Will a 2Tb Samsung 980Pro V.nand NVME m.2 PCiE4 SSD as a documents drive require a heatsink on Z420

[Rhothgar]

Hi

I appreciate that the Z420 will not be able to take full advantage of PCie 4 and will be throttled to PCie3.

I have a spare Z Turbo Drive card without heatsink, sadly as I bought it for use with AHCI.  Should I just buy a G2 card with an heatsink instead?

Also, I've noticed that some prices seem really reasonable at the moment and have the opportunity to get a Z620 with dual E5-2690 V2 for £250 running 96Gb RAM.  Is it actually worth upgrading the Z420?  Passmark CPU seems to show some healthy increases in CPU speed but does the same BIOS restrictions exist as per the Z420 ie 3.96 and needing the motherboard to be the July 2013 (from memory) model?

Really happy with the performance of the Z420 since upgrading it with the support of SDH, DGroves, Brian1965 et all.

Might be getting back into practising Architecture (if I can pick up Revit) so would this kind of upgrade to Z620 (which doesn't really feel like an upgrade apart from the dual processor option) or perhaps a Z440 or Z640 now be worth looking into.

[banhien]

@Rhothgar 

The Samsung 980 Pro does have a heatsink

              https://www.samsung.com/au/memory-storage/nvme-ssd/980-pro-with-heatsink-2tb-nvme-pcie-gen-4-mz-v8p2...

Regards.

[SDH]

Rhothgar, good to hear from you again, and thanks for your kind words.

What I'd recommend instead is a quantum leap up from the ZX20 family... to get a Z440 (or even a single processor Z640 but see the downsides of that below). The prices on these have really come down, and they can run both the v3 and v4 processors... there is no version issue in the motherboards unlike with the ZX20 family. The original 2400 MHz DDR4 ECC buffered memory has also come down in price, and the even faster single rank recycled memory used in the ZX G4 workstations can now be less expensive and runs in these ZX40 workstations just fine. The memory will just downshift to the max speed of the installed V3 or V4 ZX40 processor.

I'm typing right now on a Z440 with a E5-1660 v4 running a 500GB Samsung 980PRO as boot drive in a ZTD G1 card, but with a nice HP M.2 heatsink added. Yes, I'd elect to run any fast NVMe M.2 SSD with a heatsink added on top, and it does not need to be from HP. However, the one I like best is the HP 919952-001. You can see this on eBay, 9.00 USD from China (where they are made), free shipping. Sort price and shipping lowest first. Get one with the thermal pads included. It does not matter if those are dirty... with care you can gently peel them off, rub gently with liquid dish detergent in hot soapy water, pat dry, and replace carefully. They look almost new that way.

TopBottom

The tech on this newer generation is excellent. I generally use  the PCIe3 x8 true electrical lanes slot 4 for the ZTD G1, G2, or Dual Pro. You can turn on its bifurcation in BIOS to x4x4 and in that case you can even use a Z Turbo Drive Dual Pro to run your boot M.2 drive side by side inside the DP with a NVMe documents M.2 drive. I have found that a fast PCIe4 M.2 drive like the 980PRO will run faster than any PCIe3 M.2 drive I've seen in these workstations. You don't get any PCIe4 slots until the ZX G5 generation. I have a Z4 G4 Xeon version and our souped-up Z440s rival the Z4 G4 quite closely in performance.

Here you go... from 4 days ago:

Samsung Magician 8.1.0 speedtest

[SDH]

Banhien is right, and that is one you could use as it is on your ZTD G1 card. However, most 980PRO M.2 drives don't come with that Samsung heatsink (like the one you own) and you can't just unclip it. It is quite a project to get those heatsinks off. For some reason those, recycled, sometimes can go for a very good price, and I bought a low hours 1TB Samsung-heatsink-attached version that way. It is now the boot drive in a ZTD DP, mounted just above another M.2 drive (the documents drive) in the DP. The lower docs drive is cooled by another of the HP narrow heatsink as was shown above.

Of interest... the ZTD DP in a Z4 G4 can have its PCIe3 x8 slot's Bifurcation option set to Auto and work perfectly but the same option field in a Z440 needs to have that changed from Auto to x4x4. DGroves and Brian1965 helped me figure that out.

EDIT: Rothgar, back to the end of your post. Two big physical differences between the Z420/Z620 exist when compared to the Z440/Z640... the Z420/Z620 workstation motherboards both have 8 memory sockets, and both can use the same memory cooling saddle (which I like for all our Z420 v2 and Z620 v2 single processor builds). With the Z440 you do have 8 memory slots and can also use the optional Z440 memory cooling saddle. However, there is no memory cooling saddle for the Z640 even if you run it as a single-processor build. Also, there also are only 4 memory sockets built into the Z640 motherboard so you're forced to use higher density more expensive sticks in some cases. Even though the Z640 case is very nice, for single-processor builds in this family of HP workstations I've settled on the Z440 as the best choice.

