Review: HP Z840

Introduction

If your organization is looking to invest in high-powered workstations, HP has built something with you in mind.

The HP Z840 Workstation is a decent contender that competes in the same arena as the Boxx Apexx 2 Workstation, the Boston Venom 2401-12T, and the Overclockers RENDA PW-E7F. All of these machines are expensive at more than $2000 each (about £1289.17, AU$2692.08). But what they lack in affordability, they more than make up for in performance.

So, if you are looking for a mid-level business machine, or even a entry-level workstation, then the HP Z840 is not going to be the machine for you. But if what you need is top-of-the-line output from a solidly-built, customizable unit, then keep reading.

Design

In the past five years the aesthetic of the business workstation has changed dramatically from the lackluster copy-paste machine to something more appealing to the eye. The HP Z840 has the look of a modern, simple, and sleek tower.

The sides feature a gorgeous brushed aluminum with HP printed into the metal. This is surrounded by an incognito black bezel frame. On top, the HP Z840 has two handles for carrying, which you will need because the machine can get heavy depending on customization.

Covering the front of the HP Z840 is a slotted front with a DVD RW drive in the middle. Below that exists a memory card reader. Just offset on the side of the front panel are four USB 3.0 ports with a power and reset button, and auxiliary in and out ports.

The right side of the tower has a handle, which releases the door. Once opened, the HP Z840 holds everything in a very nice and smooth tool-less plastic cover. This feature will appeal to any IT professional's heart. I took the Z840 apart for testing and it was so easy to dissemble and reassemble. You can tell that HP was thinking of the most streamlined way to make the Z840 accessible to work on.

Specs

The Boxx Apexx promotes a build-to-order computer model, but HP really goes out and beyond in terms of what you can and cannot put into the HP Z840. I mean, it's almost unreal what you can configure to have in this machine if you can afford the upgrades.

The HP Z840 workstation features the latest generation of Intel Xeon processors, supporting a range of chips, from the Intel Xeon E5-2603 v3 to Intel Xeon E5-2699 v3 processor. Not only can the HP Z840 be configured to take the Xeon E5-2699 v3 18 core 2.30 GHz processor, but it can be configured for two of them. To put this into perspective, when adding on the Xeon E5-2699 into the HP Z840, the price difference from the base processor to add another $6,990 (£4474.60, AU$9490.71).

RAM can also be customized from anywhere between 4GB DDR4-2133 RAM to the max that the HP Z840 can hold which is 512GB DDR4-2133 RAM.

The HP Z840 comes packed with a NVIDIA Quadro K2200 graphics card. The model given to TechRadar had a 1TB Hard drive and a 256GB SSD drive. Now, remember, this is customizable, so you can change processor, add more hard drives, and even a secondary GPU.

Performance and flaws

Everything in this machine can be outfitted to be top-of-the-line. The unit sent to techradar will cost you $4092.80 (about £2618.43, AU$5520.14). But if you're looking for something a bit more affordable, with a few performance compromises, there are more affordable configurations available that will start at half this price.

Here is the HP Z840 configuration that was sent to techradar for review:

• CPU: 3.0 GHz Intel Xeon E5-2623v3 (quad-core, 10MB cache, up to 5GHz with Turbo Boost)
• Graphics: NVIDIA Quadro K2200 4GB DL-DVI
• RAM: 32GB DDR4-2133
• Storage: 1TB, 256GB SSD
• Ports: USB 3.0 (8), USB 2.0 (2), mini DisplayPort (1), RJ-45 to integrated Gigabit LAN (2)
• Weight: 30 lbs (13.61kg)
• Size: 6.85 (174mm) x 14.6 (457mm) x 16.6 (513) inches (W x D x H)

Performance

The HP Z840 is a quiet machine for its bulk and I think overall it's quieter than my gaming machine. In terms of boot times, the HP Z840 is wicked fast with a 20.1 second boot time and a 2.98 second awake-from-sleep time.

This is such a beefy machine that I cannot imagine what would slow it down to a grinding halt outside of a normal locked program. I used this machine as my workstation for a big network drive installation and file copying and I was using this machine to process 4 TB of data and it handled it just fine.

Here's how it performed on our standard benchmark tests:

Video Card Performance:

• 3DMark: Fire Strike Extreme 1913; Sky Diver 13763; Cloud Gate 2042
• CineBench: OpenGL 108.37 fps, CPU 1252 cb

Storage Performance:

• 1 TB HDD Performance: 2299; storage bandwidth 8.43 MB/s
• SSD Performance: 4499; storage bandwidth 307.33 MB/s

You would be wise to put a better video card in this workstation than the one I was given. I threw a ton of applications at this machine and outside of the video card not being the top-of-the-line, I could not throw enough at this machine to slow it down.

I created a 20GB ISO file (dummy file), burned a DVD, opened Word 30 times, played a Youtube video, played a Netflix video, ran a VNC server, and tested the read/write abilities of the SSD drive. Nothing slowed down. I even re-ran the SSD test to ensure that the numbers weren't off, and they were not.

Verdict

HP combines a sleek design with a powerful machine that you can customize to your liking.

We liked

The HP Z840 is everything I want in a desktop workstation. You only have to buy one machine for everyone, as in one tower model, and you can customize everything to make this the ideal machine for your needs.

We disliked

This machine can get quite costly, especially as you upgrade your specs. So, make sure you need something of this caliber before you click the "buy" button.

I am being picky but built-in-WiFi is something I want to see in the market across the board. This can be outfitted with an additional add-on card, but it should come standard for any model, especially at this price-point.

Final verdict

The HP Z840 is one of the coolest, most customizeable machines around. This is not a machine for your average user. For businesses and power users who need something with a ton of kick, you can't go wrong. Just know that if you make the decision to buy this device, you will pay a lot, and you will get a lot in return.

from TechRadar: Technology reviews http://ift.tt/1GePhEK