HP Z6 G5 A Workstation Review: 96-Core AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7995WX Impresses
by Gavin Bonshor on December 13, 2023 9:40 AM ESTSystem Benchmarks: Power and Thermals
The HP Z6 G5 A, Ryzen Threadripper 7000 & Intel Xeon W9-3495X Test Bed and Setup
We used the following test systems for our AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7995WX, Ryzen Threadripper 7980X/7970X, and Intel Xeon WS-series testing:
| Test Bed and Setup | |||
| AnandTech | HP Z6 G5 A 7995WX |
Ryzen Threadripper 7980X/7970X |
Intel Xeon W9-3495X |
| CPU | Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7995WX ($9999) 96C/192T, 350W |
Ryzen Threadripper 7980X ($4999) 64C/128T, 350W Ryzen Threadripper 7970X ($2499) 64C/128T, 350W |
Xeon W9-3495X ($5889) 56C/112T, 350W |
| Motherboard | HP Proprietary WRX90 | ASUS Pro WS TRX50-SAGE WIFI | ASUS Pro WS W790E-SAGE SE |
| Memory | SK Hynix 8 x 16 GB DDR5-5200 RDIMM |
G.Skill Zeta R5 Neo 4 x 32 GB DDR5-5200 RDIMM |
SK Hynix 8 x 16 GB DDR5-4800 RDIMM |
| Cooling | HP Custom Air Cooler | NZXT Kraken 360 360mm AIO |
Noctua NH-U14S DX-4677 |
| Storage | 2 x 1 TB Samsung MZVL21T0HCLR | 1 x SK Hynix Platinum P41 1TB | |
| GPU | NVIDIA RTX A4000 16 GB | AMD Radeon RX 6950 XT | |
| Power | HP 1125 W | MSI A1000G 1000 W | |
| OS | Windows 11 Pro Build 22621 |
Windows 11 22H2 | |
The two main aspects of power for a system like this are the idle and load measurements. For the CPU on its own, the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7995WX is rated for a TDP of 350 W. For the system as a whole, however, we have the base power consumption with the GPU to consider, too. The official listing of the NVIDIA RTX A4000 16 GB included with the Z6 G5 A is a 140 W TDP, so a CPU+GPU combined should be around 490 W.
In our peak power test from our CPU suite, the AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7995WX didn't go beyond its 350 W TDP, with a peak output of 350.1 W. This is similar to the other Ryzen Threadripper 7000 processors we've tested, which also hovered around the rated specifications as far as power is concerned.
(Click to enlarge graph)
Looking a little deeper into the Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7995WX within the HP Z6 G5 A and how it performs in a benchmark, we ran the CineBench R23 multi-threaded test on a loop, with a focus on CPU package power and thermals. The maximum temperature we saw in this test was 93.5°C, which is within the processor's TJMax of 95°C. We also observed that the CPU never exceeded the rated TDP of 350 W, with dips between the load intensities as it went in and out of each CB23 MT test cycle.
As the HP Z6 G5 A is a workstation and not specifically all about the CPU, we've also decided to include other tests to work out the power consumption of the other components, such as the NVIDIA RTX A4000 graphics card, as well as other devices such as cooling, fans, and the 2 x HP Turbo Z PCIe 5.0 x4 M.2 SSDs.
Screenshot from the HP Performance Advisor software
With both the CPU and GPU running intensive workloads simultaneously of each other (Prime95 with Small FFTs and FurMark 4K at maximum settings), we observed a maximum power draw at the wall of 567 W; this includes the CPU, GPU, and motherboard, and every other component installed into the system.
The following is the peak temperature of each component:
- CPU: Threadripper Pro 7995WX: 92°C
- GPU: RTX A4000: 80°C
- SSD 1/2: HP Z Turbo Drive: Both at 34°C
All of the components within the HP Z6 G5 A were within their rated specifications, and it's clear that all of the system cooling, including the large CPU cooler, is doing its job. At full load, the system was noticeably audible, with all of the associated fans quickly ramping up to 100% as workloads were placed on it. This is understandable, given the intensity of the workloads placed on both the CPU and GPU.
Read on over to the next page for some compute performance comparison, including rendering, between the AMD Ryzen Threadripper Pro 7995WX versus the Threadripper 7980X, Threadripper 7970X, and the Intel Xeon W9-3495X processors.
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yankeeDDL - Wednesday, December 13, 2023 - link
So the Xeon is almost 2x slower at almost 2x power.It's amazing how far behind Intel has fallen.
TEAMSWITCHER - Wednesday, December 13, 2023 - link
If only people were still doing workstation rendering on CPU's....TheinsanegamerN - Wednesday, December 13, 2023 - link
If only people did things other then rendering on CPUs.schujj07 - Thursday, December 14, 2023 - link
You mean rendering or editing programs like Adobe Premiere? Premiere is still mainly CPU bound.xenol - Monday, December 18, 2023 - link
Only peak power is reported, which can exaggerate how much power Intel chips use since they have a higher power level over the TDP. They should've reported average power from a sample of workloads. Having how long each test ran would also be good to derive average energy usage.In addition, Intel's a process node behind TSMC.
Rοb - Wednesday, December 13, 2023 - link
> "We have been informed that the configuration we've reviewed today costs around $19,849.".Using the link you provided, choosing the base configuration and only changing the processor, the price is U$25,672.00.
Bare bones, with 16 cores, start around 5K.
Greg13 - Wednesday, December 13, 2023 - link
Many thanks for the review. I'm surprised you ran it with such little ram though. 128GB for 96 cores. That's barely more than 1GB per core. The workloads I'd be looking to use this on would be needing 8GB per core at least. It makes me wonder if the performance was somewhat limited by insufficient ram capacity? If these benchmarks aren't limited by such limited ram capacity, then I also think that you should look to get some new workstation benchmarks that are more memory intensive? We never seem to see the benefits of more memory channels in the benchmarks you use, which always surprises me.PeachNCream - Friday, December 15, 2023 - link
That's actually typical scaling with higher core count workstations. While the raw RAM quantity is higher than the average home PC, the per-core quantity is a lot lower as is the per-core memory bandwidth based on lots o' CPUs and not so many memory channels.Greg13 - Saturday, December 16, 2023 - link
Up until this generation with the 96-core part, Threadripper Pro has always matched the top desktop part in terms of memory channels per core. In terms of memory capacity per core, they far exceed standard desktop parts as they can have up to 2TB of RDIMM's. Which is several times more memory capacity per core than the desktop parts. However this review has chosen to review the processor with 1/20th of its maximum memory capacity which just seems odd to me and suggests that they are not testing it in its intended workload and/or limiting its performance compared to the lower core count processors which they've given the same amount of total ram.PeachNCream - Sunday, December 17, 2023 - link
To be fair, that's probably a decision at HP and not Anandtech. Anandtech hasn't purchased hardware for review in ages and is beholden to test whatever is sent to them (probably distributed by Future between AT and Tom's or shipped direct to AT - just guess on the distribution channel here) so they really can't be as flexible about that since there's just not any sort of money for reinvesting into reviews.