CES 2025

Small powerhouse with Strix Halo: HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a launches with Ryzen AI Max Pro

Strix Halo goes ZBook: HP is one of the launch partners of AMD for its new Ryzen AI Max Platform. The new HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a is a compact workstation that may compete well against the Apple MacBook Pro 14.

This year's CES is the big launch for AMD's Strix Halo platform. AMD wants to win market share in the sought after workstation and creator market with these powerful Zen 5 chips. The special feature of these chips: The extremely strong integrated GPU.

One of the launch-partners is HP with the new HP ZBook Ultra. ZBook is HP's name for its workstation laptops, which are optimized for CAD and other creative work. The newest model HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a, a more powerful successor of the HP ZBook Firefly 14 (available from Amazon), combines the compact 14-inch size with AMD Ryzen AI Max Pro - a very attractive combination, at least on paper. 

HP ZBook Ultra 14 G1a: Up to 128 GB RAM, 96 GB for the GPU...As usual for enterprise laptops, buyers get the choice between many different CPUs. The head of the pack is the new AMD Ryzen AI Max+ Pro 395, a CPU with sixteen cores, 32 threads and the AMD Radeon 8060S GPU. RAM can range up to 128 GB, 96 GB of which can be allocated to the GPU. Despite missing a dedicated GPU, the ZBook should still be suitable for some demanding GPU intensive work, thanks to the huge amount of available vRAM.

HP puts all of this performance into a rather compact chassis, which starts at just 1.5 kg and 18.5 mm in thickness. There are no compromises when it comes to battery capacity, either, as the internal battery measures 74.5 Wh. This battery is needed, as the manufacturer based in Palo Alto offers both a Low Power IPS option (1,920 x 1,200 resolution) and a less power efficient 2.8K (2,880 x 1,800) OLED screen with 120 Hz refresh rate. HP promises up to 14 hours of battery life, though this probably only applies to the IPS option.

In terms of the design of the ZBook Ultra 14 G1a, HP uses a silver-grey chassis with a color-matched keyboard, big trackpad and integrated fingerprint reader in the upper right corner of the keyboard. 5G or 4G are not offered here, though the ZBook at least has Wi-Fi 7 thanks to a MediaTek Wi-Fi module. When it comes to ports, HP misses out on the opportunity to put in an SD card reader. At least there are HDMI and USB A ports, in addition to the three USB-C ports, two of which support Thunderbolt 4.

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