HP Z420 upgrade, graphics and RAM

[SDH]

You have a v1 motherboard that can only run the earlier Sandy Bridge (Intel code name) v1 processors. You could consider doing a v2 motherboard transplant so you could run the later faster Ivy Bridge v2 processors. My recall is that the v1 processors have issues with use of the faster memory that can be equally well used in the Z420 v2 and Z620 v2 workstations. I chose the motherboard transplant to v2 in every Z420 v1 and Z620 v1 workstation we had so will not advise you much on memory if you need to stick with your v1 motherboard. Those v2 motherboards are inexpensive to buy via eBay and it takes me less than one hour to do the transplant. You'd be near 1/2 way there if you're going to upgrade your CPU. With your v1 situation I'd consider a Z440 upgrade instead.

Some details I promised from above:

1. Passive air flow baffle to improve front memory bank cooling. You'll already have the rear memory bank active (has fan) cooler:

2. Front case fan and fan holder:  The black plastic fan holder and PCIe card edge stabilizer is the same for the Z400 and the Z420. As such there are a good number of Spares and Assembly part numbers to search eBay for.  A HP 92 x 25 mm PWM case fan is used in all cases, and those can be found on eBay. They have a brownish 4-pin fan plug end with only side guide rims and no central guide rim. Only get the brownish plug type, and Nidec or Delta ones from HP are preferred:

3. Stock vs premium CPU heatsink/fan:  In my post above I was getting the Z400 info mixed up with the Z420 info. The stock Z420 heatsink/fan is shown below, and below that is a picture of my breakthrough work using a Z440 heatsink/fan in the Z420.  Fits perfectly also in our single processor Z620 builds including under the Z620's optional front/rear memory bank active memory cooling "saddle" (has 2 fans). The Z420/Z620 have a 5-pin fan plug header for the CPU cooler and the Z440 coolers instead have a 6-pin fan plug end. You just hang the plug's hole for pin 6 off the edge of the 5-pin header by 1/8"... easy fix. That Z440 cooler provides over twice the cooling capacity than the Z420 stock one, and it obviates the need or desire for liquid coolers for the hottest running processors in the Z420/Z620-single-processor-builds. HP even uses it in the Z4 G4 workstations.

Stock Z420 CPU cooler...

Z440 cooler fits perfectly in Z420

4. Z420 power supplies:  There are two wattage levels... 600 and 400. You'd only want the 600W one. However, of interest, that high wattage one has 2 versions and the low wattage one has only 1 version. Only the early Z420 v1 workstations came with a 600W power supply that had TWO 6-pin supplemental power cables. The later Z420 v2 workstations with the 600W power supply only have ONE 6-pin connector. The low wattage Z420 400W power supply has ZERO.

5. AHCI M.2 stick from HP in Z Turbo Drive G2:  With the evolution of M.2 sticks during the life of the ZX20 workstations HP introduced the Z Turbo Drive G1 and G2. They are essentially identical except for the G2 having an excellent aluminum finned heatsink. Both can run one M.2 stick, and the initial M.2 stick was lower speed, with an AHCI-controller. The second also has an AHCI-controller but is significantly faster. A BIOS update enabled use of these PCIe cards. The HP XP941 is slower; the HP SM951 AHCI version is quite fast.  You'd want at least the 256GB faster version as your boot/apps drive and I prefer the 512 GB one for even faster/better performance. Search for the faster 256 GB via 793100-001 = 788612-001 and the fastest 512 GB via 793102-001 = 788613-001.  Lots more on all that in the forum. These will work in your Z420 v1.

6. W11 Pro 64 in ZX20 workstations: Works great and is very fast for us with our souped up v2 motherboards and v2 processors. I've been working on an easy install process using the Rufus 4.11 method, and there are multiple methods available beyond Rufus 4.11.

7. 8GB and 16GB memory that I certified here for use in Z420 v2 and in Z620 v2 workstations (these are not for the Z420 v1, but might work in the Z620 v1):

16GB sticks: Samsung/ SKhynix/ Micron HP AS PN 712383-081=SP PN 715274-001. I did my main testing on the Micron sticks:

For Z420 v2, not for v1

8GB sticks for the v2 Z420 and Z620 workstations:  There are also SKHynix versions of these with same HP part numbers. I mainly tested with the Samsung OEM ones.  These are significantly less expensive than the 16GB sticks and it is better to run 8 of these than 4 of the 16GB ones. I also used these from IBM servers. Again, not for the v1 Z420 workstations:

Same memory was used in HP/ IBM/ Lenovo/ Dell servers

Hope that all helps...

[egunther]

Thanks, you guys don't quit, I have bought the quadro rtx 4000 and it is on the way... I think thurs. I only have another question @SDH -Do the dimm heat spreaders allow one to not need the duct, is it in some way redundant? I see that the dimms you have tested in your enterprise machines don't have the heat spreaders on them. I saw a way to get them off and presumably back on but it seems like something I might not want to mess with. My z420 has heat spreaders on all of the 8x4G dimms, so I was intending to replace them with like dimms. I mention the dimms in this post,

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-PCs-Workstations-and-Point-of-Sale-Systems/HP-Z420-upgrade-gr...

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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
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The post is exeedingly useful, for instance the part about the z440 CPU heatsink... I had seen this when I was looking around before but I didn't know what it looked like. I don't think I am going to replace the motherboard at this time as this is a computer I get a lot of use out of and I don't really want it to be out of commission. The baffle and the front fan are also of interest. Thank you for all of the catalog numbers...

I hadn't been aware of the Z Turbo Drives, I imagine I would get some snappy response out of the computer with these.

@NonSequitur777, @DGroves

I think I am going to wait to mark this thread as solved until I get the upgrade done, so it's done.

Thank You

EG