My New HP Zbook Studio G3. May Be The First in This Region.

After waiting for quite sometime, watching it launched end of last year, I finally got my own HP Zbook Studio G3.

Frankly speaking, I'm so excited about this awesome HP Zbook Studio, as it's truly the first true quad core Ultrabook with  ground up design by Hewlett Packard. I've been informed that this less than 1" thin notebook is actually a mega beast performer. I think I may decommission my good old HP Z800 Personal Workstation. Hahaha. So, here's the configuration of the new HP Zbook Studio G3 that goes inside my backpack:

• ​Intel Core i7-6820HQ Skylake CPU
• Windows 10 Pro 64 downgrade to Windows 7 Pro 64 (Yes, I'd prefer Windows 7 instead of going to Windows 10, yet)
• Nvidia Quadro M1000M Special Edition with 4GB GDDR5 graphics memory
• 15.6" B-LED Ultra HD IPS (3840x2160) display with 720p webcam
• 16GB DDR4 RAM
• 512B Z Turbo Drive G2 PCIe SSD
• Intel 8260 WLAN & Bluetooth 4.0
• Fingerprint reader
• HDMI 1.4
• 4-cell 64 WHr Prismatic Li-Ion battery with 150W slim power supply

The graphics, display and storage listed above are not components you could easily find in any other notebooks nor mobile workstations. But, what makes this Zbook Studio shines over other mobile workstations, other than its lightweight and powerful configurations, are:

1. RJ-45 Gbps ethernet port. Yes, this is available in this Ultrabook form factor!
2. 3 ports of USB 3.0, with 1 USB 3.0 charging capability to charge my mobile device in off or standby condition.
3. 2 ports of Thunderbolt 3! Yes! It has dual Thunderbolt 3 ports!. This means Ican have 40Gbps ports to run at full speed for my external storage device, my two external 4K displays and any peripherals using USB-C ports. Oh, and if I need to connect my Zbook Studio to other Zbook Studio, I could have 10Gb network connection with it. This means, collaborative workflow gets even faster.
4. Bang and Olufsen built-in speakers! Oh yeah! This will surely spoil my ears when watching 4k movies or even just listening to 192Kbps music streams. I hope this wouldn't bug my neighbors.

Design Perspective

HP has done it again. But this time they set a new bar on how a mobile workstation should look and equipped, aside from their award winning and acknowledged performance. A previous hands-on review on HP Zbook Studio was written by TechRadarPro. Click the image below to go to TechRadarPro's review page.

I couldn't agree more to that statement, as I've been using Workstation since, well, a really long time ago. Since when? Oh yes, the first time I owned and used Workstation was back in 1996. Since then, I never look back to use desktop computer or normal laptop. I own some of common computers and notebooks, but no longer use them for daily work.

​The revolutionizing design of the metal chassis and Ultrabook form factor really make it looks so dazzling. At least from my point of view. 
​

Performance

This has been in question since the first time I received information about this tiny "Mega Beast". The Intel Skylake processor architecture in this Zbook Studio G3, may be the last generation of Intel's "tick-tock" processor development strategy. So, this Skylake architecture would be the "tock" and closing product for the strategy Intel has been using since 2006. But, let's not talk about it. I know you're eager to see how this Zbook Studio performs.

I will use my own standard testing methods, using free software available on the web. They are:

• ​Cinebench R15
• ATTO Bench32

Cinebench R15
To make it equal testings to any other of HP workstations I have, I'm setting the display resolution from 4K (3840x2160) down to FHD (1920x1080). This way, it will match the screen size of common FHD resolution.

Both tests show remarkable performance compare to previous generation (G2) mobile workstations. The brown bars represent condition when power adaptor is connected to the Zbook Studio. The bright orange bars represent condition when the Zbook Studio is running on battery. Both already got optimized before conducting any tests through HP Performance Advisors and some additional tweaks.

ATTO Bench32
Again, since this HP Zbook Studio is equipped with 512GB HP Z Turbo Drive G2 (generation 2) PCIe SSD, the performance is simply like having a tall stack of  configured spinning RAID drives in a tiny slim form factor. I could remember the time many years ago, to achieve about half of this HP Z Turbo Drive G2 performance, I needed to stripe 6 SCSI-2 drives in a huge enclosure and believe me, the sound of it, was truly like in a machinery compound. That's why we always listened to the music while working with those stacked RAID drives. And now, I could listen to Strauss, Maroon 5 musics or even Quran recital by Mishary Rasheed, without any bothering sound from the Zbook Studio's storage.

As you see, it simply has max scores of more than 2.2GB per second in reading speed and more than 1.5GB per second in writing speed. Impressive figures! Oh yeah!!!

First Field Test

I've just used this Zbook Studio G3 to design my own F-15C parkjet and it boosted my productivity when using Rhinoceros 5.0 and XFLR, anywhere and anytime.

Click to Enlarge

Click to Enlarge

And how does it look for that plane after being designed inside Zbook Studio G3, constructed and flew? I could say, it's a master piece! Have a look at this video of its maiden day compilation video.

More Pictures

And here are some more pictures of its unboxing moment.

Update: May 27, 2016 09:02am

More Benchmark Results

I completed some more brief tests using Blender Blenchmark, to test both CPU and GPU on rendering tasks. The results were remarkably amazing! It's much faster than my good old HP Z800!

Blenchmark CPU Rendering Test: 3mins 16secs

Blenchmark GPU Rendering Test: 2mins 27secs

So, in comparison, my HP Z800's score is being beaten by this phenomenal HP Zbook Studio G3. Well, it's good to know that I'm carrying a powerhouse high performance computing, slipped into my backpack.

I've tested the Zbook Studio to do some more rendering using Pixar's RENDERMAN 20 inside Blender 2.77. I got astonishing result and speed, specially with the DENOISER feature turned on. Blazingly fast production result.

To get/order this amazing HP Zbook Studio G3, use this contact form.