K to 1080p decision (decrease occasions are higher).
Our last productiveness take a look at is PugetBench for Photoshop(Opens in a brand new window) by Puget Techniques, which makes use of the Inventive Cloud model 22 of Adobe’s well-known picture editor to fee a PC’s efficiency for content material creation and multimedia purposes. It is an automatic extension that executes a wide range of normal and GPU-accelerated Photoshop duties starting from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving a picture to making use of masks, gradient fills, and filters.
Now, we see the 24-core HP Z4 G5 make its mark. Its Xeon proved extraordinarily potent in testing: Regardless of having fewer than half the ThinkStation’s 64 cores, it scored 57% as excessive in Cinebench. The opposite exams, particularly HandBrake, don’t take full benefit of all CPU cores, in order that’s the catch with mega-big core counts. The software program you’re utilizing should truly leverage all of the cores to get your funding’s price.
Graphics Exams
Our graphics exams are subsequent, and we gained’t spend a lot time right here since these aren’t typical workstation duties. For Home windows PCs, we run each artificial and real-world gaming exams. The previous consists of two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark, Night time Raid (extra modest, appropriate for programs with built-in graphics) and Time Spy (extra demanding, appropriate for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). Additionally looped into that group is the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which we use to gauge OpenGL graphics efficiency. Outcomes are listed in frames per second (fps); larger numbers are higher.
Each exams listed here are CPU-limited, however the Z4 G5’s numbers are in step with an Nvidia RTX A4000. Its efficiency fluctuated across the Asus mannequin’s Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070. However, once more, you are not right here for consumer-grade graphics efficiency, so let’s transfer on.
Workstation Exams
We measure workstation graphics efficiency utilizing SPECviewperf 2020, which renders, rotates, and zooms out and in of stable and wireframe fashions utilizing view units from well-liked unbiased software program vendor (ISV) purposes. We run the 1080p decision exams based mostly on PTC’s Creo CAD platform; Autodesk’s Maya modeling and simulation software program for movie, TV, and video games; and the SolidWorks 3D rendering package deal by Dassault Systemes. Outcomes listed here are additionally listed in frames per second (fps); larger numbers are higher.
Not via but with Adobe’s inventive suite, we additionally run PugetBench for Premiere Professional by Puget Techniques, based mostly on Adobe’s well-liked video modifying app. It performs dwell playback and file export with a number of codecs at 4K and 8K resolutions, in addition to special-effects sequences that stress the CPU and GPU past regular Premiere Professional operations. We report the take a look at’s customary total rating.
Our final workstation take a look at is Blender, an open-source 3D content material creation suite for modeling, animation, simulation, and compositing. We file the time it takes for Blender’s built-in Cycles path tracer to render two photo-realistic scenes of BMW vehicles, one utilizing the system’s CPU and one the GPU. Decrease occasions are higher. BMW artist Mike Pan has mentioned he considers the scenes too quick for rigorous testing, however they are a well-liked benchmark.
The Z4 G5’s RTX A4000 made a good displaying in SPECviewperf, although the Z2 G9 (with the identical GPU) beat it in two out of three exams. This will have been as a result of the Z2’s Core i9 has larger clock speeds and may carry out higher in lightly-threaded duties.
However the Z2 G9 couldn’t contact the Z4 G5 in Blender’s CPU take a look at, the place solely the monster ThinkStation did higher. The HP Z4 G5 additionally posted the best Premiere Professional rating.
On that notice, do not forget that the Z4 G5 is configurable for a lot of work duties. Based mostly on these outcomes, it’s a vastly efficient number-crunching or undertaking rendering machine with the 24-core Xeon, however with room for 2 graphics playing cards, it will possibly additionally assist demanding machine studying and AI computing duties. With extra bay choices on the best way, it’s additionally not shy within the storage division.
(Credit score: Joseph Maldonado)
Verdict: The Final Mid-Tower Workstation
Merely put, the HP Z4 G5 delivers on all fronts as a workstation. Like most high-end mid-tower workstations, its pricing places it in “severe inquiries solely” territory, however its highly effective {hardware} can go a good distance towards shortly recouping your funding. With six to 24 processor cores, as much as 512GB of RAM, a number of NVMe storage drives, and capability for 2 high-end skilled graphics playing cards, duties that this pc would not be capable to chew up are few and much between. We additionally famous its quiet operation, built-in safety features, and three-year guarantee. The Z4 G5 earns our Editors’ Selection for single-processor workstations.
The Backside Line
HP’s Z4 G5 delivers 24-core Xeon energy and all of the goodies anticipated of a high-end mid-tower desktop workstation.
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