HP Z420 upgrade, graphics and RAM

[egunther]

Hello,

I have a Z420 workstation I bought a few years ago.  I put a Nvidia Quadro K620 in it that I had.  I just purchased this card:  ebay, Nvidia Quadro RTX 4000 to replace it.

My workstation has two 6 pin connectors coming out of the PSU.  I worked out that I should use a dual 6pin to 8pin adapter (ebay, dual 6pin to 8pin adapter )to plug into the card.  The model of the PSU is DPS-600UB. 

I am just curious if this will heat the case more and if there is anything I should be considering to mitigate that.  I saw that there is a fan that can be put on the front of the case, maybe that would help.

The processor, as reported by inxi -C is:

CPU:
Info: 6-core model: Intel Xeon E5-1650 0 bits: 64 type: MT MCP cache:
L2: 1.5 MiB
Speed (MHz): avg: 1200 min/max: 1200/3200 cores: 1: 1200 2: 1200 3: 1200
4: 1200 5: 1200 6: 1200 7: 1200 8: 1200 9: 1200 10: 1200 11: 1200 12: 1200

Additionally I am thinking of buying some 8GB RAM x 8 to double my RAM, now 4GB x 8.  I have found some with the heat spreaders on them because the existing RAM has heat spreaders on them.   The machine (inxi -xxx -m) reports that the:

Array-1: capacity: 256 GiB note: check slots: 8 EC: Multi-bit ECC max-module-size: 32 GiB

Device-1: CPU0-DIMM1 type: DDR3 detail: synchronous registered (buffered) size: 4 GiB
speed: 1066 MT/s volts: N/A width (bits): data: 64 total: 72 manufacturer: Samsung
part-no: M393B5170DZ1-CF8 serial: 

I would like to know if the RAM I found would work:

ebay, lot of 8 x 8GB 2R x 4 PC3 10600R DDR3 DIMM 

Also I would like to know if this would heat the machine more because one of the reasons I chose this RAM is because it has the heat spreader on it?  Anything else that jumps out too?

I have read a number of things to try and understand this stuff but have fallen a bit short.

https://h20331.www2.hp.com/Hpsub/downloads/HP_WS_MemoryTechnology_041812.pdf

https://h20331.www2.hp.com/hpsub/downloads/z420_memory_configurations.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronous_dynamic_random-access_memory#History

On the parts list at HP PartSurfer I see this RAM

https://partsurfer.hp.com/?searchtext=z420%20 

8GB, 1600MHz, 240-pin, PC3-12800E 512Mx8, CL=11, DDR3-1600 Dual In-Line Memory Module (DIMM)

Although I think that the only RAM I found that fits that description is not with a heat spreader. 

Thank You,

EG

[NonSequitur777]

@egunther,

Welcome to our HP Community forum!

The HP Z420 Workstation was a fun upgrade project of mine, and I believe you'll find many -if not all of your questions answered in this discussion thread: Solved: Upgrading an HP Z420 Workstation (v2 motherboard) - HP Support Community - 9373457.

Browse through it, and if you have any remaining questions, fire away.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[egunther]

@NonSequitur777 

First, thank you for the welcome and I should clarify that this computer is not being used for gaming, it is being used for CG art.  After reviewing the thread you directed me to, it looks like 64G is what will work in this machine. Although it seems later that you were using 16GB DIMM's.  Would you recommend 16GB DIMM's?  I have the one memory fan by the rear of the computer but not the other one.

this post 8x8=64:

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-PCs-Workstations-and-Point-of-Sale-Systems/Upgrading-an-HP-Z4...

this post 4x16=64 : although I would be using 8 x 16GB

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-PCs-Workstations-and-Point-of-Sale-Systems/Upgrading-an-HP-Z4...

I am still not sure that the RAM I selected is the appropriate RAM.

According to intel.com,

https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/64601/intel-xeon-processor-e51650-12m-cache-3-2...

Memory Specifications

Max Memory Size (dependent on memory type)    256 GB

Memory Types    DDR3 800/1066/1333/1600

Max # of Memory Channels   4

Max Memory Bandwidth   51.2 GB/s

ECC Memory Supported ‡   Yes

and the reference I listed before,

https://h20331.www2.hp.com/hpsub/downloads/z420_memory_configurations.pdf

Platform capabilities
Maximum capacity: 64 GB
Total of 8 memory sockets
• 4 channels with 2 sockets per channel
Speed
• 1600 MHz, 1333 MHz and 1066 MHz DIMMs are supported
• Memory will operate at the speed of the slowest rated installed processor or DIMM
Dynamic power saving is enabled.

