By Brady Betzel

Mobile workstations are the top-of-the-food-chain computers for enterprise-level work. HP has consistently produced desktop and mobile workstations that can withstand wind, rain, spills, 24/7/365 uptime and even pandemics. The latest round of mobile workstations from HP is no different and has even upped the game with upgrades like DreamColor 120Hz displays. If you are a Windows user, you will be hard-pressed to find a more tried-and-true mobile workstation than with the new HP ZBook line. For this review, I focus specifically on the HP ZBook Fury G8.

The HP ZBook Fury G8 is a mobile workstation loaded with the latest hardware and backed by HP’s ISV certifications. (I’ll get to that shortly.) With pros working both at home and in the office these days, you don’t have to worry about remote workflows with these HP workstations since the company is continuing to support its ZCentral Remote Boost. They have even acquired Teradici, a media-focused remote software that will add a lot to HP’s already great ZCentral Remote Boost workflow.

Before I ramble further, here are the specs to the HP ZBook Fury G8 mobile workstation that I was sent for review:

• Intel Core i9-11950H vPro processor (2.6GHz, up to 5GHz with Turbo Boost, 24MB cache, 8 core) + Intel UHD graphics
• 6-inch diagonal, 4K UHD (3840×2160), 120Hz, UWVA IPS, antiglare, 600 nits, 100% DCI-P3, next-gen HP DreamColor for HD webcam
• Nvidia RTX A5000 graphics (16GB GDDR6)
• 32GB (two 16GB) DDR4 3200 SODIMM
• 1TB PCIe-3×4 2280 NVMe TLC SSD

The retail price with this configuration is $5,509.52, which does not include the Next Business Day Response Onsite Notebook Hardware Support, but I highly recommend it. That would add an additional $74, but honestly, if you are spending this much, you might as well increase the warranty from three years to five as well as add Accidental Damage Protection for an additional $633.

The biggest differences between officially labeled mobile workstations and standard laptops are the software certifications (ISV — Independent Software Vendors), warranty and durability standards. You can find out more about which software vendors are part of the ISV certifications here: .

How does this work? Essentially, HP sends workstations to companies such as Adobe, Maxon, Blackmagic and more. Then the software vendors test their products, find bugs and send that info to HP. HP resolves the issues, and once all the kinks are worked out between HP and the software vendor, the product is ISV-certified. This means that both the software vendor and HP agree that the hardware and software work efficiently and as stably as possible between hardware drivers and software.

While this is somewhat boring, it is crucial to companies that rely on their computer systems to run 24/7/365 with a high level of security. And in this latest round of HP ZBooks, they are equipped with multiple levels of security and protection from below the OS, with features such as Sure Recover Gen3, to above the OS with HP Privacy Camera. HP takes security seriously.

But really what I wanted to know when testing the HP ZBook Fury G8 was how well it performs in the apps I use daily: Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve 17.4.2 and Adobe Premiere Pro 2022 (as well as some other apps I will get to).

Adobe Premiere Pro 2022
I ran the Puget Systems Extended PugetBench for Premiere Pro benchmark. Extended just means it ran a few more tests than the Standard benchmark; you can download those Extended Assets from the same link above. The Standard Overall Score was 709, while the Extended Overall Score was 639.

For comparison, I looked up other systems that ran the same PugetBench for Premiere Pro v0.95.4, and the only ones that beat the ZBook were desktop systems and the newer MacBook Pros with M1 chips. One AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970x with Nvidia RTX3080 had a Standard Score of 1313 and an Extended Score of 1321. One MacBook Pro with M1 Max had a Standard Score of 1151 and an Extended Score of 966. You can search results here.

I also I ran my own export tests, which use various clips from multiple cameras in a one-minute sequence of 3840×2160 UHD footage:

• ARRI RAW: 3840×2160 24fps – 7 seconds, 12 frames
• ARRI RAW: 4448×1856 24fps – 7 seconds, 12 frames
• BMD RAW: 6144×3456 24fps – 15 seconds
• Red RAW: 6144×3072 23.976fps – 7 seconds, 12 frames
• Red RAW: 6144×3160 23.976fps – 7 seconds, 12 frames
• Sony a7siii: 3840×2160 23.976fps – 15 seconds

I exported 3840×2160 UHD files in a few different flavors: DNxHR HQX 10-bit, H.264 and a DPX image sequence via Adobe Media Encoder. These exports came from two versions of the sequence: 1) basic color correction and 2) 110% scale, basic color correction and Gaussian blur set to 20.

Adobe After Effects 2022
Using the PugetBench After Effects 0.95.1 benchmark, the overall score was 745. For comparison, an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970x with Nvidia RTX 3080 GPU scored 1098, and an Intel Core i9-9900X with Nvidia RTX 3060 GPU scored 418. The HP ZBook Fury G8 lives in the upper-middle of the scores. It’s good, and with the newly updated After Effects adding multi-frame rendering, After Effects works much quicker than before.

Blender 3.0
As I was finishing up this review, Blender dropped the newly updated Blender 3.0, so I scrapped my initial benchmarks and reran them. I use the Gooseberry Benchmark. It’s essentially a scene that is used to compare CPU render speeds between systems using the freely available 3D app Blender. My CPU render time was 20:21, which is decent. For fun I switched to a GPU render, and it took 20:23 to complete.

