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.
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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SanX - Wednesday, December 13, 2023 - link
Beating 7980X by whopping 10% at only $5000 more?qwertymac93 - Wednesday, December 13, 2023 - link
Those thermals are pretty bad. Highly likely to throttle after a year in a dusty warm office. Are there alternate thermal profiles to allow for higher fan speeds?PeachNCream - Friday, December 15, 2023 - link
It's under OEM warranty and the buyers probably don't really care overly much about that sort of thing since it's some corporate entity's purchasing office meeting the demands of workstation-users asking for things and getting whatever HP/Dell/etc have on the shelf.bwj - Friday, December 15, 2023 - link
It is clearly throttling, right out of the box, as do all CPUs made in the last 15 years.SanX - Friday, December 15, 2023 - link
With PCIe4 drives and much smaller heatsinks i get 7 GB/s and 40-43 C maximum at peak, what throttling you are talking about with their 3-4 GB/s speed which is a half of the peak speed of almost all current PCIe4 NVMe drives? By the way that 3-4 GB/s speeds were obtained on CrystalDiskMark or something like that. When you will try to really copy or move actual files you will barely get 1GB/s :)))SanX - Friday, December 15, 2023 - link
OOps sorry, mixed this discussion with the one on NVMe enclosure in another article :((((SanX - Friday, December 15, 2023 - link
What a shame, after 20 years and 20 million complaints, Anandtech was still not able to create editable and deletable user comments. What a shame, the tech forum does not know how to create websitesOxford Guy - Friday, January 12, 2024 - link
Sometimes it's amusing to go back to old articles and read predictions people have posted. If you don't want mistakes in your comments, slow down and ensure that what you're posting is what you're intending to post. Don't blame this site for your errors.mark625 - Thursday, December 14, 2023 - link
"However things are more limited with AMD cards due to the W7900's size: only a single instance of the triple-wide card can fit in the Z6 G5 A."It seems like there should be room for two W7900 graphics cards: one in the top cage, and another in the bottom cage. Unless the top cage's slots do not support graphics cards for some reason. Were you able to ask about that?
nemi2 - Sunday, December 24, 2023 - link
Pricing data point. Just built an epic 32/64 core 768mb L3 cache with 12 channel x 32gb ram workstation for $9000, could have saved some. Money off that if I had shopped around outside one main parts vendor.This is for simulation, need all the memory bandwidth we can get.