DDR3 1333 should work but I am unsure about the "2Rx4" part in the title of the listing.  Is this number, 2Rx4, important?   I also noticed that you are using the RAM with the heat spreaders on it in the same post mentioned above.  So I assume that, that is advisable.

In addition I see that you used a single 6 pin to 8 pin adapter and that the 6 pin delivers 216W, but later I saw mentioned that one could use the dual 6 pin to 8 pin adapter and use that as well.  Could you explain how the two 6 pins together just deliver 216W when needed?  

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-PCs-Workstations-and-Point-of-Sale-Systems/Upgrading-an-HP-Z4...

Now the RTX 4000 runs at 160W, it looks like so 216W is far more than enough.

https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/quadro-rtx-4000.c3336

That's what I can see,

Thank You,

EG

[DGroves]

the difference between 6 pin and 8 pin gpu connectors is that the 8 pin has 2 more grounding connections over the 6 pin these additional grounds tell the power supply to allow the increased wattage over the 6 pin

the 2Rx4 refers to how the dimm is organised and it's known as the "Rank" and you can not mix ranks so installing a 8 gb dimm that is 1Rx4 and a 8gb dimm that is 2Rx4 if placed together on the same memory chanel will not work

the z420 supports 4 memory channels and each channel is two dimm slots so as long as you match the two dimms in a channel it will work fine

in other words dimm channel 1

place two 2Rx4 rank 8 gb dimms

and in dimm channel 2

place two 1Rx8 rank dimms

for a total of four dimms which will work fine

[NonSequitur777]

@egunther,

About RAM speed, depending on what processor you use, such as a Xeon E5-1680 v2, your system can run 8x16GB RAM up to 1833 MHz, such as the 16GB Samsung M392B2G70DM0-CMA RAM. This RAM is DDR3 server memory designed for high-performance enterprise use.

Yes, the "2Rx4" specification does make a difference.  It means: 2R = Dual-Rank (two groups of memory chips; usually faster and higher capacity than single-rank) x4 = Each DRAM chip is 4-bits wide (typical for server-grade ECC RDIMMs).  Why it matters: many servers require or prefer x4 RDIMMs for stability and ECC features.

Dual-rank (2R) modules often give better performance due to rank interleaving. Ensures compatibility with HP commercial server systems. In short: 2Rx4 is the standard configuration for most DDR3 server RDIMMs and is important for compatibility and reliability.

Each 6-pin to 8-pin power supply adapter delivers 216-watt. Some HP power supplies provide two 6-pin PCIe power cables, and each 6-pin can deliver up to 216-watt, therefore two such power cables can provide up to 2 x 216-watt = 432-watt total.

Yes, I wouldn't recommend the Z420 for gaming use. Your PC will do quite well with CG art. Literally the last sentence of my upgrade thread reads: "Conclusion: if gaming is your aim, the HP Z420 Workstation as an upgrade project, quite frankly, sucks."

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[SDH]

You are getting excellent advice from NonSequitur777 and DGroves, and clearly have put in the effort to get things right, and understood. Our enterprise has used the Z420 v2 and Z620 v2 workstations in single-processor configurations extensively for years, and they have served us well. Their technology is still excellent, but has been upgraded over the years via the next couple of generations, the ZX40 and the ZX G4 families. One of my duties has been to direct our IT guys on upgrades for our HP workstations and medical imaging software, and I've kept good records along the way.

My favorite processor for the single-processor Z420 v2 and single processor Z620 v2 builds is the E5-1680 v2. Next best is the E5-1660 v2. Those processors cannot run in the v1 versions of those workstations... easy to tell the difference by checking your boot block date in BIOS.

It turns out those v2 workstations can use identical retired server memory, ECC/buffered, and I'll post tomorrow exactly what we settled on for 8GB/stick and 16GB/stick. It is best to use identical memory, in my experience, filling all 8 slots, for the Quad Channel memory benefit. One slower stick will slow down all the others and your processor. Agree with DGroves on how to mix in single and dual rank sticks properly, but I found it was more fool proof to not do that... I stick with only 8 being all the same rank (based on what HP originally certified or what we certified ourselves here). There is memory that works perfectly that did not even exist when HP was doing its ZX20 certification process, or was too expensive to justify certifying. 

