If you are currently in the market for a small and portable workstation, you should definitely take a look at the just-announced HP Z2 Mini G4 Workstations. Upgraded with the latest Intel’s Core and Xeon E processors with up to six cores as well as professional-grade graphics cards from AMD or NVIDIA, the HP Z2 Mini G4 machines sustain the same compact form-factor of the previous-gen Z2 Mini systems but provide significantly improved performance over their predecessors initially launched almost two years ago.
The fourth-generation HP Z2 Mini workstations sport a black chassis made of a metal alloy with some plastic parts on top. With its 216×216×58 mm (8.5×8.5×2.28 inches) dimensions, the HP Z2 Mini G4 seems to be one of the most compact, yet powerful workstations one can currently get.
In a nutshell, the HP Z2 Mini G4 comes equipped with a custom Intel C246-based motherboard that supports Intel’s LGA1151 v2 CPUs, such as Intel Core or Intel Xeon E with up to four cores. Performance versions of the system support discrete MXM graphics modules carrying AMD’s Radeon Pro WX 4150 GPUs with 4 GB of memory, or NVIDIA’s Quadro P600 or Quadro P1000 with 4 GB of GDDR5. Just as a reference, the previous-gen Z2 Mini G3 offered only one dGPU option.
As for memory and storage, the HP Z2 Mini G4 has two SO-DIMM slots supporting up to 32 GB of DDR4 RAM, one M.2 slot compatible with HP’s Z Turbo Drive G2 PCIe SSD up to 1 TB, and a 2.5-inch bay for a SATA SSD or HDD. For entry-level configurations, HP will offer a combination of Intel’s Optane Memory caching SSD as well as HGST’s 1 TB 7200-RPM HDD. Meanwhile, depending on the version and power consumption of exact configurations of the new SFF workstations from HP, the products will come equipped with 135 – 310 W external PSUs.
Beyond that, the new HP Z2 Mini G4 has one GbE (Intel i219-LM) connector, 802.11ac Wi-Fi with Bluetooth 5.0 combo (enabled by the Intel Wireless-AC 9560 CNVi solution and featuring up to 1.73 Gbps throughput over 160 MHz channels), two or three DisplayPort 1.2 outputs respectively, two USB 3.0 Type-A interfaces, two USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C ports, as well as audio input/output connectors.
Last but not least, the HP Z2 Mini G4 will support the company’s Sure Start Gen4 and HP’s Sure Run technologies that keep critical processes running even under malware attacks. The brand new portable workstations are expected to hit the market later this month starting at $799 for the entry-level models without a discrete GPU.
[source: HP]
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