[Impressions] HP Z1 Workstation. Beauty. Brains. Brawn.

At the recent annual Workstations Solution World event, HP, the world’s No.1 PC maker unveiled the world’s first all-in-one workstation – HP Z1 Workstation, a powerful, sexy new 27″ computer targeted at creative professionals. HP also introduced new additions to its line of HP Z Workstations.

Beauty Is in the Details
Inspired by the BMW DesignworksUSA, who have previously also worked on the Z series workstations and HP printers, the Z1 Workstation oozes sex appeal. Yes, like no other (workstation class at least!). The ultra-sleek industrial design encapsulates simplicity and ease of use – the modular nature of the chassis and internals make it easy for users to swap, replace and upgrade parts without any tools. Green indicators marked on different modules help make removing/replacing parts a cinch.

The rear stand makes it easy to adjust tilt and angle, and can also be adjusted to be completely flat on the table, for presentations.

Brains Meet Brawn
Form is nothing without function. Don’t be deceived by the Z1’s attractive facade for it is packed with class-leading quad-core Intel Xeon processors, ECC memory, powerful NVIDIA Quadro graphics, professional display supporting more than 1 billion colours and workstation class storage.

Users have a variety of storage types to choose from including 7.2K and 10K SATA, SSD, optional RAID configurations, removable drives (AMO), a multiformat media card reader and optical drives including a slot-loading Blu-ray Writer.

The impressive 27-inch diagonal wide LED display supports more than 1 billion colors and features a wide, 178-degree viewing angle and an in-plane switching (IPS) panel. The gloss finish may not be suitable for some, though.

Other goodies include high fidelity audio supporting SRS Premium Sound, HD webcam and HD Remote Graphics Software. Users can work remotely while still accessing the high-performance 2-D, 3-D, video and media-rich applications they count on.

Beauty Inside Out
Designers and artists (and okay, geeks included) will appreciate the pains HP has gone through to make it look good and function well from the inside out. The modular structure of the chassis is revolutionary. Whilst we’ve seen the same attention to detail in consumer desktops like the popular Apple iMac, there’s nothing quite like the Z1 in workstation class all-in-one desktops.

Everything can be taken apart very easily, including processor, hard drive, RAM, and yes, power supply. No screw drivers, no tools needed. Technicians, rejoice!

Users will also appreciate that the optimized chassis design enables it to function and keep cool without an internal fan. Great for those long hours in the studio. No buzzing, whirring fan noises to distract you from being productive.

The Z1 is positioned as an affordable, powerful workstation-class all-in-one computer with a small desktop footprint, perfect for those in the creative industry especially in CAD, video production and entertainment fields.

Pricing and availability
The new HP Z1 Workstation is available now and pricing starts from RM5,888.

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[spoiler title=”View Official Press Release”]

HP Unveils World’s First 27-inch
All-in-One Workstation And Latest Additions To Z Series Workstations

New lineup includes category-defining HP Z1 and powerful new HP Z820, Z620 and Z420

KUALA LUMPUR, 27 March, 2012 – HP today kicked off its annual Workstations Solution World event in Asia Pacific. From 23 Mar to 17 Apr, HP will unveil the world’s first all-in-one workstation and also showcase new additions to its powerful, industry leading line of HP Z Workstations.

“As the workstation industry leader, HP continues to invest in technology that allows our customers to push the limits of innovation,” said Jim Zafarana, Vice President and General Manager, Commercial Solutions Business Unit, HP. “Our investments in R&D and technology have led to workstations that meet and exceed the needs of the world’s most demanding customers.”

