HP Z600 Grafikcard upgrade.

[Wilmiloard]

Hello HP community

In the manual link below I will read a lot of Geforce cards in use for the HP Z600 but what about AMD or ATI cards?,  my monitor works fine with ATI and AMD cards because my monitor is designed for Freesync.
And the graphics card should Dirext X 12 can.

Can i use AMD and ATI cards and what type of cards can i use?

https://www.usedcomp.de/pdf/HP-Z600-Workstation-QuickSpecs.pdf

[Hiatus · Accepted solution]

The HP QuickSpecs are mainly written for those who buy their workstation new. No one buys a workstation new to use for gaming, so pretty much all of the cards listed in the QuickSpecs are cards optimized for heavy graphic workloads like 3d modeling, rendering, video editing and CAD. In 2009-2013 most of those cards were from Nvidia. But you'll find at least one ATI-card in the list!

You can put pretty much any graphics card you want in your Z600. As long as it runs with a single 6-pin connector and have a maximum power consumption of 150w you are good to go. Otherwize it may get a bit tricky.

However, our workstations has some limitations since the first version is 10 years old. We have PCIe gen2 instead of PCIe gen3 which slows modern cards down. Depending on your CPU setup, that may be another bottleneck...
The X58 platform is a really sweet platform for a lot of different workloads, but not really optimized for gaming in 2019, I'm afraid.

So, you could put any brand of <150w graphics card in your Z600. But you could probably only use a fraction of the performance from a modern card...

Someone should do some benchmarks. It would be interesting to see how much performance gets wasted from the slower PCIe slot. An older card might even perform better than a modern. Say for argument sake that you loose 30% of the performance from running PCIe2. Would an older card with 30% less performance but fully utilized by the system run better or worse than a newer generation card running with the "choke"...?

I havn't got the money for it myself, but I'd love to see it benchmarked...

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[Wilmiloard]

Great answer!:)

Yes i want want alsow see benchmarks with new Grafifkcards.:)

And is it possible to integrate DDR 3 with 1600MHz?

In the manual they integrate 1333 Mhz ram.

What ram sorts can i integrate?

[Hiatus]

Thank you. 🙂
Glad I could help.

When it comes to RAM speeds, the Xeon CPU's are the limitation. Depending on what version of Xeon X5xxx you run, the highest supported memory speed is 1333mhz. Some of the lower end quad Xeons only support 800/1066...
You can see all specs of the Xeon here to see what speed is max for your setup:
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/codename/54534/westmere-ep.html

It's always the safest bet to stay within specification when it comes to RAM. However, many Z600-users (me included) run our rigs with out of spec memory. I run mine with dual 16gb sticks, which should'nt work according to specs, but here I am posting a reply using some of those 32gigs just fine...
If you have a stack of assorted RAM sticks laying around, try them out and see what works. Otherwise, ask someone what they use and get the exact same sticks and hope it works for you too. 🙂

Different "out of spec" upgrades get different reactions from different systems depending on motherboard revision (B3/C2) and potentially pure luck. Be careful not to mix different kinds of RAM. Six identical sticks should work best and the maximum I've seen fitted is 6x16gb for a total of 96gb running dual CPU's.

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[Wilmiloard]

"I run mine with dual 16gb sticks, which should'nt work according to specs,"

Is there non specific ram?

And is there any performance boost between?

PC3-10600 DDR3-1333 ECC Registered DIMMs CTO

PC3-10600 DDR3-1333 ECC Unbuffered DIMMs CTO

In my workstation is this

Two  4 GB "DDR3 RAM Hynix HMT451U7AFR8C-RD to AB 1866MHz RAM Memory"

And one "Samsung 2 GB DDR Ram"

[Hiatus]

I use 2x16gb Samsung M393B2G70BH0-YK0 in mine. Saving up for the third one to run triple channel, but so far it has done its job for me...

You'll find what RAM is supported in the QuickSpecs. My memory fits the specs, besides the fact that they are twice the size of the largest ones specified as compatible. If you were to go too far out of spec, It may not work...

When it comes to registered vs unbuffered there are arguments for both of them. Speed shouldn't really be one of them...
It works like this (ish):

The unbuffered ECC RAM takes the ones and zeros directly from the CPU and put them in the memory bank. A registered ECC RAM would take the same ones and zeros from the CPU, But before putting them in the memory, it puts them in its memory register before sending them through to the memory banks.

This effects the speed in the first set of ones and zeros, but after the first cycle is done, there's no difference in speed anymore since the transfer speed is the same. Just one extra step in the registered modules. Compared, The registered memory would be one or two clock cycles behind at all times, But would work at the same speed. Note that one clock cycle is not the same as one CPU cycle. There can be more than one clock cycle per CPU cycle.

The different types of RAM are also handled a bit different by the system, where the system sees the number of memory chips on each DIMM individually on unbuffered RAM, it sees them as one single unit on registered RAM. This makes it possible to fit more of the registered ram to your system compared to unbuffered.

Please don't ask me why that is. I haven't got that far in my research yet... It has to do with electrical loading somehow, but the rabbit hole seems really  deep... 🙂

So if you need a lot of ram in the limited number of slots, go for the registered RAM. If you want to spend less money and perhaps gain a percent or two of initial speed, go for the unbuffered RAM.
factory spec says 24gb max on unbuffered and 48 on registered for the Z600. Going by what I've learned so far, the double is probably more correct if you pick the right sticks. As I've said before, 96gb is the documented max on the Z600 running dual CPU and registered RAM.

You would probably get the most out of your 1 CPU system if you would run 3 sticks of the exact same memory and make sure you keep it within the QuickSpecs limits when it comes to speed. Your 1866mhz memory will not run at full speed since the Xeon CPU is limited to 1333, which is a bit of a waste...

And remember that the benefits of running workstation grade RAM doesn't really come from the registered or unbuffered part of it on everyday workloads. BUffered/registered is important if you run a server.

It's the ECC part of it that is important and makes it worth while (but potentially slows everything down a bit compared to non ECC RAM). 

Error Correcting Code is great regardless of speed when you take stability in to consideration...
When was the last time your Z600 crashed due to memory? ECC FTW!

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[GazzaMataz]

I have seen people use a 6pin to 8pin adaptor for GPUs on the z600 so that opens up a few more options.

[Hiatus]

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@GazzaMataz wrote:

I have seen people use a 6pin to 8pin adaptor for GPUs on the z600 so that opens up a few more options.

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That is always an option. There's also adapters for splitting 6-pin into dual 6-pin and you can even get adapters for Molex to 6-pin or SATA to 6-pin.

The thing to look out for is the power consumption. If the card needs an 8-pin or dual 6's, it usually draws more power...

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[GazzaMataz]

So what is the max power consumption for a GPU in a z600 150w?

[Hiatus]

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@GazzaMataz wrote:

So what is the max power consumption for a GPU in a z600 150w?

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The QuickSpecs says 150w max. 75w from the PCIe slot and 75w from the 6-pin. But since there are 6-pin to dual 6-pin adapters to buy, you could potentially run a 225w GPU with dual 6-pin. But that's theoretical thus far.

I have yet to see anyone try it.

The PSU is 650w, so no limitations there. As far as I can see, the only limitation to the factory setup that would limit it to 150w is the single 6-pin.

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