HP Z620 Workstation CPU Upgrade

[Neel0]

All,

I would like to upgrade my Z620,.
I am stuck with V1 chip and would like to upgrade to dual chip with riser. I was wondering if I can upgrade to new chipset (E5-26**) with the same motherboard which came with the machine or do I need to replace the motherboard also RAM.

If I upgrade 2 similar chipset (V3 or V4), will I be able to upgrade my bios to the latest one

Below are my specs, 

System Board : 158A 0.00

J61 v03.96 Block date 6/13/2019

Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-1603 0 @ 2.80GHz 16GB

Memory Slot 1 - 4: 4GB Samsung 1866MHz X 4

[Brian1965]

Hi Neel0,

Can you please confirm what the motherboard Boot Block date is? (This is listed in the BIOS).

The date you have listed in your post is the release date of the BIOS, not the motherboards Boot Block date. It should be either 2011 for a v1 motherboard, or 2013 for a v2 motherboard. This will clarify what CPU's, etc. your motherboard supports.

Regardless of whether you have a v1 or v2 motherboard, you can still install the 2nd CPU riser card and install a pair of E5-26xx CPU's (just not the v2 version Xeons, e.g. E5-2667 v2, only the v1 version Xeons, e.g. E5-2667). With 2x CPU's, you will need a minimum of 8 ram modules, (4 on the mainboard, 4 on the CPU riser card), for optimum performance. The ram modules should ideally be of the same brand and part number, otherwise you could run into issues.

NOTE: v1 Xeon CPU's only support up to 1600MHz ram modules, the v2 Xeon CPU's support up to 1866MHz modules. Your current CPU (E5-1603) only supports up to 1066MHz, i.e. your current 1866MHz ram modules are only running at 1066MHz.

Here is a link to the official HP Z620 support page. I recommend you have a browse and download the Maintenace and Service Guide for starters. It will help with familiarizing yourself with these workstations.

[Neel0]

Brian,

Thank you, will check on it and update this forum

Neel

[Xgamerz]

if you re lucky with a z620 v2 (2013), best choice to make for someone who looking for cpu clock speed, install 2667v2 (TDP 130W), but in return, you will lose possibility of installing dual high end gpu's if u going for full config (3 to 4 disk, 12 slot memory filled ...)
GPU power consumption 

pick a good termal paste it really make difference.

and 2nd scenario if you leaning towards GPU config, i think E5-2650v2 is a good choice with TDP 95W,

last month i installed a dual E5-2667v2 on my Z620 and result is way better in term of performance and cooling compared to E5-2600 v1 even against those with lower TDP like E5-2670 (my old cpu).

[BambiBoomZ]

Neel0,

1.  If the motherboard is 158A, and the boot block date is 2013, the subject system is a z620 version 2, capable of using Xeon E5-X16XX v1 or  v2 and 1X or 2X E5-X26XX v1 or v2 processors and up to DDR3-1866 ECC unbuffered for a single processor or 1866 ECC registered if there is or will be two processors. The office z620 and z420 both use 64GB of HP ECC registered with a single processor.

2.  The 3.96 BIOS is the latest version.

3.  It seems very unlikely that a v3 or v4 - capable motherboard would plug into the z620: the v3 and v4 CPU's are used in the zX40 systems. The zX40 systems with E5-v3 and v4 do allow more cores, 2133 RAM and native support for M.2 NVMe drives but if that is the goal,  buy a low specification  z640 and upgrade.

4.  If the system needs two processors, then the aforementioned Xeon E5-2667 v2 idea is seconded. The E5-2667 v2 shares with the E5-2687W v2 a 4.0GHz Turbo speed. The base clock speed is 100MHz lower than the E5-2687W  at 3.3GHz.

5.  Consider using a symmetrical RAM configuration between the two processors using the same number of identical, HP-labelled DDR3-1866 ECC registered RAM modules for each processor and a minimum of 32GB for each processor.

