HP's New Z Displays Are Now Shipping; Dell's High-Res Mobile System Is Coming Soon

HD and Dell were both talking up workstations at last week's SIGGRAPH, with HP debuting the Z230 workstation and showing a line-up of IPS panels available now dubbed Z Displays. Meanwhile, Dell gave showgoers a preview of a slim notebook with a very high-resolution screen.

The new Z230 workstation replaces the Z220 as HP's entry-level workstation. It comes in a Tower model as well as in a 57 percent smaller Small Form Factor (SFF) version. Both systems come with Intel Xeon E3-1200 v3 family processors, can run up to 32 GB of ECC or non-ECC RAM (if you're buying a pro workstation, you should definitely get the ECC RAM) and come standard with a 400W power supply. Up to six monitors are supported, allong with four PCIe slots, one PCI slot, 10 external USB ports and a fast-charging USB port (on the Tower version). They start at $999 in quad-core configurations and are expected in August.

HP's Z Displays are replacements for the older line of Performance Series Monitors, ranging in size from the 21.5-inch Z22i ($239) to the 23-inch Z23i ($259) and topping out with the 24-inch Z24i ($399). Along with the Z24i's extra inches comes a 16:10 aspect ratio and 1920×1200 resolution; the other screens measure 16×9 with 1920×1080 resolution. The Z24i also has five USB 2.0 ports, compared to three on the other two displays. All three models are shipping now. (They do not, however, replace HP's 24-inch DreamColor LP2480zx, now priced at $2249, for color-critical applications.)

Dell introduced the Precision M3800 mobile workstation, an 18mm-thick notebook that weighs in at 4.5 pounds in its lightest configuration and meets the challenge of Apple's MacBook Pro Retina models with its own 3200×1800 multi-touch display. Dell is emphasizing looks and power with the sleek new system, which made an appearance on-stage at Nvidia's Limelight event at SIGGRAPH, which Dell co-sponsored. It will be configurable with Haswell processors from Intel and Nvidia Quadro graphics. More detailed specs haven't been announced, but a max of 16 GB of RAM, a 1 TB hard drive and a 512 GB SSD option are rumored. Expect to hear more from Dell soon.