We’re privileged to evaluation highly effective {hardware} at PCMag, however every now and then a system is available in that appears to place every little thing else within the rearview mirror. That is exactly what occurred when HP despatched its newest Z6 G5 desktop workstation (begins at $4,879; about $18,514 as examined) with a 36-core Intel Xeon w9 processor and never one however three of Nvidia’s flagship RTX A6000 skilled graphics playing cards (with not 12GB, or 16GB, however 48GB of reminiscence apiece). This epic, costly configuration exhibits simply how a lot computing energy can slot in a mid-tower chassis. The Z6’s huge scalability and safety features make it a straightforward Editors’ Alternative award winner amongst high-end enterprise workstations.
No Peculiar Workstation
As you would possibly guess, the HP Z6 G5 is a step up from the HP Z4 G5 we examined in June 2023—and, extremely, a step under the God’s-own-desktop Z8 and Z8 Fury flagships, which may scale as much as 64 cores (with two Xeon CPUs) and 4 RTX A6000 playing cards, respectively. The Z6 is on the higher finish of mid-tower sizing at 17.5 by 6.7 by 18.3 inches (HWD), which works out to a 34-liter case. HP’s Z emblem on the left panel and a mirrored Z6 badge on the entrance are delicate clues that this is not a typical enterprise PC.
Any considered utilizing the Z6 for Phrase, Excel, and electronic mail needs to be immediately dispelled by its enlargement capabilities. Whereas the already spectacular Z4 G5 maxes out with a 24-core “Sapphire Rapids” Xeon w7-2495X chip and 512GB of reminiscence, the Z6 G5 can accommodate the 36-core Xeon w9-3475X and doubles the RAM ceiling to 1TB. Its six enlargement slots—4 PCI Specific x16 (one Gen 5, two Gen 4, one Gen 3) and two PCI Specific x4 Gen 4—enable it to be configured for nearly any enterprise process.
Workloads for such mighty workstations embrace 3D modeling and animation, CGI rendering and real-time ray tracing, and superior dataset visualization and machine studying. Our triple-GPU configuration is right for graphics-heavy deployments, however the workstation may also be ordered with a mind-boggling 88TB of storage and fiber-optic networking playing cards to serve a very totally different objective.
The entrance panel of our Z6 G5 holds two 20Gbps USB Sort-C ports, two 5Gbps USB Sort-A ports, and a 3.5mm audio jack. An SD card reader is non-obligatory. Two front-accessible 5.25-inch bays, not populated right here, can maintain two hot-swappable 3.5-inch or 4 M.2 solid-state drives. The case additionally has room for 2 slimline optical drives. The built-in carrying deal with on high is matched by one other on the rear, which I deeply appreciated contemplating our evaluation system prices as a lot as a (low-cost) new automotive.
The Intel W790-based motherboard packs six 5Gbps USB-A ports, a 1Gbps Ethernet jack, and an audio in/out jack. An non-obligatory FlexPort, left clean right here, can maintain one other USB, serial, or networking port. Up high, the 1,125W energy provide has an auxiliary energy button under it. HP sells scores of add-in networking, storage, and different playing cards.
The Inside: Barely Contained Fury
Opening the Z6 G5 and anticipating to see all of the riches of King Midas is not an unrealistic expectation, however solely plastic airflow shrouds are seen at first sight. The primary of the tower’s two main airflow channels begins within the high half of the chassis, with a 120mm rear fan pulling air by the large CPU heatsink. Followers within the airflow information actively cool the eight DDR5 RDIMM slots flanking the CPU.
A 120mm entrance consumption fan and two smaller followers within the mini aspect door comprise the opposite airflow channel, which cools the enlargement playing cards. Swinging the door open reveals the awe-inspiring sight of the three Nvidia RTX A6000 graphics playing cards (not less than $4,000 apiece if bought individually). The nonstandard 2.5-slot spacing between the playing cards permits for further airflow.
