Can a mini PC be a “big iron” workstation? It can if you fill it with the most powerful AMD parts on the planet.
You probably haven’t seen HP’s Z series of computers unless you’re working in an office with some “big iron,” packed with high-end hardware and specialized designs. But HP’s new Z2 Mini G1a, shown off at a pre-CES presentation, caught my attention in a big way. It’s a mini desktop PC with some of the most powerful parts available.
First, the chassis. This thing is almost a literal brick, at least in terms of size and weight, albeit a fashionable one. HP didn’t provide me with dimensions at the presentation, but it’s approximately the size of a two-drive NAS setup, or maybe one-third as small as the smallest Mini-ITX desktop I’ve seen. Much bigger than a typical “mini PC” sold to consumers, yet still a fraction of the size of a conventional desktop PC.
Michael Crider / IDG
That’s not all that impressive… until you learn what HP crammed inside this thing. It has AMD’s latest workstation laptop parts, maxing out with a Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395 (a 16-core, 32-thread monster). You can get up to 128GB of RAM and 4TB of storage (or 8TB if you upgrade it yourself with the second M.2 slot). There’s no discrete graphics for these chips, but the integrated Radeon 8000S series should be enough to handle all but the most extreme needs, since you can assign up to 96GB of memory to the graphics in that maximum configuration.
HP
Most of the same capabilities are being built into this thing’s laptop counterpart, the ZBook Ultra 14 G1a. That comes with a 14-inch 2.8K OLED screen and a unified chip architecture for the CPU, GPU, and NPU. The only big difference from a capability perspective is that it’s limited to one M.2 slot. It’s a chunky laptop at 3.5 pounds, and HP didn’t provide an estimated life for its 74.5 watt-hour battery.
Michael Crider/Foundry
Again, neither the laptop nor desktop are machines you’d buy for a standard user. The desktop is designed to act as a workstation or even mounted in a server rack, thanks to its integrated 300-watt power supply. It’s just as happy sitting on a desk, though. In fact, it’ll sit horizontally or vertically, and I was delighted to see that the HP logo on the front can rotate (just like ye olde PlayStation 2).
Want the price for the Z2 Mini G1a? Well, so do I. Ask your IT manager, but be prepared to provide a darn good reason that you need it.
