At a launch event in Los Angeles last week, HP gave journalists an opportunity to go under the hood of its new Z Workstation series, which were officially unveiled on Monday.

The Z400, Z600 and Z800 models were designed by BMW Designworks to have a sleek look and clean lines, and all three feature Intel Nehalem processors.

Terry Pilsner, vice president of HP Workstation R&D, said the new line has been designed to be energy efficient and easy to pull apart to service. He opened up the machine to demonstrate how parts such as the graphics cards, fan unit and power supply can be removed without having to disconnect lots of cables.

"There's a green light at the back of the supply. When you plug it into an AC outlet, the light comes on to tell you if the power supply is good or bad," Pilsner said. "If the green light doesn't come on, we can get a replacement out within 24 hours."

The power supply unit has also been redesigned for better cool air distribution.

"With Nehalem, you have two processors and the memory is right next to them, it's a very close design requirement," said Pilsner. "With one processor in front of the other, if you let normal airflow happen hot air would blow on the second one from the front one and cause an imbalance." In response, the power supply has been designed to ensure fresh air flows over the first processor and onto the second one through the column design.

HP was also keen to play up the environmental features of the new workstations line. The Z400 and Z800 will both offer a liquid cooling option from this summer (this won't be available in the Z600 due to space constraints) while Pilsner said the design is 90 per cent recyclable and offers 85 per cent efficiency. "The instructions have been etched onto the metal to eliminate plastic labels" he added. "They're also halogen and lead-free processors with the Intel components."

HP also has plans to expand the upgraded workstation line with advanced AMD chips, with the launch of its first 12-core model based on an AMD processor slated for this summer. Future models will also include a 64GB Intel Solid State Drive.