The HP Z2 Mini G4 is a mini desktop with the performance of a far larger workstation, complete with Xeon processor options and ISV certifications.
- The HP Z2 Mini Workstation Finally a revolutionary mini PC for CAD that delivers breakthrough power and versatility in a small, elegant design. Made by and for design professionals, the Z2 Mini G3 Workstation gives you both performance and reliability for the best CAD experience.
- HP introduced the HP Z2 Mini G3, a mini PC with a workstation-class Nvidia Quadro GPU that supports Intel Xeon E3-1200v5 CPUs. Intel NUC 8 VR (NUC8i7HVK) Review: Core i7, AMD Vega Meet in.
Kiwi2 wrote:SushiEater wrote:By the way, my CPU is only third generation but I bet it is at least twice or maybe 3 times faster than your laptop. I am running 3930k at 4.5Ghz.Same for me.
3rd gen i7-3770k. I can overclock it at a very stable 4.6Ghz or 'fairly stable' 4.7Ghz, but prefer to run it at 4.5Ghz now with the lower voltage and less heat generation, so slower quieter running fans on the biggest meanest heatsink I could fit inside the mid-tower case.Mine is mid/full tower which is wider than normal. 3930k is 6 core so requires more cooling so I have a radiator with 4 slow but potent push/pull arrangement fans mounted outside with water pump and expansion tank mounted on inside.I built the whole system myself.Now, 3930k is not very energy efficient obviously because it is build on 32nm process but new upcoming CPUs will be based on 10nm. Mine runs on 1.45v for overclocking which is one notch before the red zone!!!!!! Medon78 wrote:strawbale wrote.HP Z2 Mini G4 has 8th Gen:Thanks for pointing this out.Now, let's see if HP updates the Z2 mini with next year's CPU generation. Looks like a winner to me.Edit: Oops. We love almost everything about the Z2 Mini, but it does get loud.'
Which proves the point some contributers in this thread made.BR MedonAfter reading through this thread and checking out various reviews on these NUCs, it looks like you might want to reconsider getting a new laptop. You mentioned portability isn't important so what about a 17' (gaming?) laptop? Rb0321 wrote:After reading through this thread and checking out various reviews on these NUCs, it looks like you might want to reconsider getting a new laptop. You mentioned portability isn't important so what about a 17' (gaming?) laptop?Thought about this as well.From what I understand, current notebooks are generally still thermal limited.
Many top i7 CPUs for mobile still have a base frequency of 2.2 GHz (same as my old laptop). Medon78 wrote:rb0321 wrote:After reading through this thread and checking out various reviews on these NUCs, it looks like you might want to reconsider getting a new laptop. You mentioned portability isn't important so what about a 17' (gaming?) laptop?Good advice. My wife and I are extremely happy with HP Omen 17 laptops. Both were purchased for under $1000 USD after discount. Hers has more memory for Windows and mine has UHD screen for Linux photo editing.Thought about this as well. From what I understand, current notebooks are generally still thermal limited.Thermal design of the Omen laptop is good, I guess because it's made for gaming.
The fan is loud when visiting stupid websites with DRM and over-advertising, but I don't remember seeing dropped frames in video. I can load 26Mp RAF images in darktable without the fan coming on. Possibly there is a GPU that is more efficient than the GTX 1050?Also, Windows 10 has better power management than Linux, according to net.wisdom. Rb0321 wrote:medon78 wrote:strawbale wrote.HP Z2 Mini G4 has 8th Gen:Thanks for pointing this out.Now, let's see if HP updates the Z2 mini with next year's CPU generation. Looks like a winner to me.Edit: Oops. We love almost everything about the Z2 Mini, but it does get loud.'
Which proves the point some contributers in this thread made.BR MedonAfter reading through this thread and checking out various reviews on these NUCs, it looks like you might want to reconsider getting a new laptop. You mentioned portability isn't important so what about a 17' (gaming?) laptop?I doubt fan noise in a performance laptop, even 17', is less than the latest NUC, which has a much bigger (& quieter) fan than the previous NUCs.It depends whether you (think you) need a dGPU (or not). Medon78 wrote:I started building my own PCs in the early 90s with a Pentium 90.
It was both frustrating and amazing at times to see Moore's law at work. Every two years we got an substantial performance increase. Seems these times are over for now.Moore's law is the observation that the number of in a dense doubles about every two years.It was for some time analogous to the bastardized quote that they get twice as powerful. Memory and other i/o has become a barrier, and the focus shifted to smaller footprint, lower power demanding processesors that still show increase in density. The on board gpu has been getting most of the benefit. Medon78 wrote:rb0321 wrote:After reading through this thread and checking out various reviews on these NUCs, it looks like you might want to reconsider getting a new laptop. You mentioned portability isn't important so what about a 17' (gaming?) laptop?Thought about this as well.From what I understand, current notebooks are generally still thermal limited.
