HP Z2 G1i Black 2026

A connectivity king with a beastly CPU, kneecapped by a tiny SSD and a mid GPU. Buy it cheap, slap in a bigger drive, and enjoy the port paradise.

The Core Ultra 7 265 absolutely rips through multi-threaded workloads. In our database, it lands in the top tier for CPU grunt, making quick work of rendering and simulation tasks. The surprise is the storage situation. A single 512GB NVMe drive in a machine this expensive feels stingy, and it shows in our benchmarks where it's firmly middle-of-the-pack. You'll want to budget for an immediate SSD swap or addition before you even install your Adobe suite.

Stacked against a Dell Tower Plus, the HP wins on raw port count and CPU muscle for threaded apps, but Dell typically offers better out-of-box storage configurations. The Lenovo Legion 34IAS10 is a different beast entirely, geared more toward gaming with a stronger GPU focus, but it can't touch the Z2's connectivity for a multi-monitor trading or engineering setup. If you need four Mini DisplayPorts and nine USB-A ports, the competitors aren't even playing the same game.

Pricing is all over the map, with a wild $1,125 spread across vendors. At the low end around $1,981, it's a compelling core for a workstation you'll immediately upgrade. At the $3,106 high end, it's a hard pass. Newegg currently has the best deal we've seen, making the entry price almost reasonable for the CPU and port layout alone.

The HP Z2 G1i is a connectivity monster disguised as a boring black tower. If your desk looks like a cable octopus with nine USB-A devices, four monitors, and a partridge in a pear tree, just stop scrolling. This thing has the port selection of a small server room, and that's its real superpower. Under the hood, the Intel Core Ultra 7 265 is a legit powerhouse for serious work, but HP made a weird choice pairing it with a GPU that's just okay.

If you're building a local AI box or a rendering farm, this isn't it. The GPU is a bottleneck for heavy compute, and the AI benchmark scores are near the bottom of the barrel. Go grab something with an RTX 4090 or a dedicated AI accelerator instead.

Buy it for the CPU and the ports, but know you're signing up for a day-one storage upgrade. This is a fantastic foundation for engineers, data crunchers, and anyone running a multi-monitor command center, as long as you don't need top-tier GPU compute. If your workflow leans heavily on GPU rendering or local AI, the RTX A1000 will leave you frustrated.