The RTX A6000s seen right here aren’t Nvidia’s newest “Ada Era” variations however are nonetheless among the strongest workstation GPUs on the planet. With 48GB of GDDR6 video reminiscence per card, our evaluation system has extra show RAM (144GB) than it does most important RAM (128GB). Just like the latter, the GPU reminiscence is of the error-correcting-code (ECC) selection to make it appropriate for scientific and monetary use the place each decimal place should be good.
Blower-style coolers on the RTX A6000 playing cards vent scorching air out of the again. The Z6 G5’s warmth output beneath full load is large, shortly warming the medium-size room I put it in by just a few levels. Its fan noise is audible—I would in all probability put on headphones if I labored subsequent to this tower all day—however did not appear louder than some high-end gaming desktops I’ve examined. HP says 20 temperature sensors regulate the followers.
Placing some numbers to the thermals, the Xeon w9-3475X’s base energy is 300 watts, and its most turbo energy is 350W, in contrast with about 250 for Intel’s flagship client Intel Core i9-13900K. It is a severe cooling problem, however Intel’s Xeon W-class chips have a large die to maximise thermal dissipation, making air cooling potential. Skilled workstations, in contrast to deluxe gaming rigs, virtually all the time use air reasonably than liquid cooling for reliability and low upkeep.
The three jumbo GPUs preclude including different enlargement playing cards, so this Z6 G5 is really a purpose-built machine. Regardless, getting quick networking with out an enlargement card is straightforward since HP threw in two 10Gbps Ethernet jacks constructed into the again panel.
As for storage, along with the abovementioned 5.25-inch entrance bays, the Z6 G5 has two M.2 Gen 4 motherboard slots (accessing them requires eradicating the underside GPU) and two 3.5-inch drive bays. Eight RDIMM slots can be found regardless of how the Z6 G5 is configured; all are populated in our evaluation unit to leverage the Xeon w9’s eight reminiscence channels.
Safety is paramount for enterprise workstations which might be harboring delicate information. The Z6 G5 delivers in spades, with bodily safety from a lockable (each padlock and key) aspect door and intrusion detection. The entrance hot-swap bays are additionally lockable and add a measure of safety by themselves; their drives may be simply eliminated and saved securely when not in use. Additional, HP preinstalls its Wolf Professional Safety suite, which works on the {hardware} and software program stage.
Working system decisions embrace Microsoft Home windows 10 or 11 Professional for Workstations, Ubuntu Linux 22.04 LTS, Purple Hat Enterprise Linux, or no OS in any respect. The Z6 G5 has stacks of unbiased software program vendor (ISV) certifications to ensure compatibility with skilled apps. (HP maintains a listing.) Moreover, the Z6 G5 is appropriate with HP’s Wherever distant system controller, permitting directors to maintain the tower in a knowledge heart or different safe location.
Testing the HP Z6 G5: Three GPUs on Faucet
Our Z6 G5 evaluation unit is formidably configured with a 36-core, 72-thread Intel Xeon w9-3475X processor (2.2GHz base clock, 4.8GHz turbo), triple Nvidia RTX A6000 skilled graphics playing cards, 128GB of DDR5 ECC reminiscence (eight 16GB RDIMMs), two 1TB PCIe Gen 4 solid-state drives (non-RAID), and Home windows 11 Professional for Workstations. Solely a handful of PCs on the planet are as succesful as this.
This kind of workstation is bought virtually solely in customized configurations on the enterprise stage, so pricing comparisons with different workstations aren’t all that significant. Suffice it to say that the Z6 G5 may be configured virtually numerous methods, with as much as 88TB of storage and 1TB (that is 1,024GB) of reminiscence. And, for those who’re doing chilly fusion in your basement, you all the time have the Z8 and Z8 Fury.
Discovering direct comparisons for the Z6 G5 amongst our latest workstation critiques proved unattainable, so we merely stuffed in our benchmark charts with the quickest fashions we’ve examined. The abovementioned HP Z4 G5 includes a 24-core Xeon w7 processor, whereas the entry-level HP Z2 Tower G9 is the one system right here primarily based on a non-workstation-class CPU, the Intel Core i9-12900K. In the meantime, the Lenovo ThinkStation P620 packs a monstrous 64-core AMD Threadripper Professional 5995WX. The Lenovo may be geared up as a competitor to the Z6, although the configurations seen right here aren’t that comparable.