Other items I'll get you tomorrow are the part numbers to search for on eBay for use in your Z420, for these:

1.  The special HP passive air flow baffle that optimizes memory cooling via directing flow up and out via the power supply fan. These are now somewhat hard to find... not critical.

2. Front bottom cooling fan black plastic holder plus the right fan to use. The motherboard estimates what cooling needs you have, and presence of that front case cooling fan is virtually always necessary given your plan. The link HERE will take care of #1 and #2.

3. The stock Premium CPU heatsink/fan in the Z420 generally has excellent cooling capacity but in some cases a lesser Mainstream one was installed. Easy to tell, and there is also one from the Z440 workstations that can be used and is even better than the Premium one. However, I'd only upgrade to that if you have a lesser Mainstream Z420 one.

4. There are several official Z420 HP power supplies... if you have the lowest power version you'll need to upgrade that for what you plan to do. Easy, and inexpensive. It won't hurt to provide more than enough power via the supplemental PCIe power cable(s) to the card... the video card will only use what it needs. Some of the adapters are good but many are very cheap and substandard for handling the extra wattage that the HP power supplies can provide via their power cable(s).

5. These ZX20 workstations can run specific M.2 SSD sticks in the HP Z Turbo Drive PCIe cards. There are both AHCI- and NVMe-controller M.2 sticks to consider. Use of the best AHCI-controller stick that HP certified would be easiest for you at this stage, and that would provide you a perceptible boost above a very good quality SATA III SSD (which is still a very good choice and even easier). The next generation of HP workstations, the ZX40 series, has the capability to run the even faster NVMe M.2 sticks. There is a specific Samsung 950 Pro NVMe M.2 stick to consider, but that is a whole different topic.

6. These workstations were engineered in a prior era. When they are properly optimized it is surprising how fast they can be, especially when run on an advanced x64 operating system and modern software. We're using the W11 Pro 25H2 OS now with them, and we've also been migrating into the more recent HP workstations. I think you'll be very happy with all your Z420 upgrades.

It would be helpful to know if you are handy with computer upgrades and if you are in the US or elsewhere. eBay access to the recycled parts seems best in the US.

[egunther]

Hi @SDH

Just to get some stuff out of the way, I am in the U.S., I am OK at upgrades, and the boot block date on the machine is 2011; so I guess, unfortunately, this is a V1.  This is also consistent with the info on the mobo which has a -v1 on the right side of the bar code.

I don't immediately see how I can determine the version of the heat sink on the CPU.

I have the rear memory cooling apparatus, but not the front duct or fan.  I have found examples of both. 

I will be reviewing all of these thorough responses and replying when I can.

Thank You,

EG

[egunther]

@DGroves

Thanks for the response, I understand that the extra grounds signal the PSU to provide more wattage.

Also I think that considering Rank if I use all the same dimms.  Like the 8GB 2Rx4 PC3-10600R DDR3 I am looking at, then that should not be a problem but if I use only four of the Rank type I must plug into the correct slots to have it work.

Thank You

EG

[egunther]

---

@NonSequitur777 wrote:

About RAM speed, depending on what processor you use, such as a Xeon E5-1680 v2, your system can run 8x16GB RAM up to 1833 MHz, such as the 16GB Samsung M392B2G70DM0-CMA RAM. This RAM is DDR3 server memory designed for high-performance enterprise use.

 Thanks for the reply.  This further clarifies and increases my confidence in the dimms that I am selecting.  I have a Xeon E5-1650 and am looking at DDR3 1333 RAM and I would like to see what kind of performance increase I will get out of the RAM and the Graphics card for the time being rather than getting a new CPU, although from looking through some of your posts, they are definitely affordable.

Each 6-pin to 8-pin power supply adapter delivers 216-watt. Some HP power supplies provide two 6-pin PCIe power cables, and each 6-pin can deliver up to 216-watt, therefore two such power cables can provide up to 2 x 216-watt = 432-watt total.

Yes, I wouldn't recommend the Z420 for gaming use. Your PC will do quite well with CG art. Literally the last sentence of my upgrade thread reads: "Conclusion: if gaming is your aim, the HP Z420 Workstation as an upgrade project, quite frankly, sucks."

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

---

So the power supply can deliver 432 W but won't if the card does not demand it?

Yeah, I think that's why I started that reply with the clarification about the use-case of the computer.

Thank You,

EG

[NonSequitur777]

@egunther,

That is affirmative: even though the power supply's 2 x 6-pin to 8-pin PCIe power cables can deliver a total of 432-watt, but your graphics card will only use what it needs.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777