HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 (Strix Halo APU) Workstation Laptop Review

TweakTown Rating: 90%

Our Verdict

HP's new ZBook Ultra G1a 14 workstation laptop impresses with its AMD Strix Halo APU, up to 128GB of RAM, and powerful integrated Radeon 8050S integrated GPU. Maxed-out specs pricing is eye-watering, however.

Pros

• Small form factor workstation laptop
• AMD's powerful Strix Halo APU and up to 128GB of RAM
• Fantastic amount of power for developers and content creators
• More than capable of gaming at 60-120FPS+ at 1080p and 1440p
• Full-sized HDMI 2.1 port and can easily be carried in a single hand

Cons

• Very expensive
• Battery life

Should you buy it?

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Introduction, Specifications, and Pricing

I've been waiting to play around with HP's new ZBook Ultra G1a 14 workstation laptop for a while now, covering it intensely on the news side. So, when the opportunity arose to review it in full, I jumped at the chance. HP's new ZBook Ultra G1a 14 laptop is a workstation-class laptop that packs AMD's new Strix Halo APU, up to 128GB of RAM, and 32 GPU cores of RDNA 3.5-based gaming power, making it a powerhouse system on-the-go.

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The review unit that HP sent over features the Ryzen AI Max+ 390 chip (12 cores, 24 threads at up to 5.0GHz) and 64GB of RAM (but you can configure the ZBook Ultra G1a 14 with the flagship Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395 and up to 128GB of RAM). If you want maximum specs, you'll be paying some maximum pricing. But that decision will depend on the workloads you can cram in some serious specs inside the ZBook Ultra G1a 14 workstation laptop.

HP is positioning its ZBook Ultra G1a 14 workstation laptop against the Apple MacBook Pro 14 and other offerings from Dell and Lenovo in its various Precision and ThinkPad series laptops. The interesting use of the Strix Halo APU makes HP's offering quite alluring, but first...

Let's address that price: if you max out the internals of the ZBook Ultra G1a 14 laptop, you're looking at $8250 with the flagship Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 395 "Strix Halo" APU, 128GB of RAM, and 4TB of Gen4 SSD storage. This makes it more expensive than a comparable MacBook Pro 14 or 16 laptop (which comes with 8TB of storage space).

The review unit configuration with the Ryzen AI Max+ PRO 390 chip, 64GB of RAM and 1TB of Gen4 SSD storage will set you back $2879. If you want the more powerful Ryzen AI Max+ 395 chip with 16C/32T and the beefier Radeon 8060S integrated GPU with over twice as much graphics performance, that's not a huge increase in price: $3199, while the same config but with 2TB SSD costs $3099... double the SSD storage, and it's $100 cheaper.

If you max it out to 128GB of RAM and 4TB SSD, that'll cost you: a huge upgrade to $8250 is pretty ridiculous, but because the RAM is on-package and shared between the system and the GPU, it's not upgradeable at all.

Specs Reviewed:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 390 "Strix Halo" APU (12C/24T)
• GPU: AMD Radeon 8050S (32 CUs of RDNA 3.5)
• RAM: 64GB
• Storage: 1TB Gen4
• Display: 14-inch 1200p IPS (1920 x 1200) but optioned up to 1800p 120Hz OLED

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Overview

As a portable workstation laptop, HP's design aesthetic for the ZBook Ultra G1a 14 sports a sleek Meteorite Silver magnesium chassis with a minimalist look on the lid of the HP logo. We've got some slim bezels down the side that are a tad bigger at the top with the webcam in the middle.

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AMD's new ultra-fast Ryzen AI Max+ 390 "Strix Halo" APU with 12C/24T @ up to 5.0GHz and its 32 CUs of RDNA 3.5-based Radeon 8050S integrated GPU isn't just for workstation use, as I tried a bunch of games and walked away more than impressed. We're talking about RTX 4060 Laptop GPU levels of performance and even games like Forza Horizon 5 pumping away at 113FPS at native 4K.

Features + I/O

It wouldn't be a workstation laptop without some great I/O ports, which is where we have

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HP includes some impressive I/O on the ZBook Ultra G1a 14 workstation laptop, with the left side of the laptop featuring a full-sized HDMI 2.1 port that's capable of 4K 120Hz output, dual USB-C ports, and a 3.5mm combo jack.

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On the right, we've got a Thunderbolt 4 with USB Type-C with 40Gbps of bandwidth, a single USB-A 10Gbps port, and a Kensington nano security lock.

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Detailed Look

The HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 workstation laptop weighs in at 3.4lbs, and measures in at 12.29 x 8.45 x 0.71 inches, so it's not ultra-comfortable on your laptop (I tried) but it sits much better on a desk as a portable powerhouse PC. However, thanks to its 14-inch display and weight, it's super-easy to close the lid and grab it with a single hand (which I did a-plenty).

HP uses its in-house Vaporforce Thermals to keep the ZBook Ultra G1a 14 workstation laptop cool under pressure, with the vapor chamber inside vaporizing liquid, distributing it throughout the chamber for optimized cooling.

