Pros & Cons
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- Powerful Ryzen AI Max+ processor
- Enough memory for local-model AI development
- Compact and mountable
- Plentiful connectivity for its size
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- Fans can get loud under load
- Memory, while generously apportioned, is not upgradable
HP Z2 Mini G1a Specs
| Boot Drive Capacity (as Tested) | 1 |
| Boot Drive Type | SSD |
| Graphics Card | AMD Radeon 8060S |
| Operating System | Windows 11 Pro |
| Processor | AMD Ryzen AI MAX+ Pro 395 |
| Processor Speed | 3 |
| RAM (as Tested) | 128 |
| Secondary Drive Capacity (as Tested) | 1 |
| Secondary Drive Type | SSD |
Mini workstations promise pro-grade hardware in places that full-size towers can’t go—and HP’s Z2 Mini G1a takes that idea even further. Starting at $1,379 ($3,039 as tested), it delivers enough real-world performance to make a larger system feel optional for certain classes of power users. With a substantial portion of its 128GB of memory addressable by the GPU, it has AI-development potential that was once limited to far larger, pricier machines. Add versatile mounting options and robust connectivity, and the Z2 Mini G1a stands out as a genuinely compelling alternative to a workstation tower. It earns an Editors' Choice award as a unique mini desktop workstation.
Configurations: Small Box, Massive Memory
HP offers the Z2 Mini in both Intel and AMD flavors. The G1a AMD model seen here is built around AMD’s “Strix Halo” AI Max Pro processors paired with Radeon integrated graphics; these GPUs share the system memory, and in the 128GB configuration we’re reviewing, up to 96GB can be allocated to graphics. That's a rare capability that makes this compact workstation unusually well-suited for AI development, where memory capacity often matters more than raw compute.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)The base model starts with the six-core Ryzen AI Max Pro 380 and its 16-core Radeon 8040S, bundled with 32GB of RAM. Stepping up to the eight-core Ryzen AI Max Pro 385 doubles the GPU core count to 32 via the Radeon 8050S. Our unit features the flagship 16-core Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395 and the 40-core Radeon 8060S.
The Z2’s LPDDR5X memory isn’t upgradable after the fact, so get as much as needed from the factory. Storage is flexible, with two M.2 Type-2280 slots supporting PCI Express 4.0 drives.
From a workstation perspective, the Z2 Mini offers strong value. Access to 96GB of GPU-addressable memory for around $3,000 street is almost unheard of, especially when the only workstation GPU offering similar capacity, Nvidia’s RTX Pro 6000, costs roughly $11,000 for the card alone. While the Z2 Mini can’t match that card’s raw performance, it can still run large AI models locally thanks to its generous memory.
Dell and Lenovo both sell compact workstations, but neither offers an AMD-based model with Ryzen AI Max processors. The closest competitor for AI-focused workloads is Nvidia’s DGX Spark platform and systems derived from it, such as Dell’s Pro Max with GB10. Those Linux-based machines pair an Nvidia "Grace Blackwell" GPU with 128GB of unified memory and land in a similar $3,000-to-$4,000 bracket. (We’re actively testing one now to better understand how the two approaches compare.)
Design: Minimum Size, Maximum Airflow
Measuring 3.4 by 7.9 by 6.6 inches, HP’s Z2 Mini earns its name. Though it’s noticeably larger than compact competitors like the Asus NUC 15 Pro+ (1.6 by 5.7 by 4.4 inches), its high performance ceiling and the inclusion of a 300-watt internal power supply rather than an external brick make the added bulk easier to justify.
The Z2 Mini offers many placement options. Rubber feet on the sides and top allow it to operate horizontally or vertically, and the HP logo rotates to match the orientation. While the chassis itself doesn’t include a built-in bracket, HP sells a VESA solution for attaching it under a desk or behind a monitor. It can even be deployed in a rack, with five units fitting in a 4U space. Users don’t need to be near it, as the system can be remotely accessed via HP’s ZCentral Remote Boost.
Buildwise, the thick plastic shell inspires confidence, and the honeycomb ventilation on the front and rear reinforces the machine’s performance focus. The system contains 60% recycled plastics, 20% recycled steel, and ships in a 100% sustainably sourced outer box.
The Z2 provides easy internal access: a slider switch on the back releases the top panel, which glides rearward to reveal two fans and a substantial copper heatsink. The cooling system is unobtrusive during everyday use, but under sustained load, the fans got loud enough that I didn’t want to be in the same room—a good argument for mounting it out of the way.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)As for ports, this system has plenty. There's nothing on the front edge, just the power button, but things get much more interesting when you look at the top (or side, depending on the orientation): a 20Gbps USB Type-A port, a 10Gbps USB Type-C port, and an audio jack. The rear panel is more densely populated with two Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) ports, two 10Gbps USB-A ports, two USB 2.0 ports, and 2.5Gbps Ethernet. The Z2 Mini can drive four 4K monitors via its two mini-DisplayPort outputs and the DisplayPort capabilities of its Thunderbolt ports.