BambiBoomZ

HP z620_2 (2017) (R7) > Xeon E5-1680 v2 (8C@ 4.3GHz) / z420 Liquid Cooling / 64GB (HP/Samsung 8X 8GB DDR3-1866 ECC registered) / Quadro P2000 5GB _ GTX 1070 Ti 8GB / HP Z Turbo Drive M.2 256GB AHCI + Samsung 970 EVO M.2 NVMe 500GB + HGST 7K6000 4TB + HP/HGST Enterprise 6TB / Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 sound interface + 2X Mackie MR824 / 825W PSU / Windows 7 Prof.’l 64-bit (HP OEM) > 2X Dell Ultrasharp U2715H (2560 X 1440)

[ Passmark Rating = 6280 / CPU rating = 17178 / 2D = 819 / 3D= 12629 / Mem = 3002 / Disk = 13751 / Single Thread Mark = 2368 [10.23.18]

HP z420_3: (2015) (R11) Xeon E5-1650 v2 (6C@ 4.3GHz) / z420 Liquid cooling / 64GB (HP/Samsung 8X 8GB DDR3-1866 ECC registered) / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB/ HP/LSI 9212-4i > Samsung 860 EVO 500GB + HGST 4TB / ASUS Essence STX + Logitech z2300 2.1 / 600W PSU > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit (HP OEM ) > Samsung 40" 4K

[Passmark System Rating: = 5644 / CPU = 15293 / 2D = 847 / 3D = 10953 / Mem = 2997 Disk = 4858 /Single Thread Mark = 2384 [6.27.19]

HP ZBook 17 G2: (2015 ) i7-4940MX Extreme (4C@3.1/ 4.0GHz) / 32GB / Quadro K3100M 4GB / Kingston 480GB SATA SSD > 17.3" LCD 1920 X1080 panel > HP docking station> video externally to HP 2711x 27" LCD + Dell 17" (2007) / Logitech 533 _2.1 speaker system

[Passmark System Rating: = 3980 / CPU = 10140 / 2D = 618 / 3D = 2779 / Mem = 2559 Disk = 4662 / Single Thread Mark = 2387 [1.3.20]

[Neel0]

Thank you BambiBoomZ

I was struggling to find the year on the motherboard without removing any components

Do you know any place, i can buy a riser with heat sink for this workstation.

I am trying to upgrade to dual xeon, will be going for  Xeon E5-2667 v2 or E5-2687W v2 based on your suggestions

Appreciate it

[BambiBoomZ]

Neel0,

To clarify, when referring to the motherboard version,  the motherboard is the 158A but it is still necessary to refer to the boot block date in BIOS to verify the version.  Press F10 repeatedly when first booting up until it reads "Entering Setup " at the bottom of the screen and the boot block date will appear in the system information list . As Brian1965 mentioned, the 2011 date means E5 first version and 2013 means also being able to use E5-v2.

As for the riser, they are quite plentiful on Ebahh; I see listings for the US, UK, and DE.  Be sure it includes the special fan/heatsink.  Be careful- take your time when installing in the socket as there are a lot of quite delicate pins in the socket.

The last dual CPU system in this office was a z620 first version.  Purchased as:

HP z620_1 (Original) Xeon E5-1620 (4-core @ 3.6 /3.8GHz) / 8GB (1X 8GB DDR3-1333) / AMD Firepro V5900 (2GB) / Seagate Barracuda 750GB + Samsung 500GB + WD 500GB
[ Passmark System Rating= 2408 / CPU= 8361 / 2D= 846 / 3D = 1613 / Mem =1584 / Disk = 574 ] 7.13.16

> was eventually:

HP z620_1 (2012)(Rev 5) 2X Xeon E5-2690 (8-core @ 2.9 /3.8GHz) / 40GB (4X 8GB +4X 2GB DDR3-1600) / Quadro K2200 (4GB) / Samsung 850 Evo 250GB + Seagate Constellation ES.3 1TB / 800W > Windows 7 Professional 64-bit > HP 2711x (1920 X 1080)
[ Passmark System Rating= 4610 / CPU= 20,212 / 2D= 648 / 3D = 3,907 / Mem = 2,340 / Disk = 4,667 / Single Thread Mark = 2044] 8.11.17

BambiBoomZ

[SDH]

An added tip:

The conversion of a v1 Z620 to a v2 Z620 is quite easily done via buying a used v2 motherboard from eBay and transplanting that in.  I've done that on several v1 Z620s and it takes about 1/2 hour now.  Budget an hour initially.

There are posts in the forum here on how exactly to recognize a v2 motherboard.  It has to do with seeing the bar code label near the bottom center of the motherboard and knowing what the correct part number(s) are to look for (on the right hand side of the label, not those on the left side).  If you post a picture of your bar code label I'd be happy to tell you from that what you have.  If the workstation is up and running it is easier to just use the method of going into BIOS that Brian and Bambi gave you.

The bar code label is shown below.... post a sharp closeup if you wish:

If you have an old v1 motherboard and choose to go this route you need to make sure the seller knows that you only want the one that has the exact correct number when you agree to buy.  You don't want a mixup and end up with another v1 motherboard by human error.