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There are dual turbo high density fans with a new hinge design that HP says it offers optimal thermal ventilation making it a high-performing cooling solution inside of a thin and light design. On top of that, HP intelligently optimizes the ZBook Ultra G1 14 laptop and its thermal performance based on your personal usage scenarios.

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The smaller 14-inch display on the HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 workstation laptop comes in a 1200p IPS (our review unit) as well as a higher-end 1800p 4K 120Hz OLED (that is what I would recommend, even though it's expensive, 4K 120Hz OLED would be fantastic). The display, even though not OLED, is still thin to the eye (and touch).

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HP's ZBook Ultra G1a 14 workstation laptop has a fantastic keyboard. After putting in a few weeks of my own workloads on the laptop, I was typing away without a problem. Funnily enough, that's not an easy thing to find on a laptop keyboard, but HP does well here.

Benchmarks (Synthetic + CPU + SSD)

Cinebench R24

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Inside the HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 workstation laptop is its heart: AMD's new Ryzen AI Max+ 390 "Strix Halo" APU with this SKU featuring 12 cores and 24 threads of Zen 5 processing power.

Running Cinebench R24, the laptop pushes a very impressive 107 points in single-thread, and a benchmark-busting 1169 points in the multi-thread test. This beats out everything in my chart, including the Ryzen 7 7800X3D inside of my daily driver desktop PC (8C/16T with X3D cache).

CrystalDiskMark

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The 1TB Gen4 SSD inside of the HP ZBook Ultra G1a workstation laptop silently hums away pushing 6.6GB/sec (6644MB/sec) reads and up to 4.9GB/sec (4936MB/sec) in CrystalDiskMark benchmarks.

3DMark Speed Way + Steel Nomad

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3DMark Speed Way performs quite well on the ZBook Ultra G1a 14 spitting out 813 points thanks to its Radeon 8050S integrated GPU, versus just 530 points out of the Strix Point APU inside of the just-reviewed MSI Prestige A16 AI+ laptop.

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3DMark Steel Nomad has the HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 workstation laptop and its RDNA 3.5-based Radeon 8050S thrashing the Radeon 880M inside of the just-reviewed MSI Prestige A16 AI+ laptop and its Radeon 880M, with 1234 points from the HP laptop versus just 552 points from the Strix Point APU inside of the MSI laptop.

3DMark TimeSpy Extreme + TimeSpy

I was impressed with the synthetic 3DMark tests, with the Radeon 8050S integrated GPU inside of the ZBook Ultra G1a 14 workstation laptop providing very similar performance to the GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU. It easily beats the Radeon 880M and Radeon 890M inside of the Strix Point APU.

Gaming Performance

I wouldn't be running out and buying the MSI Prestige A16 AI+ laptop for gaming, but that doesn't mean you can't game on it. Inside, the Radeon 880M is based on the newer RDNA 3.5 GPU architecture, with 12 CUs inside of the AMD Ryzen AI 9 365 "Strix Point" APU. This is compared to the 16 CUs of RDNA 3.5 GPU power inside the Radeon 890M inside the higher-end Ryzen AI 9 370 "Strix Point" APU, so you're looking at around 30% less FPS across the board.

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AMD has its enthusiast Ryzen AI Max+ 300 series "Strix Halo" APUs inside of gaming laptops and gaming tablets now, with a far larger 32 to 40 CUs of RDNA 3.5 GPU ticking inside, with the full 16 cores and 32 threads of Zen 5 processing power if you want proper gaming performance inside of a power-sipping and ultra-thin gaming laptop.

However, you can dial the graphics details down to Low or Medium on the MSI Prestige A16 AI+ and still get some modest gaming performance out of the Strix Point APU at 1080p. If you're playing older games, you can expect 60FPS or more, and even some esports titles will pump out up to 60FPS on the Prestige A16 AI+ laptop.

One of the bigger issues with the MSI Prestige A16 AI+ laptop is that I had issues with some games running, with Cyberpunk 2077 and Black Myth Wukong outright refusing to open. Overwatch 2 was alright for maybe 30% of the time, making it unplayable for the most part.

Performance + Thermals + Battery Life

HP's new ZBook Ultra G1a 14 workstation laptop rocks Windows 11 with Copilot+ AI support, powered by its NPU inside the AMD Strix Halo APU. We've also got super-fast Wi-Fi 7 support for those with a Wi-Fi 7 wireless router (with wicked-high speeds) and the Poly Camera Pro, which HP says lets users manage internal and external cameras that run video features on the NPU.

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Performance Thoughts

As with all of my laptop reviews, I used the new HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 workstation laptop as my daily driver for around 2 weeks for the purpose of this review, with some gaming benchmarks in between. The 14-inch 1200p IPS display is just alright for me. I would've much preferred the 4K 120Hz OLED open if I were personally buying this laptop.

