Today, HP is introducing the new Z2 Tower G8 and Z2 Small Form Factor G8. Note that these aren't actually eighth-generation products; HP is just aligning all of its Z workstations on the same number now.
There are a few things that are new here, notably Intel's 11th-generation 'Rocket Lake S' CPUs, which come with a host of improvements. They have a new core architecture, but more importantly, they come with support for PCIe Gen 4, which has double the bandwidth of Gen 3. That means that you can add faster, well, everything.
“Today’s rapidly changing work environment has cemented the PC’s role as a critical productivity tool,” said Jaejune Kim, Corporate Senior Vice President of Memory Marketing, Samsung. “With applications growing in complexity and file sizes increasing exponentially, PCIe Gen4 SSDs offer a big step up in performance. We’re proud to partner with HP on the design in of our PM9A1 SSD into HP’s newest performance platforms to maximize the technology benefits for an improved user experience.”
The CPUs used are up to a Core i9-11900K, which is Intel's top-end chip. It has eight cores and a 125W TDP, and in fact, that also means that it's unlocked for overclocking if you get down like that. That high-end CPU is included in both the Tower and SFF models of the Z2, and there are also Xeon W configurations.
There are also some new GPU options, including up to a Quadro RTX A4000 or A5000 in the Z2 Tower, which comes with a 700W power supply. Naturally, there are more restrictions to the size of the SFF model, which has a 450W PSU, but that still comes with up to Quadro RTX 3000 graphics. Indeed, HP says that it's one of the only ones offering RTX graphics in a small form factor desktop.
Both the Z2 Tower and Z2 SFF will be available in May, starting at $1,179 and $1,169, respectively.
