Xeon Model for Windows 7?

[Ceeyee]

I am currently using a Z620 Duel Xeon 2680 v2 and I got approved for the budget for a faster workstation.

My main program runs only on Windows 7, but most new computers support Windows 10 only.

As a result, I am planning to go on EBay to buy the last version of workstation that supports Windows 7.

What is the latest (fastest, with highest number of cores) Dual Xeon workstation from HP that has all drivers for Windows 7?

Thanks.

[DGroves]

HP fully the z620 fully supports windows 7/10

look at the z620 quickspecs for the list of hp approved cpu's

note that the z620 had one motherboard revision, and only the revised board supports the ver 1/2 xeons

check your bios bootblock date to determine board rev

12/28/2011 is original board v1 cpu only

03/06/2013 is updated board with v1/v2 cpu support

http://www.usedcomp.de/pdf/HP-Z620-Workstation-QuickSpecs-2014.pdf

only windows 7 professional/ultimate/enterprise 64bit will support a dual cpu config and more than 4gb ram

unless your win 7 app supports multiple cpu cores you should be looking for a cpu that has the highest frequency

with that said, intel stopped supporting windows 7 with the consumer "Skylake" 7900x series

and the Skylake-W (xeon w-2155)

for the HP workstations the z840 and it's replacement G4  G4/8 line had win 7  support

note that the G4 line requires you to buy win 7  support at the time of purchase, it is not available after purchase as i recall

[Ceeyee]

Thanks, but I already have a Z620 (Dual 2680 v2).

I am wondering if there are newer generations so that I get faster speed than the Z620 I have.

[DGroves]

read the full post ..........................

[Ceeyee]

You meant the latest model that has drivers available for Windows 7 was the Z840, if I bought from Ebay (not from HP)?

Thanks.

[DGroves]

is english your native language? if so why do you have a issue with the sentence that states 

the z840 AND IT"S SUCCESSOR THE G4/G8

https://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/GetDocument.aspx?docname=4AA7-2325ENW

[Ceeyee]

Because you specifically said "note that the G4 line requires you to buy win 7 support at the time of purchase, it is not available after purchase".

It means support for Win 7 is not available for the G4 "if I bought from Ebay (not from HP)" as I clearly described in English, unless your subtle message is that G8 is different than G4.

Otherwise, z840 was the last model on Ebay that support Win 7, as you said it yourself.

[DGroves]

i stated, "I THINK" hp will not sell the win 7 disk separately..................meaning you need to ask HP to see if this is so as i'm obviously not sure about this.

simply because HP may not offer a win 7 disk to previous g4/g8 users does not somehow prevent YOU from buying a win 7 disk from any of the numerous places selling it, same for any Gx specific drivers, they are available on the internet for free

and as for the z840's win 7 support....... again as i recall HP no longer has any win 7 restore disks for that model either

[BambiBoomZ]

Ceeyee,

Drivers are related to controlling the I/O on devices not programs, so the drivers used in the future system would be related to the GPU, controllers, drives, chipset, soundcards, and etc. appropriate to the version of the OS.

What is necessary here is a Virtual Machine(s):  I'm not an expert on VM's , but  a system may be configured primarily to boot from a Windows 10 system and also run a Windows 7 VM and potentially, a Linux system, plus an XP system, another W7 system, and so on.  XP is still quite common in older industrial controllers.  This configuration is common to programmers /developers creating applications for different platforms and in those users may have 5-10 VM's.

The W7 VM would be used to run the special W7 application plus any others that are necessary to communicate with it.  The VM W7 system would contain the necessary W7 device drives, so any devices used through the W7 system would need to be .have both W7 and W10 compatibility.  That's still very usual for GPU's. Makers know users can't throw away GPU's for every new version of Windows. It's possible for example to download a W10 64-bit driver for a 2003 Quadro FX 570 256MB GPU.

As far as I know, any modern workstation - gaming systems too, will run VM's.  This means that a new HP Z4 or Z6 will work 

VM's do require more boot drive space and more RAM memory. Have an M.2 boot drive of at least 500GB- 1TB is better. Keep in mind that the VM shares the memory with W10 by allocation, so if the special app requires a lot of memory, increase the total RAM to a minimum of 64GB, sizing the modules to allow expansion to 128GB or 256GB.

Alternatives: As much as I appreciate HP quality, reliability, and support, it is problematic that the Intel processors have become outmoded and have fallen behind AMD in  cost/performance. The Intel Core i9-10980XE 18-core @ 3.00/ 4.8GHz has a Passmark average CPU score = 31,194 and Single Thread Mark = 2,644 and costs $1,100.  Substantially higher performance is possible for half that cost.

If you are using 20-cores currently, consider perhaps a 24-core Threadripper, or, better, the upcoming Threadripper Pro series as those will have 128 PCIe lanes - this is where one might run a GPU and three compute units, at x16 / 8CH memory and very high single core performance with 4.7-4.9GHz Turbo clock speeds. All Threadrippers including the upcoming Pro series though at the menet are not the latest series Zen architecture. The Pro will be quite expensive, but very high performance is possible in the lower series Ryzen 9's at lower cost. Current  Ryzen 9 Today such as the recent and difficult to buy Ryzen 9 5950X 16-core on a good X570 motherboard will far outperform dual E5-2680 v2's, and with care ,in the choice, the 5950X  will run on ECC RAM.  One must however, ensure that the limited number of PCIe lanes and the memory bandwidth of the dual channel memory of Ryzen 9 is appropriate to the work loads.

On Passmark Performance Test baselines, the highest CPU score for 2X E5-2680 v2 is 24821 while the highest CPU mark for a Ryzen 5950X is 41236. The AMD Ryzen 9 5900X  12-core = 39493 for msrp $550 and that is about $250 less expensive than the $800 5950X. The single core performance is extremely importance in almost every application, but especially in 3D and applications such as effects processing and compilation.  The average Passmark single Thread Mark for the E5-2680 v2 is 1,812, while the STM for the 5950X = 3,486, the 4th highest of any CPU.  The Ryzen 5900X = 3,501- the No. 3.  The i7-10900K, until October the fastest gaming CPU in the World has an STM= 3,173.

Questions:

1.  What is the W7 only application?

2. What is the budget for the new system? 

3. Is there not an IT specialist at the firm?

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/ 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]

[Ceeyee]

Thank you for your detailed answer.

My program is a scientific computation program developed by an earlier team of our company, but it is not longer updated. Windows 10 gives run time errors because it was developed during years of Windows 7.

The computation program uses all cores available in the machine, so we are trying to buy a workstation with both highest possible core counts and highest possible single core performance.

I tried VMWare but the program running within a VM is half of the speed compared to running outside.

Therefore a 5950x or a Threadripper using a VM will be about the same speed as the Dual E5-2680 v2 based your CPU score.

Maybe the latest VMWare 16 which supports 32 cores in a VM is a potential option but the improvement in speed is probably not as good as upgrading to the latest model of Dual Xeon that supports Windows 7 directly.