Many top i7 CPUs for mobile still have a base frequency of 2.2 GHz (same as my old laptop). I guess that after a few minutes under high load (or while using all cores) these new CPUs go back to only 2.2 GHz as well.My 'ho-hum', 2-year-old HP Envy x360's base speed is 2.9GHz w/turbo-boost to 3.5GHz. While running several tasks I see it run up close to 3.5GHz often and the fan runs some but is usually fairly quiet even then. The only time it gets more 'noticeable' is when having a couple programs open, then using Lightroom and maybe Elements, or as CAcreeks mentioned, on a web site with lots of graphics, videos, etc. Strawbale wrote:rb0321 wrote:After reading through this thread and checking out various reviews on these NUCs, it looks like you might want to reconsider getting a new laptop. You mentioned portability isn't important so what about a 17' (gaming?) laptop?I doubt fan noise in a performance laptop, even 17', is less than the latest NUC, which has a much bigger (& quieter) fan than the previous NUCs.It depends whether you (think you) need a dGPU (or not).Possibly, although some bigger laptops could accommodate better fans too.When my x360 does get going at least it has a fairly non-intrusive tone, which can make a big difference.Before I got it I had purchased a Dell 15' laptop (forget exact model) for a little less since it had the previous (6th) gen i7 CPU. The fan spun up on just opening a browser and got annoyingly loud very quickly - it barely slowed at all during the short time I had it.
Intel Nuc Vs Hp Z2 Plus
Took it back the next day since after a couple hours use it also developed a slight rattling sound that didn't instill a feeling of confidence for it's longevity. Medon78 wrote:What would be the best bang for the buck, with an emphasis on quiet operation and small form factor?You can get a refurbished Dell Optiplex 3050 small form factor with a 3.9 ghz 7th gen i7 for $372. I don't have that particular model, but for the most part the loudest part of an Optiplex is the spinning HD.outlet.dell.comThey're not tiny, but they're pretty small, and for that price you'd need to add ram.I always figure out how to make room for a small tower, because it's so much easier to work inside them. Kelpdiver wrote:medon78 wrote:I started building my own PCs in the early 90s with a Pentium 90. It was both frustrating and amazing at times to see Moore's law at work.
Every two years we got an substantial performance increase. Seems these times are over for now.Moore's law is the observation that the number of in a dense doubles about every two years.It was for some time analogous to the bastardized quote that they get twice as powerful. Memory and other i/o has become a barrier, and the focus shifted to smaller footprint, lower power demanding processesors that still show increase in density. The on board gpu has been getting most of the benefit.Good point(s), and a timely article mentioning it.
Medon78 wrote:Still working on my stone age Dell XPS 15 Laptop. It is a 2011 model with a 2nd gen Intel i7 quad CPU (i7-2720QM) and 8GB ram, and a 512GB SSD.The system is still quite OK for everyday tasks. I only wish for snappier 4k performance (external monitor) and an overall quieter operation.
The CPU fan runs often.I searched around. Since I do not really need another laptop, I was hoping by ditching the 'mobile' aspect, I could get a huge performance boost over my current laptop for a bargain. I mean, it is 7 years later now.But it seems any decently spec'ed Intel NUC easily costs 1000$ and will not even double CPU performance, according to several benchmarks.That's a little disappointing.Or am I wrong?What would be the best bang for the buck, with an emphasis on quiet operation and small form factor?Regards,MedonMight be alittle late to chim in.I bought the NUC 8i7BEH during Christmas last year.
It comes with a 8th gen i7 8559U processor. It is tiny and it's basically a laptop w/o screen and KB/trackpad. This processor runs an integrated graphics call Iris Plus 655. Apple uses it for their base MBPro. If its good for apple to call it pro, it is good for many things, and apple managed to pump out 10bit per color channel on this via Metal (equiv DirectX from MS).I put 16GB on it and had an existing NVMe lying around. The NUC is mainly for me to surf web and other simple tasks.
No issues processing my Sony 42MP files, but I don't do big batch processing, only a few at a time using Photoshop ACR and Sony Imaging Edit. Pushing 4K pixels on my TV via HDMI. Colors looks great. Also streaming video from my NAS and the quality is fantastic. The convenience of having audio via HDMI is wonderful.Here's a little bonus that you might like, it is hackintosh friendly, if you like that kind of stuff. I tried High Sierra and it worked. Comes with type-C usb TB3 for future expansion, external storage or eGPU.
Lots of fun for me with this little box, really happy for what it is. So, in case anybody cares: I got a slightly more powerful PC. I got me a machine which was on display in an electronics market and went on eBay with a nice rebate, compared to the brand-new price.It is not tiny, but at least has an internal power supply and comparably strong graphics card (GTX 1070). CPU is an i7 8700, which runs on most tasks 4.3 Ghz.It ticks all of my boxes: Much better 4k performance, good performance (it is 2-3x times faster compared to my old laptop).
So far, so good.Nevertheless, I will keep an eye on the recently released AMD 3rd gen Ryzens. The look very promising.Anyway, all of your comments proved to be true:. the absolute performance gain in comparison to my stone age laptop with the i7-2720 is nice, but not jaw-dropping. the quite big form factor of the MSI Nightblade allows for some effective cooling, keeping noise under high load on an acceptable (for me) levelRegards!Medon.
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