Replacement Graphics Card Z620

[dmc2015]

Hi All

I hope everybody is safe and well?

I have a question about Graphics Cards for a Z620 Series Workstation.

The weakest item is my device is my Graphics Card.

Everything else like CPU, Intel Xeon E5-2620 v2 x 2, and Physical RAM which is 128 GB is fine.

I have looked at a number of forums and the price seems really high, like the ones that I have found are $800 or more.

I am not looking for a really high specification card, just one with more dedicated memory. This is for Games.

Currently I have two monitors attached. But if there is a Graphics Card that allows me to have more than two attached that would be great but not essential.

Is anybody able to advise on some examples of other Graphics Cards.

Also is there a way of assigning any RAM from my machine to the Graphics Card? Reason is that I was trying to play a Game that required 2GB of Graphics Memory.

Look forward to hearing from the community.

Kind Regards

[Brian1965]

Quadro NVS cards are designed mainly for 2D graphics applications, (Photoshop, Publisher, etc.), and definitely not suitable for gaming. You should be looking to install either an older generation GTX card, (10 series, e.g. GTX 1080), or one of the newer RTX cards, (e.g. RTX 2060, RTX 3060 Ti, etc.). These cards have been designed with gaming as the intended use. I have my Z620 setup for either gaming or professional graphics and have both a Quadro and GTX card installed. I would be looking for the latest generation GPU you can afford with the most amount of RAM possible, ideally 5GB+ VRAM. The maximum single GPU power requirements cannot exceed 250W, (HP state 225W but there is some wiggle room here).

On the topic of gaming, you ideally want a fast CPU, as oppoesd to lots of CPU cores;

You clearly have a v2 motherboard since you have 2x E5-2620 v2 CPU's installed. Unfortunately, these CPU's are relatively slow for gaming, (having a low single threaded performance), but also, only support up to 1600MHz RAM. Having a 128GB of system RAM won't improve gaming performance either.

If you are wanting to stick with a dual CPU configuration then consider upgrading the CPU's to E5-2667 v2 CPU's, or for a single CPU set up, I would recommend either a E5-1650 v2, E5-1660 v2, or a E5-1680 v2 CPU. These CPU's have significantly faster single threaded performance and support 1866MHz RAM. Even 16GB of RAM is more than sufficient for 99% of the games available.  Only large programs such as fight simulators will possibly need more RAM. One final point, a single E5-2667 v2 CPU would be faster for gaming than a dual E5-2667 v2 configuration. This is because the 2x CPU's need to be syncronised, resulting in a slight reduction in CPU performance. Having more than 1 CPU is mainly beneficial for running engineering simulations, video rendering or running multiple VM's. By default, games are designed to run on single CPU computers for maximum compatibility.

[savvy2]

I have Z600 and it can in fact be upgraded with any card below 250watt. 

NO monitor told if it is some old lame VGA , your GPU upgrade can be a bust.

NO game told at all ,  are you talking AAA $60 games, or COD 1.? or Solitaire 😎

tell what game fails even say the name,  and what you want to do say in 1years time , why not plan ahead

no purse stated, the cash in hand for upgrades

cards are $10 to $2000 ,  try to know others are gaming at 4k. = 4096 × 2160 (full frame, 256∶135 or ≈1.90∶1 aspect ratio)

Nothing on any PC is more complex than Video card upgrades GPU.

due to VAST options and speeds.  (fast = expensive as does 4K)

I say put a GTX1650 (non SUPER) in the PC,  and run that.  ( I can play 50 steam games on it)

You can not add VRAM to any GPU, of any kind, you buy a newer card , even of to 24GB Vram cards  sold.

allows 2 attached,  well go to newegg.com  see GPU cards see that left panel there the SEA of options.

look there first, 

I bet cost is the limits here,  and not stated. not even if using VGA./DVI, HDMI or DP monitors.

the card above is very fast but only uses the 75watts and is the entry point of Turing Class GPU, (a super nice card)

$150 par,  is that a scary price, I hope not.... but it has  future that many do not.

here is the complex ranked list. in this exact price range.

https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php

btw vast older cards do not run under w10.

gtx7xx up do below not.

[dmc2015]

Hi Savvy2

Many thanks for your reply, I do not play many games,, an example of the games I play are things like Age of Empires, I mainly use the Z620 for Virtual Machines, running on VMWare Workstation.

Regards

[dmc2015]

Hi Brian1965

Many thanks for your reply. 

I mainly use the Z620 for Virtualisation, running VMWare Workstation, so looking to increase the Graphics Memory from 1GB ro up to 4GB, in a cheap way. How do I know which Graphics Cards would run on a Z620.

The primary focus of this machine is for Virtualisation, gaming is a bonus, so looking to try and get a card with upto 4GB of memory. I am not a big gamer.

Regards

[Brian1965]

The HP Z620 will work with any graphics cards which meet the following specification;

1) There are GPU drivers available that match your OS.

2) The GPU does not exceed 250W in power consumption. (225W maximum is specified by HP).

3) Choose a GTX/RTX card for gaming or Quadro card for professional graphics applications.

[SDH · Accepted solution]

These HP workstations have two PCIe x16 "video" slots.... the top slot is the "primary slot", and where your boot/BIOS screen will be fed from.  The bottom port on each Quadro card will be your "primary port" so hook that to the screen you want to see BIOS on.  You can try my suggestion below and then could later add a second identical or near identical card into the lower secondary PCIe x16 slot.  Virtually all the HP Z workstations I and my partners use are 4-monitor builds with two of these cards.

Later cards tend to run cooler with higher performance... a nice combination of attributes.  The power provided up to the card by each video slot in the Z620 is 75W.  Thus, if you get a card requiring less than 75W then you don't need supplemental PCIe power cables.  If budget and quality is important to you then here is my advice, and you can always spend lots more.  You can look at Brian's subscript to see the cards he has carefully chosen.

My advice for most bang for the buck is to buy one nVidia Quadro K2200 off eBay and expect to pay about $80.00 USD for a Buy It Now purchase.  You might do better with a sniped bid...  This card runs at 68W max, and is still actively supported by nVidia with new drivers.  Same ones Brian is using on his Quadro P2000, released 12/15/20.  Check every few months at nVidia if you want the latest and to stay ahead of Windows Update.  If you choose to eventually run 4 monitors then just add in a second K2200, or a sibling (a K2000, or the K2000D which has two dual link DVI ports).  These all run on identical drivers, and run under W10Pro64 without issue.  We run the default latest drivers downloaded from nVidia directly.  We have been very pleased with this combination.  Some of us do play games and report this combination is fine for that too.  

Compare the specs with Google... you will find that the Quadro K2200 is a poor man's P2000, and a wise buy.  In my experience the K2200 is notably fast and if the other parts of your workstation are not subpar you will see a significant increase in user experience for an unexpectedly low cost.

[dmc2015]

Hi SDH

Many thanks for your reply.

I will have a look on EBay.

Regards

[dmc2015]

Hi All

Thankyou, purchased a Second Hand K2200 and replaced the existing Graphics Card.

Previous:

Passmark 9.0 Rating - 2527 / CPU 10750 / 2D 266 / 3D0 / Memory 1753 / Disk 2511

New:

Passmark 9.0 Rating - 2491.1 / CPU 12216.2 / 2D 297.4 / 3D 3589.9 / Memory 1711.0 / Disk 2031.2

So assuming that this is an improvement, especially over the 3D Element.

Regards