HP Z420 Workstation PSU specs for DPS-600UB A, REV 1 600W, HP P/N: 623193-001 - efficiency rating?

[Alpine_B]

Hello, quick question on the HP Z420 workstation, specifically the rating on the power supply.

I have a few of these that are the earlier variant, (600w with 2, 6-pin PCIe plugs for GPUs).

I was wondering if anyone knows the particular ratings for the Delta manufactured DPS-600UB A, REV. 1, which is a 600W PSU?

It is HP P/N: 623193-001.

All I am finding is that they are "90% efficient", but I do not know how to translate that into the rating standards that I am familiar with. I know HP workstations are pretty rad in terms of performance and quality, so I am leaning in the direction that this PSU is similar to a modern "Gold" rated PSU that is  87% at both 20% and 100% load, and 90% at 50% load.

In addition to all the memory fans, front case fan, liquid CPU cooler, HP Turbo Z G2 (I know NVMe is non-bootable), a 2.5" SSD, and a PCIe WiFi cards, I have some E5-2667 v2s and Titan X Maxwell GPUs waiting to be installed. I also have a E5-2687W V2 that I know has a higher power draw.

Any info on the rating, efficiency,  configuration of the power rails, and/or how much draw I can put on the system? 

Thanks in advance to the pros out there for your help, stay awesome! 

[joselso · Accepted solution]

HP QuickSpecs for Z420 Workstation, URL:

DA - 14261 - Division

provide useful data on several combinations of internal hardware loads, on pages 17-20. You may compare those loads to the power consumption of your specific hardwqre items to assess whether a 600W power supply is sufficient.

[Alpine_B]

Awesome, thanks for the fast response and good information! Those quick spec sheets are a wealth of info on these systems, when in doubt, read the directions, right?!? Have a good day! 

[SDH]

You mention the Z Turbo Drive. Agree it is not possible (not practical) to boot from a modern NVMe M.2 drive, but there is one Samsung AHCI-controller M.2 drive worth knowing about. DGroves here and I also have done speed testing on the Samsung SM951 AHCI version and it is almost as fast as a modern NVMe drive, running in the Z Turbo Drive G2 for best cooling. Turns out both HP and Lenovo used these and both work equally well in a ZTD G2 in a ZX20 workstation. The 512GB one is ideally what you'd get for your boot/apps drive. There are some of those on eBay currently being sent from China. The seller indicates they were pulled from Lenovo laptops new. Good price, worth the risk in my mind. 

[DGroves]

the intel 750, 3700 and 3800 series  pci-e SSD cards will also boot in the z420 as these cards contain the necessary nvme bootstrap code that the z420 bios lacks there is a small issue in that you lose the ability to see any other pci-e card's  output during the boot sequence such as a raid cards prompt to enter it's bios during startup

[Alpine_B]

Awesome information- hats off to you gentlemen! 

I just read your other posts on the Samsung SM951 (AHCI variant) and Samsung 950 Pro that can boot in the Turbo Z- I am hunting eBay for this now!

I have an Intel 750 right now, it seems I just need to update the BIOS on the Z420 and it should be bootable? 

Hmmm- does loss of PCIe output during boot include the GPU? 

Thanks for all of your awesome work- you both are legends! 

[DGroves]

the intel 750 series is bootable on the Zx20 series ( i own one) select EFI mode for the boot device in the z820 bios

rather than reinvent the wheel, look at this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrZEYkNl9aI

when booting from the EFI mode any add in cards that have a onboard bios  such as a raid card will no longer display any output on boot precluding the ability of entering the cards bios to create/modify a bootable drive 

the solution is to reconfigure back to legacy' enter the raid card bios make changes then reset back to EFI