Back in late May, I was told by HR we were to bring on two new people in the Engineering Department and that they would require laptops. Laptops!
No, no no no no! The current machine for the Engineering Department were XEON-based Desktop Workstations. These machines were a custom build HP Z Workstation, 8-core XEON Processors, 32+ GB of DDR4 RAM, a 1TB HDD, and a Nvidia Quadro Graphics Card. These machines ran Mastercam, AutoDesk Inventor, SolidWorks, and needed plenty of RAM and Processing Power for CAD and CAM Rendering. Suffice it to say, they require Processing Power to do the job.
NO. That's right, HR said "Laptop."
All the cool kids want a laptop until its time to do Workstation shit and then its "Wharz' mah Performanz'?"
Now, I have spent several years of my IT career building machines for Video rendering, Graphic Design, Gaming, Media Playback, Server Operations, Site Security and even Industrial Environmental Operations. This requires me to work closely with vendors and hardware manufacturers.
When you spend 3 grand or more on a workstation, you need to expect at least 3 years of investment return. At the 4 year mark, the computer has depreciated by nearly 75%, and by year 5, it has become obsolete and will begin to cost money to maintain. This is when the machine should be retired and replaced. When you purchase a Workstation, you should expect a 4 year return on your investment and by year 5, should expect to replace the machine.
When I took on a new build project, I would go over Blueprints and equipment specs, consult with Vendor Hardware Specialists, and pour over OEM technical whitepapers to get an accurate and no BS assessment of hardware so that I can build an mostly off-the shelf machine that will fit the task it is being built for all the while having a comfortable margin of future-proofing to get 5-6 years of work out of the machine, while giving it room to accommodate 5-6 years of program and product updates.
In some cases, I would go over electrical diagrams with the company Electricians and Maintenance, with the Manufactures and Vendors in Conference call to make sure the system had the power needed to drive its given function, but also the correct Electrical and Power Considerations to drive the damned thing.
This process required research, hitting up multiple experts in the field, reading industry and personal product reviews, and comparing them to similar and competing products. This could take days and weeks in some cases. And it was not uncommon to consult with OEM vendors in Germany, Holland, and Mexico in addition to local and regional OEM sources, and local vendors.
That was part of my job, and I took it very seriously. The reward was I was able to design and build a superior machine that fulfilled most if not all its requirements. There were times when I would find hardware components were incompatible, due largely to products not delivering as advertised and promised results being realized to be a marketing gimmick, or outdated. But this was largely a rare occurrence and only added to my Parts Bin.
I had consulted good people that knew their product and could give me accurate, real-time data. They wee rewarded with repeat business, word of mouth marketing to others, and praise to their superiors.
When I spoke to co-workers that had used the Zbook for Engineering, a common complaint arose of inadequate processing power, insufficient Memory, and an overall flawed user experience.
This was, of course, expected with the given compromises to hardware the company had made. You can't replace a three thousand dollar workstation with a half-priced budget laptop. You could not use a dual-core processor to run applications that had previously been run with an 8-core XEON processor. And you could not expect 32GB performance from a mere 8GB of Ram.
Expectations had to be adjusted for the compromises in hardware, price, and form factor being made. And reality had to be embraced. To maintain a level of user experience, you must give them a certain level of quality and in electronics, quality cost money.
The company, then, decided to update its machine offerings Standardization. My department was consulted to decide on the new Standards. And we insisted that Processor, memory, and performance be a consideration.
The G3 Zbooks we first chose, had to have at least 16GB of RAM. This was because Autodesk required a 8GB minimum to even launch. 16GB were needed for Rendering, without slowing the computer to a crawl. And a FirePro Graphics card was required to drive not only the Rendering, but to support the high resolution 1080+ and larger 24" monitors being used.
My plan was to upgrade ZBook users to 32GB of RAM within the fist 6 months. The 16GB DDR4 upgrades were $140 each, making the initial investment per machine come in at $1600 per ZBook, $300 for monitors, and $150 for Docking station. The end tally was $2200 per Workstation. This came in at nearly $1000 less than the HP ZG4 Series Desktop Workstations, leaving room for additional system upgrades or better keyboard and monitor expansion.
Not only did these systems need to have the power to run CAD and CAM Rendering, but they required the power to run VM Applications in Windows XP and DOS. The was accomplished by utilizing Virtual Box and building XP Appliances to run legacy software applications.
These machines needed to sing and fly, while being portable enough to take home and on business trips.
