Review HP Z1 All-in-One Workstation

I had a chance to take a look at Hewlett Packard’s all-in-one workstation the HP Z1.  Here is what I found.

Overview

The HP Z1 was a great machine to use.  I loved that it was compact but yet big enough. It was easy to transport and it performed as well as any other workstation.  With all of its components being literally in your face I expected the noise to be a bother. I found that it wasn’t. The HP Z1 runs very quietly and noise was not an issue. It had plenty of ports and functioned just like any other workstation. Not having to bend under my desk to insert media was a nice little benefit that I wanted to make sure I mentioned. Opening the body of the machine was quite easy to do and all components are easily accessed. The lack of wires was also very nice.

Main Specs

• 27” Monitor
• Intel Xeon Processor
• 16 GB DDR3-1600 ECC RAM
• Nvidia Quadro 4000M GPU
• 1 TB SATA Hard Drive
• Windows 7 Pro Operating System
• HP SATA Blu-Ray Writer Slot Load Optical Drive
• 400W Power Supply
• ISV Certification
• Tool-less Design Chassis
• Dual Display Capable

Lenovo Announces the ThinkStation E32 Entry Level Workstation

Lenovo announces its latest addition to its Thinkstation line of workstations the Thinkstation E32.  This new model comes in a SFF (Small Form Factor) as well as a Tower case.  The ThinkStation E32 features Intel’s® Xeon® E3 1200 v3 product family, the option of NVIDIA’s latest Quadro graphics cards (up to K4000 in the tower and K600 in the SFF) as well as Intel P4600 HD graphics, up to 32 GB of Error Correcting Code (ECC) RAM in both models that feature 1600 MHz DDR3 Memory DIMMs and sports six USB 3.0 ports.

Upgrading to AutoCAD 2013? Is Your Hardware Good Enough?

If you are upgrading to AutoCAD 2013, I hope you take the time to see if your current hardware can handle Autodesk's latest version of their flagship software.  If you aren't sure, then you are in luck.  I wrote a four part series for CADspeed on this very topic.

Here are links to the four articles:

The Best Hardware Configuration for AutoCAD 2013, Part 1: Can Your Current Workstation Handle The Upgrade?

The Best Hardware Configuration for AutoCAD 2013, Part 2: Current and Future Needs

The Best Hardware Configuration for AutoCAD 2013, Part 3: Review Recommended Hardware

The Best Hardware Configuration for AutoCAD 2013, Part 4: Processor, Video Card, RAM and Hard Drive

I hope this helps.  I know I learned quite a bit researching the topic.