HP Announces 36-Core Desktop Workstations

HP unveiled new Z-series desktop workstations with the ability to support up to 36 CPU cores at a press event at its facility in Fort Collins, CO. Also announced were new portable workstations with optional PCIe flash drives and a portable monitor that's powered by a single USB cable.

Yep, that looks like 36 cores, all right.

The new Z840, Z640, and Z440 desktops are more quiet and power-efficient than their predecessors, but the big news was the support for 36 processing cores on the Z840 and Z640. Yes, we all asked if the number was a mistake. HP showed us the system monitor, which displayed a total of 72 threads (doubling the core number via hyper-threading).

Currently the 18-core Intel Xeon CPUs run at 2.3 GHz, but there are lots of other CPU options with speeds ranging from 1.6 to 3.5 GHz and from four to 14 CPU cores. Thunderbolt 2 is available through an add-on card, just like on the previous generation of workstations.read more...