HP Z G5 Workstations, put to the test!

This article is also available in: French

HP recently unveiled its new range of professional workstations: the HP Z G5 series. We took this opportunity to put them to the test, to get an idea of their performance.

Three workstations put to the test

As usual, HP offers its range in different flavours: Z1, Z2, Z4, Z6, Z8, with Z1 workstation corresponding to the entry-level and Z8 to the most powerful (and massive) specs. Of course, customers can adjust the specs depending on their needs.

Nous avons pu tester trois configurations typiques :

We were able to test three typical configurations:	HP Z6 G5 Workstation	HP Z8 G5 Workstation
– Intel Xeon W3-2435 3.10GHz (8 cores) – NVIDIA RTX A4000 16Go VRAM – 128GB RAM – Storage: Z Turbo Drive 1TB PCIe 4×4 TLC – Windows 11 Pro	– Intel Xeon W5-3433 2.00GHz (16 cores) – NVIDIA RTX A4500 20Go VRAM – 128GB RAM – Storage: Z Turbo Drive 1TB PCIe 4×4 TLC – Windows 11 Pro	– Intel Xeon W5-3423 2.10GHz (12 cores) – NVIDIA RTX A6000 48GB VRAM – 128GB RAM – Storage: Z Turbo Drive 1TB PCIe 4×4 TLC – Windows 11 Pro

Conflict of Interest and Testing Conditions

It is important to note that the HP Z G5 workstations tested here were provided by Progiss, a long-standing partner of 3DVF and reseller of HP solutions. Including, of course, the workstations showcased in this article.
In order to minimize biases, we will stick as much as possible to factual elements. Afterwards, it is up to you to form your own opinion.

Test conditions:

• As always, we use the NVIDIA Studio drivers.
• We left the HP default performance mode on.
• The versions of the tools used for the tests are those available at the time of the publication of this article.
• Hyperthreading was disabled for the Z6, on the advice of a technician from the Progiss team: CPU 3D rendering performance was then improved. Moreover, when purchasing a workstation, we advise you to specify to your retailer (whoever they are and whatever the brand) the type of use planned. This way, they will help you adjust the configuration and settings.

HP Z G5: hardware & cases

To begin with, let’s briefly look at how these HP Z G5 workstations are built.

Let’s start with the Z4 G5 workstation, the smallest of the three. When we open the case, we don’t see many electronic components, as most of them are still hidden. Some of the airflow comes from the front, and is used to cool the CPU. Two fans located on the side, towards the bottom of the machine, bring fresh air directly to the GPU.
Two fans located on the side, towards the bottom of the machine, bring fresh air directly to the GPU.

HP offers an easy access system for maintenance: for example, by pulling on the handle located at the bottom right, you can disassemble the piece that holds the two bottom fans. No tools to use, no cables to disconnect, everything is integrated. You can then access the GPU.

Let’s open the HP Z6 G5 workstation: it follows the same philosophy.

Last, but not least, here is the massive GP Z8 G5 workstation. Two handles at the front and back make it easier to transport (the Z4, Z6 workstations have smaller handles, since they are lighter).

Here, all the airflow comes from the front, but with a separate airflow for the GPU and the CPU.

After this overview, let’s move on to the benchmarks!

HP Z G5: CPU Benchmarks

Let’s start with some CPU rendering benchmarks.

Blender Benchmark – CPU

We use Blender Benchmark 3.6.0. This benchmark relies on the Cycles renderer and three different scenes.

	Z4	Z6	Z8
Monster	99.6	107.3	116.7
Junkshop	65.7	69.7	74.7
Classroom	50.9	52.3	57.6

V-Ray CPU

Chaos provides a CPU and GPU benchmark based on V-Ray 5. Here, we use it in CPU mode.

	Z4	Z6	Z8
Score (higher is better)	11277	12471	12822

Cinebench CPU

Cinebench relies on the renderer used by Maxon Cinema 4D.

	Z4	Z6	Z8
Score (higher is better)	881	873	990

Oddly enough, our Z4 G5 workstation performs slightly better than the Z6 for this specific benchmark. The Z6 workstation has a CPU with more cores but at a lower frequency than the Z4, and the same amount of RAM. Engines respond differently to such specs variations, and Cinebench seems to behave differently than our other benchmarks for these specific specs.

HP Z G5: GPU Benchmarks

The following benchmark will give us an idea of how powerful NVIDIA RTX A4000, A4500, A6000 really are.

Blender Benchmark GPU

The scenes are the same ones used for the CPU benchmark. This time, everything is rendered on the GPU.

	Z4	Z6	Z8
Monster	1690.3	2047.4	2796.4
Junkshop	996.9	1250.3	1655.9
Classroom	853.1	1049.5	1422.9

It looks like Cycles really appreciates the NVIDIA RTX A6000, with a massive gain compared to the A4500.

Octanebench

OctaneBench is a free GPU benchmark based on OctaneRender. It is compatible with Windows, Linux, Mac OSX.

	Z4	Z6	Z8
Score (higher is better)	374,7	504,9	612,6

Cinebench GPU

Maxon Cinebench is used in GPU mode.