[Rhothgar]

Your reply was really useful especially with that link as the one I have been offered doesn't have a heatsink!  And comparing the photos showed that. I wouldn't have known so thanks.

It's actually an MZ-V8P2T0 model.

[Rhothgar]

Hi. Hope you've been keeping well.

Having had a good read on the forum last night, I was reminded that I'd not tried a Tikkanen W11 build!

Maybe I am jumping the gun wanting to move so soon. After all, W10 will be supported until end 10/2025 and when you all helped me to build this great Z420 I have I figured it would be for a few years and then deal with the W11 problem.

Interesting points about the differences between the Z440 and Z640 especially lack of the cooling saddle.  The chassis is really nice on this Z640 I am looking at but I had my finger on the trigger to buy it last night and I guess perhaps I am being too hasty in not wanting to miss out on what seems to be a good price.

One of my questions was going to be, "What parts can be swapped over between the Z420 and the Z440/Z640?" as I don't want to be haemorrhaging money just for the fun of it!

So I think I'll start sniffing out Z440's in the meantime.

By the way, what is Z4 G4 please? I'm assuming it's Generation 4 but could it actually refer to  Z4(4)0?

Overall, it sounds like a leap to a dual processor V2, V3 or V4 machine may be overkill at the moment for me.  Everything works very well but then again it would since I came from a xw4600 if you recall.  It's another world for me, this level of computing power.  The ZTurbo card addition was transformative.

If I remember correctly, you're the chap that is an Architect too? If my recollection is correct, then here are a few more statements / questions.

All I've got to do now is find some really nice UK constructional Revit wall components.  It's going to be a long road but I might actually start learning to build some by myself and learn "Dynamo", "Grasshopper" or "Rhino".

I see all these amazing renderings on YouTube that I am assuming are done in Revit but then stopping and thinking it cannot be that good so it must be 3D Studio Max or whatever is the latest must-have rendering software.

Presumably it would be better to have two machines, one for Revit and one specifically for rendering?  I suppose most sensible people would simply leave a render running overnight if necessary.  Then again, I am talking about 15 years ago when I last practised.  I am sure PC's are probably so powerful now, most high end rendering can be processed in a hour or two which is a long time if you've forgotten to add something and need to re-render...

Thanks in advance.

PS Now I am left pondering whether £250 for a Z620 with 96Gb RAM and the dual E5-2690 v2 is actually worth a punt.

Here is a comparison (slightly slower on single thread but does that really matter when you have TWO CPU's or is the performance not strictly additive ie 184% increase in single thread speed with dual CPU's?):-



I have the Z420 AIO Water Cooler on the Z420 now and presumably this is transferable to a single CPU Z620 but I also wonder if it is possible to modify the 2nd CPU board to take a Z420 AIO Cooler by removing the cowling.  I read one of DGroves posts and if I understood correctly it doesn't look like there is another space for the Z420 AIO to fit on the single CPU if a 2nd CPU board is installed let alone pondering if a modification is possible to get on to fit on the 2nd CPU board too.

Interestingly, I can see what I assume to be the connector for the 2nd CPU board for the Z620 on listings on Ebay and it seems the Z420 has the connections in the motherboard.

I don't think the Z420 can  be converted into dual CPU by using a 618265-001 or a 736520-001. I'll have a check on the forum of course but when I see these connectors it makes me wonder.



EDIT:  I found this low resolution photo.  To me, it looks as thought the Z620 has some connectors soldered into those holes and a special clip to the right hand side to help support the load of the 2nd CPU board in which case converting a Z420 would not a job for the faint-hearted if at all possible.

[SDH]

I'll try with some but not all those questions. From your first post I realized you might not understand the Z420/Z620 can't use that NVMe 2TB M.2 SSD as a boot drive, only as a fast documents drive. It was not until the Z440/Z640 that the faster NVMe M.2 SSDs became supported for boot. Yes, same hassle to make sure you get the later v2 motherboard for those Z620 v2 workstations, and the Z820 v2. No such hassle for the ZX40 v3 and v4 processors... early and late motherboards will all work fine as long as you have their BIOS updated.

Installing the ZX40 W10/W11 OS onto a ZTD NVMe drive is somewhat complex but getting it on to a SATA SSD is much easier and more reliable, in my experience. DGroves advises to set BIOS to Factory Defaults and to only do a clean install. There would be some logic to running a SATA SSD as your boot/apps drive and using that nice big 980Pro as your documents drive. That's reflecting me spending the last week helping a friend get a ZTD going on W11 in his Z440. Gremlins, and we settled on a SATA SSD boot/apps drive for now to take a break.

