Starting at Under $900, Systems Now Have Integrated M.2 Slot, Up to 64 GB RAM, and Remote Software for Macs

The newest HP Z240 workstations will be available with up to 4.2 GHz of processing power, the company said, thanks to support for the latest Intel CPUs, a choice of Nvidia or AMD graphics, and HP's Z Turbo Drive PCIe SSDs.

The Z240 can be configured with a new Intel i7 6700k 4 GHz procesor with turbo boost up to 4.2 GHz, HP said. Anticipating the availability of faster processors, the original Z240 design included voltage regulation and updated fan tables to handle the thermal demands of the faster processing as well as any nosie generated by additional cooling requirements.

Other new features in the third-generation Z240 line-up include an integrated M.2 expansion slot (which frees up a PCi slot for a Z Turbo device), up to 64 GB of DDR4 ECC RAM, and remote software that allows Mac users to multitask between their local hardware and the HP workstation.

HP's integrated Remote Graphics Software is set to ship with all HP Z workstations starting next month. Combined with the new HP RGS Receiver for Mac, also scheduled for August availability, the software allows users of Mac desktop computers or MacBooks to securely connect to an HP workstation and multitask between native Mac OS applications and Windows or Linux software running on HP workstations. 

A proprietary HP codec is used to analyze data in the workstation's frame buffer, identify subblocks of pixels that have changed from frame to frame, and send only data about those parts of the image to the receiving computer. A SIGGRAPH demo showed the system handling even full-motion video playback very well. The software is intended in large part as a collaborative tool, allowing multiple users to access the same HP workstation during a long-distance review session.

Starting price for the third-generation HP Z240 workstation line, shipping now, is $879.

HP: www8.hp.com