My first two builds succeeding in these areas. First, I upgraded the older existing Workstations and then I purchased two Zbooks, deploying them shortly afterwards. Success! These machines performed as advertised. The user's were pleased with this solution and I moved to replace the head Engineer's antiquated Workstation.
This third build had me searching the Vendor Catalog for an additional build. Another G3 fit the bill, but in my haste to locate a third Zbook, I stumbled across a lower-priced machine. This machine proved to be a mistake.
Upon deployment, it was found to possess a failed battery and charger. The machine began to die almost immediately, resulting in an immediate need to replace it.
The company, again, changed standardization, bringing new variants tot he Engineering catalog. The G5 was the newest offering in the ZBook family and the company chose it as the new standard.
Unfortunately, as this was a new machine that took close to a month to obtain. New machines were not yet in distribution by this vendor. New technical documentation largely cited G4 specs and G3 offerings. And support meant I would not have an accurate idea of expectations until it was in my hands.
To resolve issues with a failed G3, it was decided to purchase a second Solid State Drive and clone the original Hard Drive. This was succssful, but the new G5 15" Zbooks did not offer a readily available Sata III port to use and simply came with a 256GB M2 Solid State Drive.
Upon opening the G5, it was learned thee would be no moving to the cloned Samsung 960 and that we were, again, stuck with an out of box solution.
To make matters worse, in my absence, my MDT Server had become non-operational, meaning I would have to utilize the factory HP image and installation to build the Engineering Workstation. I would find this to be a blessing, rather than the curse, but it also meant I would be engaged in a time-consuming build over the course of three days as opposed to a 3 hour automated build from my MDT Serve.
Things were shaping up to be an utter failure. My Engineer client, was also eager to begin work on this newer G5. I had my work cut out for me.
The reality of the situation was, the new G5 is a vastly superior piece of hardware tot he G3s. The new brushed aluminum chassis, enhanced full chic let style, back-lit keyboard, thinner profile, and overall better product proved to be a much better solution. Build-time was almost pleasurable as each piece of software effortlessly installed. The final Autodesk Inventor installation took less than an hour to complete, while copying the old XP VM into Virtual Box took less than 5 minutes.
My 4-day build was complete by day 2, leaving the client the rst of the day to move files and transfer to the new machine. The Engineer giggled with Engineering Delight as he docked the new machine and was greeted with Microsoft's "Hello" and the musings of Cortana.
This gave me the rst of the afternoon to open a support ticket with HP and bluster my way through obtaining onsite repairs for the failing G3. I even had time to update three installations of Java 8 Update 171 and install Office 365 on a co-worker's machine.
I am seriously impressed by the new Zbook G5. The smaller and thinner profile, better screen quality, better keyboard, and better i7 processor, made every step of the build a sheer delight. And I often contemplated exchanging my Elitebook Folio for the larger Engineering machine. Surely, if I had this machine at my desk, I would never have to worry about processor or ram problems again.
I even began to shop for my own machine to use at home. This would be a worthy successor to my Optiplex, being more than capable of running Far Cry 5 and Fallout 4. And an enhanced dock would be an excellent way to drive my own 24" monitor while still being small enough to give room for the cat's sits on warms.
The ZBook G5 is a workstation class portable desktop. It was recently ranked number 1 of currently available workstation-class laptops. You have Xeon and i7 offerings to bring the power to your application needs, and available Ram expansion to 64GB via two DDR4 SD slots. The brushed aluminum shell offers captive Phillips head stainless steel screws to access the drive bay. While offering 2x USB 3.0 ports and a single Thunderbolt USB 3 port for docking station needs. AMD Firepro Workstation class Graphics brings support to your media and graphical playback, while an 6-8 hour internal battery gives you life away from your power cord.
This machine exceeds expectation I had for the G3 and Elitebook offerings, while being an more affordable option to MacBook Pro Offerings. At $1600, it gives you a Workstation Entry to Profession Video and Rendering, while doing so with grace and style.
A quick search of Amazon has this machine offered at below MSRP, approaching the $800 mark. At this price, it is poised to compete with mid-grade machines while giving you an edge in performance.
The only drawback being included Solid State Drive would benefit from a 500GB or larger capacity drive. And the touchpad, out of box, being too sensitive. I told my clients of the ability to disable the touchpad when using a USB enabled wireless mouse. This benefits typing and general use simply by checking a single box. The Zbook G5 is my choice for machine.
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