HP Z4 G6i: A Linux-Friendly Workstation Powered By The Intel Xeon 600 Series

The past month I have been testing out the HP Z4 G6i workstation across many different workloads and grueling tasks. This HP workstation powered by the Intel Xeon 600 series "Granite Rapids WS" and NVIDIA RTX graphics offers a lot of compute power, but with the top-end configuration retailing for over $41k USD is quite pricey in today's environment. Windows 11 Pro is the default operating system of the HP Z4 Gi but Ubuntu LTS releases are supported and it's "Linux-ready" at large. HP provided a review unit of the Z4 G6i workstation for testing over the past number of weeks. The review configuration was with the 48-core / 96-thread Intel Xeon 678X processor, 4 x 32GB DDR5-6400 SK Hynix ECC RDIMM memory, dual 2TB NVMe SSDs, and a NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell graphics card. The HP Z4 Gi workstation tops out with the Xeon 678X model while it can be paired with up to 512GB of RAM, which alone comes out to a +$44k price increase over the 1 x 16GB base option or $34k more than the 128GB configuration as tested. The workstation can also accommodate a third PCIe M.2 SSD as well as internal PCIe storage and even 3.5-inch HDDs too if needing more storage. Similarly, if one NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell is not enough, a second RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell can be paired for an additional $13.4k USD. As of writing this HP Z4 G6i workstation configuration with the Intel Xeon 678X, 4 x 32GB RAM, 2 x 2TB NVMe SSDs, and NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 Blackwell is listed at $41,479 USD. A few weeks back it was listed for $46k USD but the discount now may be due to the Labor Day sales. Throughout all of my testing the past month, this HP workstation has been working out and performing very well. Some of the artices it has been featured and used for testing include: - The Windows 11 vs. Ubuntu 26.04 LTS performance with the Xeon 678X - Intel AMX Performance With The Xeon 678X Workstation CPU - Linux 7.1, Linux 7.2 Performance On The Intel Xeon 600 Series - The CachyOS Performance vs. Other Linux Operating Systems On A $46k USD Workstation - Intel Hyper Threading Performance On The Xeon 678X "Granite Rapids-WS" - Early Linux 7.3 Kernel Benchmarks Show Some Performance Improvements, Some Regressions - Benchmarking Some Incredible Performance Gains With Btrfs On Linux 7.3 - Intel Granite Rapids WS Core Scaling Performance With The Xeon 678X - PHP 7.4 To PHP 8.6 Benchmarks, PHP 8.6 JIT Performance - Btrfs, EXT4, F2FS & XFS On Linux 7.2 vs. Linux 7.3 Performance Across the wide selection of different benchmarks, the HP Z4 G6i workstation has held up strong. It encountered no issues with any of the Linux distributions tested including Ubuntu 26.04 LTS, Ubuntu 26.10 daily, Fedora Workstation 44, CachyOS, and others. Of course, with the NVIDIA RTX PRO Blackwell graphics you are best off using the official NVIDIA Linux driver stack rather than Nouveau/NVK.