HP Z2 Mini G1a Workstation Review: Petite Power For Professionals
Now, to be clear, the Z2 Mini G1a is nowhere near as fast as even the next most power-thirsty system on our chart here. It also uses hardware meant for laptops, not desktops, and that's why its idle power is so low. However, it's still an objectively powerful system with more main memory bandwidth than anything else on the chart, and it can legitimately do things those systems can't, like AI image generation with FLUX.1-Dev. (Well, the 5090 machines can do it, too, but that GPU costs as much as this whole system.)
Under a full "power virus" workload, we managed to record an at-the-wall power consumption value of 256 watts at the highest. While that's a ton of power for a machine with essentially one processor, it's still a hell of a lot less power than a typical workstation or gaming desktop under that same workload. Overall, the power consumption is nice and low, relative to the machine's capabilities. Does that mean low noise?
No it does not. In fact, when you load up the Z2 Mini G1a, it can get kind of loud. The above is a capture of the system's sound output while running the OCCT Power test for a little over 30 minutes. That test fully loads the CPU and GPU, so it isn't necessarily a completely realistic representation of use, but we wanted to see just how loud the system's fans could get since we didn't have any means to control the fan speed. Note that it's entirely possible to max out the system's 160W power limit with a CPU-only or GPU-only load, so you get these same results with Cinebench CPU or Blender GPU.
To be clear, at idle the HP Z2 Mini G1a is absolutely silent. However, once the load ramps up, especially on the CPU, the fans kick into high gear and the machine cam get noisy. Under normal use, as a workstation, this is not likely to be a problem because typical desktop usage, even multitasking with numerous apps and multiple videos going, doesn't cause this kind of load. Ironically if you use it "off-label" as a gaming machine, it can be an annoyance because the fans can drown out the sound of your game.
The relatively large cooling apparatus and noisome fans, however, don't prevent the CPU from hitting some pretty spicy temperatures. In fact, all you need to do to hit 100°C is simply load up Cinebench, or any similar heavy CPU-only load, and the CPU cores will immediately hit their 100°C thermal ceiling. Now interestingly, the CPU doesn't ever report that it's thermal throttling (at least, not in a way that HWiNFO can see), but we do observe clock rates falling down into the 4.2 to 4.3 GHz range, which is a bit below where we would like them to be.
In a gaming workload, things are different. The system is drawing a similar amount of power—more, actually—but it never hits the quite the same temperatures and we didn't observe GPU clock rate throttling under load. This could partially be down to the fact that the GPU die is simply so much larger than the CPU CCDs that the vapor chamber heatsink is more able to pull heat away from the chip. Whatever the case, it seems like the cooling is more or less up to task for the ~160W power load; it may benefit from a better thermal interface material or even better mounting, though.
HP Z2 Mini G1a Micro Strix Halo Workstation: Our Thoughts
This is the most time we've ever spent testing a single product, and for good reason: the HP Z2 Mini G1a Workstation is an unusual product. It straddles the line between laptop and desktop, and between NUC and workstation. There are many things about the Z2 Mini G1a that we like, and many things that could use improvement. We're not going to reiterate every single complaint or praise here, since we've covered most of it in detail above.The performance of the Z2 Mini G1a, while a bit quirky, is very good for the size and power consumption of the system. This machine will absolutely satisfy anyone doing creative work that doesn't rely on having a powerful discrete GPU, like photo and video editing, visual arts and graphic design, using a DAW for music production, software development, and even some 3D work like 3D modeling and sculpting or CAD/CAM. Obviously, it's well capable of running local and edge AI workloads as well, although it's better suited for some models (big LLMs) than for others (diffusers.)
Those users might be less enthusiastic about the fan noise and the peculiar I/O on this system, though. The former probably isn't going to be a problem unless you're heavily loading the CPU cores on the regular, but it's definitely noticeable when those fans kick up. The latter point, the somewhat-limited selection of I/O compared a typical desktop or proper full-sized workstation, is also probably okay—you'll just have to make use of USB hubs or Thunderbolt docks, and grab some Mini-DisplayPort cables or adapters.
While we point out some caveats with the HP Z2 Mini G1a Workstation, actual problems with this system are few and far between. The headphone jack issue is an annoyance that thankfully went away with a fresh OS install. The fact that the Z2 Mini G1a performs measurably better in Linux is a curious quirk, and if your workloads translate to Linux gracefully, that's absolutely how we'd recommend using this machine. Of course, not every workload does.
HP's suggested retail price for this system is over five thousand dollars, which doesn't make much sense. The company clearly knows that, because if you poke around its web shop you can find this very configuration for just over half that. Even $2,569 still feels slightly high given the specs, but there's much more to this system than its specs. AMD Ryzen PRO features bring hardware-enforced security, full-system memory encryption, and secure nested paging, and then HP adds Premium+ enterprise support and its own security stack on top: HP Anyware, Proactive Insights, and Wolf Security—which goes well beyond antivirus to include threat containment, firmware integrity management, and even lost-device protection through Wolf Protect & Trace.
In short, this system proves that Strix Halo can kick butt in a desktop, and if you want one, we don't blame you. The Z2 Mini G1a's compact size and integrated power supply are enticing. If you're not going to make use of the unique Flex I/O ports or the enterprise-class management and security features, though, we might recommend you check out some competing devices, like the Framework desktop, which is available for less and is slightly more repairable. For its intended professional and corporate market though, the Z2 Mini G1a is a clear hit, especially with Linux.
