HP Pro Tower 290 G9 2025, Core i9-12900K, 64GB, 2TB SSD + 4TB HDD, Black

A refurbished Dell Precision 7920 workstation with dual Xeon Platinum 8160 CPUs, 48 cores and 96 threads total, paired with a massive 768GB of RAM. At $1,650 USD, it's a bargain for heavily threaded, memory-intensive workloads like rendering, simulation, and virtualization. The Quadro P2000 GPU is the weak point, so GPU-heavy tasks will disappoint. Buy it for the CPU and RAM, not the graphics.

The dual Xeon Platinum 8160 setup is the star of the show. Each chip runs at 2.1GHz base with a 3.7GHz turbo, and while those clock speeds sound modest compared to a modern Core i9, the sheer core count changes the math entirely. With 48 cores and 96 threads, this machine lands in the 83rd percentile for CPU performance in our database. That puts it well above average, and for heavily threaded workloads like video encoding, 3D rendering, and compiling large codebases, it'll chew through jobs that would bring a typical desktop to its knees. The trade-off is single-threaded performance. Those Xeons aren't going to feel snappy in lightly threaded tasks compared to a modern consumer chip with higher boost clocks.

The 768GB of RAM is the other headline number, and it's a 93rd percentile result. That's one of the best memory configurations we've seen in this category. You could run a dozen VMs, load enormous datasets into memory, or keep entire projects cached without breaking a sweat. The storage setup is also strong, with the 1TB NVMe drive plus 4TB HDD combo landing in the 99th percentile. Boot times and application launches will be quick, and you've got room to grow with the chassis supporting up to 136TB total storage if you really want to go wild. The Quadro P2000 is where things get disappointing. It's a 36th percentile GPU, which means it falls behind most of what we see in this category. For CAD and basic visualization it's serviceable, but don't expect much from GPU-accelerated rendering or modern AI workloads.

Stacked against something like the Apple Mac Studio M4 Max, the trade-offs are stark. The Mac Studio will absolutely demolish this machine in single-threaded performance and GPU tasks, and it does it in a tiny, quiet enclosure. But you're locked into Apple's ecosystem, RAM is not upgradeable, and the price for a comparable memory configuration would be eye-watering. The Precision 7920 is the opposite: huge, expandable, and built for parallel CPU workloads rather than snappy everyday responsiveness.

Against gaming-oriented towers like the Lenovo Legion 90Y6003JUS or the MSI Aegis ZS2, this workstation loses badly in graphics performance. Those machines come with modern gaming GPUs that will run circles around the Quadro P2000 in any GPU-bound task. But they typically top out at 32GB or 64GB of RAM and have consumer CPUs with far fewer cores. The Dell Tower ECT1250 is probably the closest competitor in spirit, another workstation-class machine, but without the dual-socket configuration and massive memory ceiling you get here. If your work is CPU-bound and memory-hungry, this Precision is the better fit. If you want to game or do GPU rendering, look elsewhere.

At $1,650 USD, this is a lot of hardware for the money. A new workstation with dual Xeon Platinums and 768GB of RAM would cost several times that amount, so the refurbished route is the only way most people are getting near this level of compute without a corporate budget. The 1400W PSU alone is a premium component, and the chassis with its hot-swap bays and massive storage potential adds real value if you plan to expand over time.

The value proposition hinges entirely on your workload. If you need CPU cores and RAM above all else, this is a bargain. If you need GPU performance, you're paying for a machine where the graphics card is the weakest link, and you'll need to factor in the cost of a GPU upgrade. The refurbished status also means you're taking on some risk, though the 4.2 out of 5 rating from the six reviews we have suggests buyers are generally satisfied. Just know that with only six reviews, you're not getting a huge sample size to judge reliability.

This is one of those listings that makes you do a double take. The product name says HP Pro Tower 290 G9, but the actual specs describe a Dell Precision 7920 workstation with dual Xeon Platinum 8160 processors, 768GB of RAM, and a Quadro P2000. It's a refurbished machine being sold through Amazon's Renewed program, and the mismatch between the title and the actual hardware is the first thing you'll notice. We're reviewing what's actually in the box based on the retailer notes, not the misleading product name.

So what are you actually getting? A serious workstation. Two Intel Xeon Platinum 8160 chips give you 48 cores and 96 threads total. That's the kind of parallel processing muscle that makes short work of 3D rendering, scientific simulations, machine learning training runs, and heavy virtualization. The 768GB of DDR4 RAM is frankly absurd for most people, but if you're working with massive datasets or running multiple memory-hungry VMs, it's a legitimate selling point. Storage is a 1TB NVMe SSD paired with a 4TB HDD, which gives you fast boot and load times plus bulk storage for projects.

The Quadro P2000 with 5GB of GDDR5 is the weak link here. It's a professional GPU from 2017, and while it's fine for CAD work and driving multiple 4K displays, it's not going to impress anyone doing modern GPU rendering or AI inference. This is a CPU-bound workstation through and through. If your workloads lean heavily on the GPU, you'll want to budget for an upgrade. For everyone else, this is a lot of compute for the money.

If your work leans on the GPU, skip this. The Quadro P2000 is a 36th percentile card in our database, and it'll bottleneck modern GPU rendering, AI training, and even some video editing tasks. You'd be better off with a machine built around a modern RTX card, even if it means fewer CPU cores. The MSI Aegis ZS2 or Lenovo Legion 90Y6003JUS would serve you better for GPU-bound work, though you'll sacrifice the massive RAM capacity.

Also skip this if you want a quiet, compact machine. This is an 8.62kg full-size tower with server-grade cooling, and it's going to make noise and take up space. If you're in a small office or home environment where noise matters, the Apple Mac Studio M4 Max delivers better single-threaded and GPU performance in a fraction of the footprint. And if you're just looking for a general-purpose desktop for browsing, office work, and light creative tasks, this is massive overkill. A modern mid-range desktop will feel faster in everyday use and cost less.

For the right person, this is a fantastic deal. If you're running simulations, compiling massive projects, doing CPU-based rendering, or hosting a pile of virtual machines, the dual Xeon setup with 768GB of RAM is going to feel like a superpower compared to a typical desktop. The storage configuration is excellent, the expandability is genuinely impressive, and the price is hard to argue with for this much compute.

But this is not a general-purpose machine. The single-threaded performance will feel sluggish in everyday tasks compared to a modern Core i7 or i9 desktop, and the Quadro P2000 is a real limitation for anything GPU-heavy. If your work involves modern GPU rendering, AI model training on GPUs, or you just want a machine that feels snappy in everything, you should look at a system with a stronger graphics card and a newer CPU architecture. This is a specialized tool for specialized workloads, and it excels there.