HP Z1 – The World’s First 27” All-in-One Workstation

Designed like no other, the display of the new HP Z1 Workstation snaps open so users can easily swap out parts and make upgrades without any tools required.⁽¹⁾

The HP Z1 combines a sleek industrial design with accelerated performance featuring Intel^® Xeon^® processors,⁽²⁾ NVIDIA Quadro graphics, support for more than 1 billion colors⁽³⁾ and HP’s world-class reliability. The display of the HP Z1 is also designed

Built for computer-aided design, digital media and entertainment professionals, the HP Z1 provides blazingly fast rendering and performance. It offers a full range of workstation-class graphics cards and processors, and is thoroughly tested and certified to work with today’s leading industry applications.

Whether it’s an engineer creating 3-D components, an architect designing buildings or a videographer editing event footage, the HP Z1 gives creative professionals the power they need to bring ideas to life faster.

“The revolutionary HP Z1 sets a new industry standard for workstation design, performance and serviceability,” said Jim Zafarana, vice president and general manager, Commercial Solutions Business Unit, HP. “With its game-changing design and an experience that optimizes visual and computing performance, the HP Z1 will help attract new customers and expand our market leadership.”

Workstation performance without compromise

Workstation performance. Features professional NVIDIA Quadro graphics, ECC memory, quad-core Intel^® Xeon^® processors,⁽²⁾ independent software vendor solutions and whisper-quiet acoustics.
Tool-less chassis. Users can easily add a hard drive, upgrade memory or access the graphics card by snapping open the chassis to swap out parts.
Workstation-class storage. Users can choose from a variety of storage types, including 7.2K and 10K SATA, SSD, optional RAID configurations, removable drives (AMO), a multiformat media card reader and optical drives including a slot-load Blu-ray Writer.⁽⁴⁾
Professional display. The 27-inch diagonal wide LED display supports more than 1 billion colors⁽³⁾ and features a wide, 178-degree viewing angle and an in-plane switching (IPS) panel.
High-fidelity audio. Front-facing dual-cone speakers and SRS Premium Sound offer high-fidelity audio.
HD Webcam. Have face-to-face meetings and see every detail right down to the twinkle of an eye. Also captures HD-quality video.^(5,6)
HP Remote Graphics Software. Users can work remotely while still accessing the high-performance 2-D, 3-D, video and media-rich applications they count on.
HP Performance Advisor. Reduces the time spent troubleshooting by providing a consolidated report of the workstation’s hardware and software configuration that can be used to tune the workstation for specifically professional application workloads with just one click.

HP Z820, Z620 and Z420 – New Multicore Updates and Increased Expandability

The new Z820, Z620 and Z420 feature the latest eight-core Intel^® Xeon^® processor E5-2600 product family, offer up to 512 gigabytes (GB) of DDR3 memory,⁽⁷⁾ and support multithreaded workstation applications that professionals rely on.

The latest additions to the industry-leading line of HP Z Workstations also feature third-generation PCI Express technology, providing customers increased performance and seamless integration of new graphics cards.

Engineered for the most demanding and compute-intensive visualization needs, the HP Z820 is ideal for customers in oil and gas, mechanical computer-aided design (CAD), mechanical computer-aided engineering, medical, video and animation. The HP Z820 provides up to 16 processing cores, up to 512 GB of ECC memory, up to 15 terabytes (TB) of high-speed storage and up to dual NVIDIA Quadro 6000 graphics.
For quiet environments with minimal space, the HP Z620 is a great choice for customers in financial services, video, animation, architecture and midrange CAD. Updated to support both single- and dual-socket processors, the powerful and versatile HP Z620 provides up to 16 processing cores, up to 96 GB of ECC memory, up to 11 TB of high-speed storage, and professional 2-D and 3-D graphics up to NVIDIA Quadro 6000 or dual NVIDIA Quadro 5000 graphics.
Engineered to meet mainstream computing and visualization needs for customers in CAD, architecture, video editing and photography, the HP Z420 includes up to eight processing cores using the latest Intel^® Xeon^® processor E5-1600 and E5-2600 product families, providing up to 64 GB of ECC memory, up to 11 TB of high-speed storage, and up to NVIDIA Quadro 5000 or dual NVIDIA Quadro 2000 graphics.

