HP EliteDesk 805 G9 Black 2023

A RAM-packed, whisper-quiet office beast that's completely crippled for gaming. Buy it for the multitasking muscle, but triple-check the warranty and the actual ports on the back.

The 64GB of RAM is the star of the show here, sitting in the 94th percentile of our database. That's an absurd amount of memory for a business desktop, and it means you can basically open every app you own without a hiccup. The Ryzen 5 8500G CPU is a solid middle-of-the-pack performer, handling everyday tasks with ease. What surprised us, though, was the GPU. The Radeon 740M lands in the 11th percentile, which is genuinely disappointing. It's fine for driving a couple of 4K monitors, but it's a weak spot that completely tanks the system's score for anything graphically intensive.

The obvious elephant in the room is the Apple Mac mini M4 Pro. It's in a different universe for GPU performance and power efficiency, but it'll cost you more and locks you into macOS. If you're tied to Windows, the Dell Tower Plus EBT2250 is a more traditional tower with better expansion options, but it's bigger and louder. The Lenovo Legion Tower 5i is a gaming-focused machine that will run circles around the EliteDesk in any 3D task, but it's a completely different beast in terms of size and noise. For pure office productivity in a tiny footprint, the HP holds its own.

Pricing is a bit of a rollercoaster, ranging from $750 to $970 across different vendors. At the lower end, the sheer amount of RAM and the fast NVMe storage make this a screaming deal for a productivity machine. At the higher end, you're getting into territory where you could build a more balanced system yourself. The best deal we're seeing is on Amazon for the 32GB model, which is still plenty for most people and saves you a chunk of change.

The HP EliteDesk 805 G9 is a business workhorse that's been hitting the gym. HP stuffed this little SFF box with a ridiculous 64GB of DDR5 RAM, which is frankly overkill for spreadsheets but makes it a multitasking monster. The real story here is the AMD Ryzen 5 8500G chip. It's a solid performer for office work and programming, but the integrated Radeon 740M graphics are a total buzzkill for anything beyond Minesweeper. If you need a quiet, compact PC that chews through browser tabs and code compiles, this is a strong contender. Just don't expect to game on it.

If you're looking for a machine that can handle even light gaming or GPU-accelerated creative work, this isn't it. The graphics performance is one of the worst we've seen. Go get a Lenovo Legion Tower 5i or even a Mac mini M4 instead. You'll be much happier.

The HP EliteDesk 805 G9 is a specialized tool. It's a fantastic choice for programmers, data analysts, or anyone who lives in a web browser and needs a quiet, compact PC with an insane amount of RAM. But the weak integrated graphics and the worrying reports of warranty denials and third-party components are serious caveats. If you know you only need CPU and memory muscle and you buy from a vendor with a solid return policy, it's a great buy. If you have any graphical needs at all, look elsewhere.