HP Z1 G1i, Core Ultra 7 265, 32GB, 1TB SSD, Black

A monster CPU and tons of RAM make this a multitasking champ, but the lack of a dedicated GPU is a dealbreaker for most workstation users. Buy it cheap, then budget for a graphics card.

We were genuinely surprised by how snappy this thing feels in day-to-day professional workloads. The 20-core Ultra 7 265 sits in the 90th percentile for CPUs in our database, which means it chews through renders, compiles, and data crunches without breaking a sweat. The 1TB NVMe drive is solid, middle-of-the-pack storage, but it's PCIe 4.0 so load times are quick. The real shocker is the integrated Intel Graphics. For a machine billed as a workstation, the GPU sits at a mediocre 59th percentile. It's fine for pushing pixels to a couple of 4K monitors, but don't even think about GPU-accelerated tasks or gaming. Our gaming score for this config was a brutal 18.7 out of 100.

The Dell Tower ECT1250 is its most direct rival, often coming in with similar Xeon or Core Ultra configs but with Quadro GPU options that make it a more complete workstation out of the box. If you're doing any creative work, the Apple Mac Studio M4 Max absolutely smokes the Z1 in GPU tasks and efficiency, though you're locked into macOS. For a pure CPU render node or a home office server that needs a ton of ports, the HP holds its own, but the Lenovo Legion 90Y6003JUS is a better bet if you want a pre-built that can also game after hours.

Pricing is all over the map, with a spread of $1135 between vendors. At the low end around $1679, you're getting a powerful CPU and RAM foundation that's hard to beat if you don't need a GPU. At the high end near $2814, it's a terrible deal. You could build a comparable machine with a dedicated graphics card for less. If you're buying, hunt for the best price and don't overpay.

The HP Z1 G1i is a serious workstation for people who need raw CPU power and don't want to mess around building their own rig. That Intel Core Ultra 7 265 chip is an absolute monster for multi-threaded work, and HP pairs it with 32GB of fast DDR5 RAM right out of the box. Just know what you're getting into: the integrated graphics are a total buzzkill for anything beyond displaying your spreadsheets, and the price jumps around wildly depending on where you shop.

If you're looking for a machine to handle video editing, 3D modeling, or any GPU-intensive task, this isn't it. Go get a Dell Tower ECT1250 with a dedicated Quadro card or an Apple Mac Studio M4 Max instead. This HP is a brain in a jar, it needs a graphics card to really shine.

The HP Z1 G1i is a CPU powerhouse trapped in a GPU-less body. It's a fantastic foundation for a workstation if you plan to immediately slap in a dedicated graphics card, but as a complete, out-of-the-box solution, it's frustratingly incomplete for the price. Buy it for the processor and the expandability, not for what it can do on day one.