For comparison, someone ran the CPU test and posted their scores using a Ryzen 9 3900X, 64GB DDR4 3600 and MSI GTX 2080 Super GPU, which took 11 minutes and 45 seconds. This is an older “benchmark,” but it has been around for a few years, so I use it and can compare it to old reviews. For instance, on January 15, 2020, I reviewed the HP ZBook G6, which completed the same Gooseberry render in 29:56. It’s been a long two years, but between Blender version updates and hardware updates, HP has shaved almost 10 minutes off the render time, which is pretty substantial.

Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve 17.4.2
As of this review, the most current version of Resolve is 17.4.2. Noise reduction is one of the most CPU-/GPU-intensive processes there is for multimedia creators, and Neat Video is one of the best noise reduction tools, and it works well within Resolve. But Neat Video needs to be set up to efficiently use the CPU, GPU or a combination of both. You can find the optimization settings in the Neat Video render settings: Tools > Preferences > Performance > Optimization.

It will run benchmarks to find out if your computer runs more efficiently with just CPU cores, just the GPU or a combination of both. I ran this optimization with UHD footage in mind, and the best combination was to use just the Nvidia RTX A5000 GPU, which rendered at 8.39 frames per second. With HD footage, the result was 32.6 frames per second. But even 8.39fps isn’t bad for UHD. I’m sure in the future it will be slow, but at the moment, being able to play back UHD footage on a laptop with Neat Video noise reduction applied at 8.39fps is good. And just like Premiere, I ran similar export tests using the same footage as I mentioned earlier:

It’s remarkable just how optimized Resolve is compared to Premiere Pro for multimedia use. Resolve seems to embrace the Nvidia RTX A5000 for more work in combination with the CPU.

For comparison’s sake, the MacBook Pro with M1 Max:

There are a lot of differences in these systems, including the fact that they use completely different operating systems, the MacBook Pro is not an official “workstation” and the HP ZBook Fury G8 costs about $1,300 more.

I also ran the PugetBench Resolve 0.92.3 benchmark, which is a Windows-only test. The Extended Score was 933 and the Standard Score was 970. For comparison, a desktop system with an Intel Core i7-10700 CPU and Nvidia RTX 3070 received an Extended Score of 970 and a Standard Score of 1103.

Additional Benchmarks
Here are a few benchmarks I like to run. I know there is another nerd like me out there who will like to see these numbers:

• Cinebench R23:
  • CPU (multi-core) – 10889 pts
  • CPU (single-core) – 1512 pts
  • MP Ratio – 7.20x
• Corona 1.3 Benchmark:
  • Real CPU Frequency: 3.7GHz
  • Render Time: 00:02:04
  • Rays/sec: 3,915,780
• Octane Bench:
  • Score: 337.71
• RealBench 2.56
  • Image Editing: 188,555
    • Time: 28.257
  • Encoding: 151,892
    • Time: 35.0774
  • OpenCL: 239,317
    • KSamples/sec: 44020
  • Heavy Multitasking: 139,209
    • Time: 54.8238
  • System Score: 179,743
• V-Ray
  • Performance Score: 8217
  • GPU RTX Performance Score: 1487
  • GPU CUDA Performance Score: 922

Toughness
Those are a lot of techy numbers, but the physical appearance is just as interesting. The HP ZBook Fury G8 is thick and heavy. It measures 14.21 inches by 9.55 inches by 1.02 inches and weighs over 5 pounds, but it can get heavier if you add extras like multiple hard drives. But with that thickness comes protection. One of the biggest features of an official “workstation” is their toughness. HP puts their mobile workstations through the ringer in its MIL-STD 810H testing. It stands for military testing, and you can see some examples here. They are made to withstand water, rain, drops, shock, radiation and more. They can also be walked on.

In addition to toughness, HP workstations are made to be easily repaired if components need to be replaced or upgraded. And I love when computers are easy to fix. HP has listened and continues the tradition. I turned the ZBook Fury G8 over, removed the cover and immediately had access to all of the components that would need replacing: memory, SSD, etc.

Summing Up
In the end, the HP ZBook Fury G8 is a monster of a Windows-based mobile workstation. From the battery that runs for 1.5 hours while rendering in Blender to the integration of a Tile tracker to find your laptop anywhere to charging the ZBook Fury G8 to 50% in under 30 minutes, HP has one of the most well-rounded multimedia-focused workstations on the market. For video editors who love to enter timecode via the 10-key numeric keypad, the ZBook Fury G8 has it.

If there are any criticisms, it would be the loudness of the fans when you are rendering an intensive scene and the overall bulky exterior. But considering you are getting a Thunderbolt 4-equipped, HP DreamColor, easily upgradeable/fixable mobile workstation that is extremely powerful, the HP ZBook Fury G8 is an incredible desktop alternative.

Brady Betzel is an Emmy-nominated online editor at Margarita Mix in Hollywood, working on shows like Life Below Zero and Uninterrupted: The Shop . He is also a member of the Producers Guild of America. You can email Brady at bradybetzel@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @allbetzroff.