HP today extended its heretofore consumer-only push toward an all-in-one form factor into the professional space, with the introduction of a new one-piece PC design that tucks the internal components of a high-powered workstation behind the snap-open panel of a 27-inch display.
 
The HP Z1 workstation is built around a new, custom line of NVIDIA Quadro GPUs that are engineered to draw less power and run cooler than their predecessors. The two top processors in the new line-up, the Quadro 3000M and 4000M, have 2 GB of GDDR5 memory on board, and all four of the processors utilize NVIDIA's CUDA architecture, which accelerates performance in software including Adobe Premiere Pro, Autodesk 3ds Max, and Sony Vegas. (The Z1 can also be configured with Intel's integrated Core HD and Xeon HD graphics.)

HP's Z1 workstation disassembled

The 2560×1440 LED-backlit IPS display snaps open to allow users to upgrade the system. No tools at all are required to swap out the power supply, graphics card, hard drives, cooling fan, or RAM.

As usual for an HP workstation, the systems are highly configurable. Users can choose between Windows 7 (32-bit or 64-bit) and Linux, and the system supports up to 32 GB of RAM. Storage options include 7200-rpm or 10K SATA drives as well as SATA SSDs, plus DVD +/- RW or a Blu-ray writer. The system supports USB 3.0 on two ports, and can handle a single external display.

The Z1 workstations are slated to be available in April, starting at $1899. From there, obviously, the sky's the limit.

For more information: www.hp.com.