Productiveness and Content material Creation Assessments
We run the identical common productiveness benchmarks throughout each cellular and desktop methods. Our first check is UL’s PCMark 10, which simulates quite a lot of real-world productiveness and workplace workflows to measure general system efficiency and likewise features a storage subtest for the first drive.
Our different three benchmarks give attention to the CPU, utilizing all obtainable cores and threads, to charge 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 from Primate Labs simulates common 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 instances are higher).
Lastly, we run PugetBench for Photoshop by workstation maker Puget Methods, which makes use of the Artistic Cloud model 22 of Adobe’s well-known picture editor to charge a PC’s efficiency for content material creation and multimedia purposes. It is an automatic extension that executes quite a lot of common and GPU-accelerated Photoshop duties starting from opening, rotating, resizing, and saving a picture to making use of masks, gradient fills, and filters.
We have seen the quickest gaming desktops high 10,000 factors in PCMark 10’s productiveness check, however not these workstations. The Z6 G5 did not even double the 4,000 factors that point out wonderful productiveness for on a regular basis workplace apps. This was predictable, since PCMark would not scale to the capabilities of workstation {hardware} and tends to favor a decrease variety of high-performance cores, so the Core i9-based Z2 had no hassle posting the excessive rating.
The Cinebench CPU train is the place the Z6 G5 got here into its personal, touchdown between the 24-core Z4 G5 and the 64-core Lenovo. Its Geekbench rating wasn’t far off that of the Z4 G5, suggesting that this system would not totally leverage sky-high core counts, both.
Graphics Assessments
For non-gaming desktops, we run two pairs of artificial graphics benchmarks. The primary set consists of two DirectX 12 gaming simulations from UL’s 3DMark, the extra modest Night time Raid (appropriate for methods with built-in graphics) and the extra demanding Time Spy (appropriate for gaming rigs with discrete GPUs). The second are two OpenGL workouts rendered offscreen by the cross-platform GPU benchmark GFXBench 5, which permits for various native show resolutions; extra frames per second (fps) means increased efficiency.
You would not purchase one RTX A6000, not to mention three, to do something however harness its video RAM, which none of those easy benchmarks comes near exercising. Like numerous different workstations we have examined, the Z6 G5 did not run a few the subtests, finishing just one check apiece in 3DMark and GFXBench.
Workstation-Particular Assessments
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 common unbiased software program vendor (ISV) purposes. We run the 1080p decision exams primarily based 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 bundle by Dassault Systemes. Outcomes are listed in frames per second (fps); increased numbers are higher.
Our different workstation check is Blender, an open-source 3D content material creation suite for modeling, animation, simulation, and compositing. We report the time it takes for Blender’s built-in Cycles path tracer to render two photo-realistic scenes of BMW automobiles, one utilizing the system’s CPU and one the GPU. Decrease instances are higher.
The Z6 G5 saved up as anticipated in these exams, although using simply one in every of its RTX A6000 GPUs. In that sense, these benchmarks aren’t too essential since they can not benefit from a number of graphics playing cards.
I anecdotally ran a benchmark that may, the computing check GPUPI. The Z6 G5 accomplished the 32-billion-digit CUDA check in 51.095 seconds. Searching different HWBOT benchmark submissions, I discovered that rating simply put this HP Z6 among the many workstation elite.
The Verdict: Enterprise Workstation Excellence
As our well-optioned evaluation unit demonstrated, the HP Z6 G5 is a dominant pressure amongst enterprise workstation towers. Its trio of Nvidia RTX A6000 graphics playing cards and 36-core Intel Xeon w9 processor are exceptionally succesful, and the mid-tower may be configured for storage- and networking-heavy deployments if uncooked energy is not your factor. It additionally has safety, upkeep, and ISV certifications properly in hand. With virtually nothing holding it again, the Z6 G5 earns our Editors’ Alternative award amongst high-end enterprise workstations.