(Credit: Joseph Maldonado)But that’s not all—our configuration leaves the right-side flex ports unused. The upper bay can accommodate two USB-A or USB-C ports, a serial port, or various networking options (1Gbps, 2.5Gbps, 10GBase-T, or 1Gbps Fiber), while the lower bay supports an additional serial port or Ethernet jack. Internal wireless connectivity is provided by a MediaTek MT7925 card with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. Thankfully, there are no external wireless antennas.
HP backs the Z2 Mini G1a with a three-year warranty including onsite service. Our model also features HP’s Wolf Pro Security for business, which offers both hardware and software protection.
Performance Testing: 'Strix Halo' Runs Rings
To recap, our Z2 Mini G1a is a high-end machine, featuring a Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395 processor (eight cores/16 threads, 5.1GHz boost), Radeon 8060S graphics, 128GB of LPDDR5X-8533 memory shared across the processor and graphics card, and two 1TB PCI Express 4.0 storage drives.
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We included several mini desktops to fill out our comparison charts for this review, starting with Apple’s Mac mini featuring a 14-core M4 Pro processor and 48GB of RAM. It’s followed by two powerful Windows mini desktops: Asus' NUC 15 Pro+, boasting a Core Ultra 9 285H and Geekom’s A9 Max with a Ryzen AI 9 HX 370. We filled the remaining spot with MSI’s tiny Cubi NUC AI+ 2MG, featuring a laptop-grade Core Ultra 7 258V.
We’ll expect the Mac to challenge the Z2, but the Z2 may have a few surprises of its own.
Productivity and Content Creation Tests
Our primary overall benchmark, UL's PCMark 10, puts a system through its paces in productivity apps ranging from web browsing to word processing and spreadsheet work. Its Full System Drive subtest measures a PC's storage throughput.
Three more tests are CPU-centric or processor-intensive: Maxon's Cinebench 2024 uses that company's Cinema 4D engine to render a complex scene; Primate Labs' Geekbench 6.3 Pro simulates popular apps ranging from PDF rendering and speech recognition to machine learning; and we see how long it takes the video transcoder HandBrake 1.8 to convert a 12-minute clip from 4K to 1080p resolution.
Finally, workstation maker Puget Systems' PugetBench for Creators rates a PC's image-editing prowess with a variety of automated operations in Adobe Photoshop 25.
The Z2 Mini breezed through the everyday workloads simulated by PCMark, excelling at office tasks and web browsing, and landing near the top of the pack in the storage benchmark. Its most impressive showings came in CPU-heavy tests: The Ryzen AI Max+ processor outpaced even Apple’s Mac mini with M4 Pro in Cinebench multi-core and essentially matched it in Handbrake. It couldn’t maintain that momentum in Geekbench, however, where the Mac pulled ahead. Apple’s system also demonstrated notably stronger single-core performance in both Cinebench and Geekbench, and it led the field in our Photoshop benchmark.
Among the remaining systems, none came close to challenging the Z2 Mini’s CPU strength, not even the Asus equipped with Intel’s Core Ultra 9 285H. The MSI, saddled with a laptop-class Core Ultra 7 258V, trailed the group across all tests.
Gaming and Graphics Tests
We challenge each reviewed system’s graphics with a quintet of animations or gaming simulations from UL's 3DMark test suite. The first two, Wild Life (1440p) and Wild Life Extreme (4K), use the Vulkan graphics API to measure GPU speeds. The second pair, Steel Nomad's regular (4K) and Light (1440p) subtests, focuses on APIs more commonly used for game development to assess gaming geometry and particle effects. A fifth test, Solar Bay, measures ray-tracing performance.
The Z2’s Radeon 8060S performed extremely well for an integrated card, with dominating scores across the board. (We don’t have scores for the Mac in any of these tests.)
Workstation Tests
We measure workstation performance starting with SPECviewperf 2020 (version 3.1), which renders, rotates, and zooms in and out of solid and wireframe models at 1080p resolution. The three subtests represent PTC's Creo CAD platform; Autodesk's Maya modeling and simulation software for film, TV, and games; and Dassault Systemes' SolidWorks 3D-rendering package.
Next up is Blender, an open-source 3D content-creation suite for modeling, animation, simulation, and compositing. We record the time it takes for Blender 4.2 to render three distinct scenes to measure CPU and GPU rendering performance.
Finally, we again use PugetBench for Creators to test DaVinci Resolve Studio 18 video-editor performance on systems suitable for that challenging app. As with Adobe Premiere, these automated tasks and features push the CPU and GPU, letting us gauge real-world media-creation speeds.
The Z2 Mini held the upper hand over the Mac in the Blender CPU test (charted above), but the tables turned in the GPU portion (not charted), where Apple’s system pulled well ahead, and it carried that lead into DaVinci Resolve. Even so, both machines are undeniably quick and more than capable of handling video editing, rendering, and light to moderate 3D work. We didn't have comparative SPECviewperf results for any compact workstation competitor, so the HP stands alone in those results.
While we don’t have a dedicated AI benchmark at this time, it’s worth restating that the Z2 Mini G1a should be particularly adept in that area with its 128GB configuration. The Mac mini tops out with just 64GB.