More cores for “mega tasking”

The Intel^® Xeon^® processor E5-2600 product family allows for up to 16 physical cores in a single system and let 32 threads run at one time when using two processors, each with eight cores and Intel Hyper-Threading⁽²⁾ Technology enabled. The new processors include Intel® vPro™ Technology,⁽³⁾ integrated memory controllers and Intel Turbo Boost Technology.⁽⁴⁾

“HP Workstations, based on our new Intel^® Xeon^® processor E5-2600 product family are helping workstation users fast track the way they create, test and modify their innovative ideas” said Boyd Davis, Vice President, Intel Architecture Group. “Our new Intel^® Xeon^® E5 processors combine an increase in computational capacity and proficiency with an optimized i/o infrastructure. These advanced capabilities enable professionals to quickly and efficiently interact with their models while concurrently executing simulations, renderings, ray tracing and modeling their ideas on their HP Workstations.”

The new HP Z Workstations include 90-percent-efficient power supplies – reducing both overall energy usage and the amount of waste heat released. The HP Z line is registered EPEAT Gold and offers ENERGY STAR^® qualified configurations.

All HP Z Workstations offer BFR/PVC free configurations⁽⁸⁾ and more than 90 percent recyclable by weight.

HP workstations are used by some of the world’s most demanding customers in industries such as graphic arts, broadcast, CAD, engineering, medical imaging, finance, and oil and gas exploration. Companies use HP workstations to design everything from running shoes to race cars, animated characters to deep-sea submersibles, and to manage everything from billions of dollars of tradable securities to mission-critical IT environments.

Pricing and availability⁽⁹⁾

The new HP Z1 Workstation is available in Malaysia from April. Pricing starts from RM5,888.

The HP Z420, Z620 and Z820 are also expected to be available in Malaysia from April 2012. APJ pricing starts at RM3,800 for the HP Z420 Workstation, RM4,800 for the HP Z620 Workstation and RM6,000 for the HP Z820 Workstation.

About HP

HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses, governments and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.

All specifications represent the typical specifications provided by HP’s component manufacturers; actual performance may vary.
Dual-core and quad-core technologies are designed to improve performance of multithreaded software products and hardware-aware multitasking operating systems and may require appropriate operating system software for full benefits; not all customers or software applications will necessarily benefit from use of these technologies.
1.07 billion viewable colors through A-FRC technology.
As Blu-ray is a new format containing new technologies, certain disc, digital connection, compatibility and/or performance issues may arise, and do not constitute defects in the product. Flawless playback on all systems is not guaranteed. In order for some Blu-ray titles to play, they may require a DVI or HDMI digital connection and some displays may require HDCP support. HD DVD movies cannot be played on this workstation.
Internet access is required and not included.
HD content required to view HD content.
With 32-GB DIMMS, available Q2 of calendar year 2012.
Configurations of <product name> where SAS 3 ½” HDD, Creative Audio Card, Removable HDD Carrier and Frame, and/or Broadcom NIC are not selected are brominated flame retardant and polyvinyl chloride free (BFR/PVC-free); meeting the evolving definition of “BFR/PVC-free” as set forth in the “iNEMI Position Statement on the ‘Definition of Low-Halogen Electronics (BFR/CFR/PVC-Free).’” Plastic parts contain <1,000 ppm (0.1 percent) of bromine (if the Br source is from BFRs) and <1,000 ppm (0.1 percent) of chlorine (if the Cl source is from CFRs or PVC or PVC copolymers). All printed circuit board (PCB) and substrate laminates contain bromine/chlorine total <1,500 ppm (0.15 percent) with a maximum chlorine of 900 ppm (0.09 percent) and maximum bromine being 900 ppm (0.09 percent). External peripherals, connectors and cords/cables are not BFR/PVC free.
Estimated Malaysian street prices. Actual prices may vary.

[/spoiler]