The Z4 G4 is the next generation after the Z440, then came the Z4 G5.

Those PCB "pads" are for adding on the riser mini-motherboard connector and are present on the Z420 and Z440 motherboards because those are roughly the same as what is also used in the Z620/Z640, but with some parts left off or different. No, you can't get out your soldering iron and turn a 4 into a 6.

Not an architect... in medical imaging world. We don't need supercomputers because we're supposed to slow down and actually look at the pictures.

The Z640 case cooling is excellent and the memory sockets on that motherboard are half of what is on a Z440 motherboard, so the memory cooling saddle absence is not that big of a deal. It may be possible to hack in one from a Z440 because some of the necessary attachments are present, but not all. To get 8 total memory sockets in the Z640 you need to add the riser (mini-motherboard) plus a second matching processor meant to work with another one. Not all do that.

Hope that helped!

[Rhothgar]

Ah!  Thought I had been really explicit but obviously not.

Yes I am fully aware that it cannot be used as boot.  I have the AHCI SSD set up for that purpose and simply need the NVME drive as a documents drive and backup drive.

Maybe I caused confusion by referencing the Z440/Z640.  I am aware that they will use NVMe as a boot drive otherwise there is a lot of tinkering to do by use of Refind/Duet (or something like that) to get an NVMe to run.  I never bothered investigating that route and went with obtaining some nice ACHI 256Gb and 512Gb drives instead.

Funny you mention the Z820 as I'm watching a nice one on Ebay at the moment. Not sure what the advantages of that is over the Z620 but it looks shiny!!!  When you refer to Z620/Z820 v2, I will assume you mean that they have the later boards post July 2013 with 003 at the end of the part number.  I'll double check and read back in my initial posts from a few years ago to gen up on that again.

I think for now I am going to steer clear of the ZX40 series machines.  At the end of the day, W10 is fine until Oct 2025 and Paul Tikkanen has successfully got around the PC requirements issue.  I actually did a W11 iso last night using Rufus 4.5 after having read your excellent write up on this subject.  I did try and start downloading an ISO from DongKnowsTech but then thought better of it preferring the genuine unsullied Windows ISO instead.

Just got to work out where I can image my current AHCI hard drive too across our network before I start messing about with it too much.  Cannot afford a working live drive to go down.  I did manage to setup up an image to my partner's PC but she only has 38Gb spare on her C drive so that was of no real use.

Of course, previously, I had followed DGroves guidance to get the AHCI up and running with W10 Clean Install.  The upside about being forgetful is forgetting just how complex it might have been.  The downside is that I've also forgotten all the useful things I'd worked through for getting back up online if I had an issue ie restoring an image within 10 minutes from a backup (that I cannot remember where it is).  I should get more organised.

I'm sure one of the people I had dealt with on here works in Architecture.  I'm sure I'm stumble upon them again if I read through some posts / private messages.

My thoughts turned to this quandry about using the AIO cooler and turning up some copper on a lathe to create a bigger stand off.  I'm daft enough to give it a go.  There must be a way but that will be some way down the line if I ever even go there.

[SDH]

If you're going to stick with the ZX20 series and want a dual processor I'd go for a Z820 over a Z620 if you have the room for that bigger workstation. Our IT guys call the HP 8 series "the Beasts" because of their size and weight. Lots of great cooling in there, and DGroves is without doubt the best reference for them in all their generations.

I mention the ZX40 series only because of how much they have come down in price and how much the benefit is for their newer layers of technology. Without doubt, for me, the best bang for the buck now. They come unexpectedly close to the next generation, the ZX G4, and are far ahead of their prior generation (the ZX20). 

For the Z820 v2 workstations we have posted in here on exactly how to tell from the motherboard's bar code label if it is a v1 or a v2. Go dig that up on the forum here via its search bar or via google. The rules for a Z420 are different from a Z620 vs for a Z820, related to the bar code label which is often shown in eBay ads. Plus, you must be sure to tell the seller exactly what you need or you might get a v1 when shown a v2 in the ad. They or their packers don't know all this stuff.

Last words... if you're going to take on a new HP workstation project I would recommend looking forwards on the ZX20 vs ZX40 choice. You can run your ZTD AHCI M.2 drive(s) in the ZX40 side by side with faster NVMe M.2 drives (have done that). For the hot ones use a ZTD G2 to add a heatsink. The original HP AHCI M.2 drive ran relatively cool... their faster AHCI M.2 drive ran hotter (almost as hot as the current NVMe ones).

[Rhothgar]

@banhien

Educate me please!

I thought this was actually a sticker and not a heatsink?