I did totally dig the form factor and one-handedness of the laptop, where I was using it in my car at times when I was parked to bang out a few news articles for TweakTown, while post-moving house, I was using it in my office and lounge room. Picking up the ZBook Ultra G1a 14 workstation laptop felt great as it is relatively light (but not as ultra-thin and ultra-light as other laptops I've reviewed) but portable and light enough to pick up with a single hand.

After the display, the keyboard on any laptop is the second-most important part of any laptop... but HP impresses with the keyboard on the ZBook Ultra G1a 14 workstation laptop. I'm a very fast typer and it was keeping up with me like my favorite desktop keyboard... fantastic stuff there.

After wanting to test the Strix Halo APU out, I got my chance with this laptop and it did NOT disappoint. I was actually quite taken a back at its GPU performance, pumping away at 82FPS at 1440p in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and even a very decent 140FPS+ at 1080p. Even at 4K, the HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 was still pumping out a respectable 44FPS... all on the High preset and no upscaling used.

You could tweak those settings and easily push 60FPS+ at 4K in a game like Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

Moving onto Forza Horizon 5, where the Strix Halo APU continues to impress... we're talking 4K at 113FPS on the HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14. Bloody hell, that is impressive. Forza Horizon 5 was even more impressive, with 151FPS at 1440p and 175FPS at 1080p, all on the High preset.

Oh, I had to try Cyberpunk 2077... I mean, I'd be totally missing out if I didn't... you wouldn't want to play it at native 4K without FSR 3 enabled, as the Strix Halo APU struggled with just 21FPS. However, at 1440p the performance goes up to 44FPS average or so, while at 1080p we're looking at a rather decent 70FPS average, all on the High preset.

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Enabling ray tracing, FSR 3 upscaling and Frame Generation and the performance on the HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 workstation laptop remains about the same as its non-RT, non-FSR, non-FG results with 20FPS, 41FPS, and 72FPS average for 4K, 1440p, and 1080p, respectively. 1080p @ 72FPS with all the graphical bells and whistles... all from an APU is impressive to say the least.

In my favorite game - Overwatch 2 - the Strix Halo APU-powered HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 laptop didn't disappoint, capable of driving 120FPS+ at 1080p and 1440p. The native 1200p @ 60Hz display is a huge letdown for gamers, but HP does offer the 4K 120Hz OLED option, which I would personally recommend (and would've loved to have tested). I was outputting to a higher-end 4K 144Hz gaming monitor through HDMI for the testing, but my monitor is limited to HDMI 2.0 = so a crappy 60Hz refresh rate limitation.

However, as I pointed out before, HP provides a full-sized HDMI 2.1 port capable of 4K 120Hz output, so if you've got the display chops, the ZBook Ultra G1a 14 laptop is ready.

Battery Life + Charging + Warranty

HP provides an ultra-fast Thunderbolt 4 with a USB Type-C 40Gbps port on the side, offering up to 140W of charging into the ZBook Ultra G1a 14 laptop.

The HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 workstation laptop under my testing = lots of writing for work, lots of Chrome tabs, some light image editing, etc., resulted in around 6-7 hours of battery life. I experienced about the same streaming some movies and TV shows through Netflix on other days, but it falls WAY short of the 15-20 hours (or more) in competing laptops (that also cost radically less).

Final Thoughts

HP's new ZBook Ultra G1a 14 workstation laptop has a bunch of great stuff going for it - AMD's new Strix Halo APU with up to 16C/32T, up to 128GB of RAM, and a powerful RDNA 3.5-based Radeon 8060S integrated GPU - but where it lacks is the default display option and crappy battery life.

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The review unit tested had far more than enough power to drive absolutely everything that I do while having the option for a higher configuration. If you are after a new workstation laptop but don't want something (far) thicker and (far) bigger, the HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 deserves a look.

But, if you want a new laptop that can last an entire day (or more), steer clear, as the battery life is not great. One would think that using a power-sipping Strix Halo APU would provide far more battery life, as we've seen competing laptops from the likes of ASUS and its Zenbook A14 (powered by an Arm-based Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite chip) boasting a huge 20+ hours of battery life.

However, the Arm-based Snapdragon X pales in comparison to the x86-based Strix Halo APU, and that's what matters - performance for a workstation laptop.

I would love to see how the flagship Ryzen AI Max+ 395 "Strix Halo" APU, with its beefier Radeon 8060S integrated GPU with 40 CUs of RDNA 3.5, fares against the 32 CUs of RDNA 3.5 inside the Radeon 8050S in the configuration that HP sent over for review.

With a ton of CPU grunt, 64GB (or up to 128GB) of RAM at the ready, and a very powerful integrated GPU, the HP ZBook Ultra G1a 14 workstation laptop is an impressive piece of kit, but with max-out specs, you'll be shedding a tear (or 5) at its $8250 pricing. In the sample we reviewed, the pricing isn't too bad, especially for the amount of power squeezed out of AMD's impressive Strix Halo APU and powerful integrated RDNA 3.5-based GPU solution.