Product Review > HP Z2 Mini G3 Workstation
Breaking the Mold for Delivering
Workstation Capability
Designed for CAD and other high-performance
applications, the HP Z2 Mini G3 Workstation pushes
power into a tiny form factor.
by | John Breeden II
John Breeden II is an award-winning reviewer, journalist and public speaker with over 20 years of experience covering technology.
Workstation computers traditionally have been built and billed as the larger, beefier brothers of desktop systems, tackling much more demanding applications. But this power came with drawbacks such as enlarged footprints, increased power consumption and higher heat generation. The Hewlett Packard Z2 Mini G3 Workstation shatters that formula, keeping all the good features of the class while minimizing negatives.
The Z2 isn’t built like other workstations. The small, black unit looks more like a personal-sized pizza box. Four ventilation grills break up the square silhouette in each corner, and a stylized letter Z is printed across the top. A single, almost hidden, power button on the front brings the tiny powerhouse to life, although very quietly, as the internal cooling systems don’t generate much noise. One might confuse the Z2 workstation with a thin client based on looks alone.
But make no mistake, the Z2 is a bona fide workstation that comes packed with power. It comes in at one-sixth the size of the modern desktop, yet scored almost 10,000 points higher on the PassMark PerformanceTest benchmark, putting it solidly in line with expected workstation performance levels.
In fact, all of the internal Z2 components seem to have been chosen with performance in mind. For speedy graphics rendering, which is a major need for workstation users, our test unit had an NVIDIA M620 graphics card providing the graphics processing unit with 2 gigabytes of dedicated video memory. An HP solid-state PCIe hard drive improves disk read and write speeds, removing another potential bottleneck. All of these components are tied together and driven by the Windows 10 Pro 64-bit operating system.
SPECIFICATIONS
Processor: Intel Core i7 6700 / 3.4GHz
Hard drive: HP Turbo G2 512GB M.2 PCIe Solid State Drive
Graphics: NVIDIA M620 with 2GB GDDR5
Memory: 16GB DDR4 2400Mhz
Weight: 4.5 pounds
WORKSTATION PERFORMANCE
The little black box comes loaded with a powerful Intel Core i7 processor backed with 16GB of memory that is ready to tackle nearly any application
EVERY PORT IN A STORM
The Z2 Workstation comes loaded with four USB 3.0 ports, three DisplayPorts and one Gigabit Ethernet port to support just about any additional peripheral
A PETITE POWERHOUSE
Despite its ability to quickly process the most demanding applications, the Z2 Workstation has
a tiny footprint (8.5 inches on each side), and is only
2.3 inches tall
While the Z2 does have a 135-watt power supply, which may seem large for such a small unit, many eco-friendly features govern its energy consumption. The workstation has received the Energy Star label for its energy efficiency.
Cooling fans surround the entire unit, and four dedicated corner vents kept things from getting too hot. After a few hours of continuous use, the chassis was still cool to the touch, and more importantly, performance never suffered due to thermal issues.
The HP Z2 Mini G3 Workstation does everything that users expect and need from a workstation system. It simply does all this in a much smaller space, and for an economical price, which would have been impossible just a few years ago.