Exploring OC options and a viable overclock solution for the Z820

[Storm-Chaser]

Yup, I read you loud and clear - I'm just doing it for the drive space. I have heard that some people have actually had limited success with NVMe SSD drives and associated controllers, but the waters are murky and it seems many of those who attempt this mod have problems with boot order and invariably have trouble getting the drive bootable, since the HP BIOS does not have native support for this interface. Honestly, I would do it if I had a sure fire plan of attack. Because there seem to be a lot of horror stories online who have attempted this mod and failed, leaving you with wasted time and a dent in your wallet.

[Storm-Chaser]

@bambiboom

Thanks for tips/recommendations regarding the untapped potential of the 1600 series Xeon processors. I want you to know I have just pulled the trigger on the chip you recommended, because I am curious to see how hard I can push it with the stock liquid cooling system, and how the system as a whole will perform. How it will respond to throttlestop is another curiously I want to test. And benchmarking of course, Plus, it's difficult for me NOT to overclock every computer that goes through my hands. lol

Cryin' shame the 1600 series family is uniprocessor only. Like the carrot that is just out of reach...

So nothing has changed here, really, we've just added to the original project, I will retain the 2673s and 2696s and the focus of this thread will remain on those system configurations and overclocking goals are unchanged. 

Just means I need a 3rd Z820 dedicated to my new 1660 v2 CPU 🙂