Want to replace MOBO and keep Z420 Water CPU cooler

[SlamHammer]

Good day fellow HP friends!

I have a HP Z620 that I saved from being trashed at work and have it running marvelously. 
I WOULD however like to replace the OEM motherboard for one that is more "friendly" to being played with.  I currently have a Xeon 1650 V2 OC'd to 4.5 GHz.... BUT.... as we all know the OEM BIOS is not too keen on being modified. I am also running the HP Z420 water CPU cooler.

The 2 questions I have for you fine folk and your expertise are:
1: What would yall recommend I use as a replacement MOBO (yes I'm aware I need a V2 board ;))

2: Do any of you have a tried and true method for PROPERLY implementing a HP CPU cooler on a non-HP MOBO?

[SDH]

Let me understand.... you have a version 2 Z620 with a version 2 E5-1650 processor that you have overclocked successfully, and you want to find another non-HP motherboard that will fit in that fine Z620 case?

Have your optimized your current build with a Z Turbo Drive or current generation SATA SSD?  Have you optimized your RAM with 1866MHz server quality RAM (which you can buy quite inexpensively now used off eBay, retired from HP servers)?

These HP workstations are not built to ATX standards... they are built to much higher standards.  An ATX motherboard and power supply won't fit in as a plug and play.  It is a big job to try to fit consumer grade ATX parts into this case.

Why not just buy an ATX case, an ATX power supply, and an ATX motherboard and slap them together with cheap drives and cheap ram?  Save your Z620 as it is......  

[SlamHammer]

SSD: Yes

1866 ECC-R MEMORY: Yes

I do not mean for this post to come across as snooty or anything of the sort. Just kinda bugged me a bit that I cannot squeeze out that extra bit using the exceptional HP hardware because of the check-sum on the BIOS. 

This was more of an exploratory post to a group who'd I think would know best. I have another workstation - Lenovo C20x - with an old LGA1366 board in it but it's a mid-tower and doesn't have all the TLC the Z620 has. 

I guess that answers my question about the system. What about a LGA2011 V2 board recommendation?? V3 boards and CPUs are a BIT out of my "single dad" budget stipulations lol

[BambiBoomZ · Accepted solution]

SlamHammer,

Workstations are inherently resistant to being "played with" as the key feature is reliability- stability- over long, intensive sessions. they're also made ot be as quiet as possible, so the air flow CFM is not nearly that of a gaming case. The reliability and thermal limitations are reasons it's quite rare for  a Xeon to be unlocked- the Xeon E5-v2's that can be overclocked are exclusively the 1650 v2, 1660 v2, and 1680 v2.  Also, the overclocking has to be done using Intel Extreme Tuning Uility (XTU) which has only two controls- multiplier and added voltage. 

If you're achieving 4.5GHz on an E5-1650 v2, and z420 liquid cooler, you're doing very well.  the highest clock I've seen on an E5-1650 v2 and this is one ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, etc motherboards using very detailed, controllable software, is 4.6GHz.   What version of XTU are you using? What is the running voltage under 100% load? Keep in mind, that over 1.5V the CPU will degrade.

The other issue is that overclocking the ECC memory is not possible.

The options to go further with the z620 are limited.   Changing the motherboard is not worth it; of the later E5's only  the 1650, 1660, and 1680 v3's may be overclocked.

One option is to change to a Xeon E5-1660 v2 as the all-core clock is 3.8GHz instead of the 3.6GHz of the 1650 v2, bu that expensive for +200Mhz.  Also, there is the option for an external cooler, which will allow higher clock speeds without thermal throttling.  Out Forum friend Brian1965 designed and built one that allows his E5-1680 v2 to run at 4.7Ghz on all cores, but that cooler was a considerable effort using a high-powered laser cutter.  Also, the voltages necessary for that speed are quite high.  Without that very efficient custom cooler, the high voltage would degrade the CPU in short order. I'm running the E5-1680 v2 in a z620 and an E5-1650 v2 in a z420 both with a z420 liquid cooler at 4.3GHz. An Alphacool Eiswand 6X 120mm fan external cooler would be an option, but those are quite expensive.

As the 4.5GHz is so near the maximum clock speed for the E5-1650 v2 in any system, for complete tuning flexibility, the only cost/benefit effecient option is to starting over with something , e.g., an i7-4790K on Z97 and newer where there can be very fine tuning of processor parameters, the RAM can be overclocked, large AIO liquid radiators, very open air flow cases- WS cases are designed to be quiet and have lower air-flow.

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 / Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 sound interface + 2X Mackie MR824 / 825W PSU /> HP OEM Windows 7 Prof.’l 64-bit > 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]
[Cinebench: OpenGL= 134.68 fps / CPU= 1234 cb [10.27.18]

HP z420_3: (2015) (R11) Xeon E5-1650 v2 (6C@ 4.3GHz) / z420 Liquid cooling / 32GB (HP/Samsung 4X 8GB DDR3-1866 ECC registered) / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB/ 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 or externally to HP 2711x 27" LCD > 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

[SlamHammer]

BamiBoomZ:

To answer your two questions first. XTU Version - 6.5.1.360 and the voltage while the benchmark is running hovers between 1.3V and 1.4V according to CPU-Z. I do know that once you creep ever closer to and maybe surpass 1.5 you're getting into "possible death" territory. While running the CPU temp floats around 50-55c so happy there as well.

I did *against my better judgement* go against Brian's VERY well-written guide to XTU and used the newest version and haven't run into any issues on WIN10 - 1909. Guess I wanted to be absolutely sure that I'm at the farthest point i can safely go. I am happy with how the system has behaved in the 3/4 months I've had it. I never thought I'd type the words "HP built a pretty solid box" though most of my HP experience is in the form of retail and networking appliances so.........🤣

Although that HP Performance Advisor software is another story. Good thing my OS is on its own SSD! 😅

Regardless I shall abandon my pushing of the system and I GREATLY appreciate your well thought out response. The support and knowledge around here is amazing! 😊