HP Announces Desktops With AMD R9 380 GPU, Intel 5th Gen CPUs (Updated)

Preparing for the end of summer when students go back to school and many students buy new computers, HP is preparing several new desktops and all-in-one PCs filled with hardware that hasn't been released yet. HP also announced a new 4K display.

New Systems

The HP Pavilion series of PCs are receiving updates to both the all-in-one PC line and the tower PC line. The all-in-one computers feature a full HD IPS glass display measuring 21.5 inches, 23 inches, or 27 inches, with HDMI output for connecting a second display. All of the all-in-one systems also have two USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, a LAN connection, and a 3-in-1 card reader.

For hardware specs, the all-in-one systems can have an Intel fourth generation Celeron, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, or AMD A4 through A10 CPUs. Most systems will just use integrated graphics, but there are two dedicated GPU options from AMD, the Radeon R7 A330 and Radeon R7 A360. Having up to 3 TB of storage is optional. RAM capacity isn't mentioned.

If you aren't familiar with those dedicated GPUs mentioned above, don't worry, no one is. We haven't been able to get any word from AMD yet, but they appear to be part of AMD's next generation of GPUs. Being in an AIO system, these could be mobile GPUs, but AMD typically uses an "M" to show mobile GPUs. We don't know what the "A" stands for yet, but it's possibly part of a new AIO line of GPUs that better take advantage of the AIO form factor in a way that desktop and mobile GPUs cannot.

The HP Pavilion Towers have options for the same CPUs plus an AMD A10 option, and the same storage options as the AIO systems, but with an optional dedicated GPU in the Nvidia GTX 745. In addition, all models have two USB 2.0 ports, four USB 3.0 ports and a 7-in-1 card reader.

In the higher-performance HP ENVY line, things start to become a little more confusing. In the original press release, the HP ENVY Tower and HP ENVY Phoenix Tower both featured CPU options for AMD A8 through FX processors as well and Intel fourth gen Core i5 and i7 offerings. According to the product pages, though, these systems come with fifth generation Intel Core processors.

In addition to the CPU, the HP ENVY Tower has dedicated GPU options up to an Nvidia GTX 980 or AMD Radeon R9 380. The higher-performance HP ENVY Phoenix Tower options are up to an Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 too, but the release didn't mention a specific AMD GPU.

Both systems have storage options for solid state drives up to 512 GB and HDDs up to 3 TB (or up to 4 TB in the HP ENVY Phoenix Tower, according to the product page), and they share the same connectivity options as the HP Pavilion Tower.

HP didn't say how much RAM it used inside of the HP ENVY Tower, but the product page does say that it uses DDR4. Given the similarities between the two systems, it is likely that the HP ENVY Phoenix Tower will also use DDR4, and according to the product page, the Phoenix Tower has 32 GB of RAM.

There is another option for the HP ENVY Phoenix Tower for a closed-loop water cooling system, which according to the product page can be overclocked.

To go along with these new systems, HP announced a new 32-inch 4K display that features support for HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort, and MHL. The display, named HP Spectre 32 Studio Display, also comes with four 6-watt speakers -- two are in the front, while two more in the rear are used for passive radiating sounds and enhanced bass.

Unannounced Hardware?

Although new computers are always fun, what makes these systems so interesting is that they list new PC hardware from AMD and Intel that currently isn't available. The HP ENVY systems are due out June 10, which means we could see the AMD Radeon R9 300 series of GPUs and the desktop Intel 5th Gen processors within weeks.

But is it true? At this point it is hard to tell. Though companies sometimes leak information about products prematurely, it is usually retracted quickly, but HP posted this information more than a day ago and has yet to retract any of it. (The company has not yet responded to our queries on the matter, either.)

Further, the press release mentioning the new AMD GPUs came out first. The product pages were posted at a later time and added new information. Some of the information on the product pages doesn't match the press release, such as which generation of Intel processors are used or storage size. The fifth-gen Intel CPUs weren't mentioned in the press release, but they are on product pages.

We assume that HP's leaks are factually correct -- indeed, if these new components from Intel and AMD will be revealed in a matter of weeks (around Computex, perhaps), then this back-to-school time frame for the HP systems jibes accordingly. But this whole situation is strange, and we're pressing to get to the bottom of it. 

Update, 5/6/15, 9:50am PT: HP got back to us to let us know there was a mistake on the product pages we referenced before, and the new PCs will all use Intel 4th Gen Core CPUs. This also would explain why DDR4 was listed on one of the product pages, as there will likely be an option for Intel's LGA 2011-V3 based systems which use DDR4.

That clears up the confusion about the CPU and RAM type used in these systems.

As for the GPUs in use, AMD approved HP's release and was therefore the source of its own leak. We still know very little about the cards, but we can say for certain now that we know the names of three GPUs coming from AMD soon.

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