	Z4	Z6	Z8
Score (higher is better)	10 772	13 808	16 237

V-Ray GPU

Once again, we use a benchmark already featured above, but in GPU mode.

	Z4	Z6	Z8
CUDA	1290	1434	1897
RTX	1531	1827	2395

3D real time

We now focus on real-time 3D tests, which have different constraints from GPU rendering. We use 3DMark, a widely-used benchmark, as well as a more recent one: EZBench.

EZBench

EZBench is a real-time 3D benchmark under Unreal Engine, using two distinct scenes:

• Photogrammetry Test: 8K textures, hardware ray tracing, several billion polygons.
• Particle Test: several hundred thousand particles, over one billion polygons, 8K textures.

We ran the test in 2160p, DLSS in “balanced” mode. In other words, balanced between visual quality and performance gain.

	Z4	Z6	Z8
Particle Test	4626	5630	7568
Photogrammetry Test	6484	7582	9584

Relics of Life

Relics of Life is a real-time 3D benchmark edited by BaseMark. It is available for Windows, Linux, Mac OSX. It supports DirectX 12 and Vulkan 1.2 APIs. The rendering is done in 2560 x 1440 pixels, with 4K textures.
This benchmark uses real-time ray tracing with multiple bounces, global illumination, Ground Truth Ambient Occlusion (GTAO), Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA), bone/vertex animations.

	Z4	Z6	Z8
Score (higher is better)	3977	4985	6987

3DMark

Two 3DMark benchmarks are used.

Speed Way, the most recent one, relies on DirectX 12 Ultimate and features real-time ray tracing rendered at 2560×1440 resolution. Time Spy is older and relies on DirectX 12.

	Z4	Z6	Z8
Speed Way	2940	3573	5087
Time Spy Extreme	5582	6512	8760

HP Z G5: AI-based software

For this last performance benchmark, let’s have a quick look at AI-based creative tools. These typically rely quite heavily on the GPU.

These tools or features are more and more widespread: Lightroom uses AI, for example, to reduce digital noise in photos, while DaVinci Resolve relies on AI for certain taskes like creating masks.

DaVinci Resolve 18

First, let’s focus on the “Magic Mask” tool from DaVinci Resolve 18. This tool allows you to select a subject with a simple sketch, and then ask Resolve to create a dynamic mask that will track the movements of this element in the video. This is very useful, for example, create a mask on a person in order to adjust color values without affecting the rest of the scene.

	Z4	Z6	Z8
Export time	31,7	27,5	22,9

ON1 Resize AI

ON1 Resize AI is a picture resizing tool.

We how long it takes to export a set of 5 photos (approximately 4000×6000 pixels) while doubling their resolution. Obviously, we want the shortest export time possible.

	Z4	Z6	Z8
Export time	87,4	76,6	62,8

Here are the results of the two previous tests: contrary to the other performance benchmarks, we want the lowest score possible.

Noise

Noise is measured at a distance of 50cm (about 20 inches) away from the workstation. The sound level meter is placed in front of the machine, then at a 45° angle (depending on the case, the angle can have an impact on the noise level). The highest value is retained. The background noise is about 35 to 40 dB, which corresponds to a typical office.
We measure the noise in three different situation: idel, CPU+GPU stress test, and during startup.

(noise in dB)	Z4	Z6	Z8
Idle	38	38	38
CPU+GPU stress test	42.7	41.9	47.9
Peak during startup	46.5	44.2	39.9

As a reminder, in an open space office, the ambient noise is typically between 35 and 55dB.

At rest and in the ambient noise of an office, these workstation can barely be heard. Furthermore, they all have basically the same loudness when idle (at least, within the margin of error of our sonometer).

The Z6 remains surprisingly quiet under load: nothing to complain about. The Z4 workstation is a bit noisier, probably partly due to the slightly thinner casing, and the Z8 is even more noisy under load, which is to be expected since it has a powerful GPU and CPU.
Ultimately, it’s at startup that the Z4 and Z6 exhibit a noise peak, while the OS is booting up.

Power consumption

Due to environmental concerns and rising energy costs, companies are more and more aware of the importance of monitoring how power-hungry their workstations are.

We measured the power consumption of the workstation in two situations:

• Idle: the workstation is turned on, on the Windows desktop. No creative application has been launched. The idea is to estimate how much electricity the workstation will require when it is running.
• Under heavy load, using Furmark (a GPU benchmark) and CPU-Z (which profides a CPU stress test). This is an extreme case.

	Z4	Z6	Z8
Idle (W)	66	105	107
Extreme load (W)	347	468	584

Conclusion

Unsurprisingly, the most powerful workstation comes ahead il all our benchmarks. Furthermore, as mentioned above, our tests on the Z6 workstation highlight that you definitely should adjust the settings of your workstations depending of the kind of projects you plan to do: disabling hyperthreading can be a good idea in some cases. Which is why you should also discuss this with your reseller, as they will be able to guide you and, if needed, adjust the spects and settings of a workstation to better fit your needs.

HP Z G5 workstation are available via various reseller, including from our partner Progiss. Head over to 3DVF.fr for more information.