Z600 BIOS, Memory and CPU Upgrade

[SDH]

Hiatus has learned well.... The fact that you are running 1 or 2  X5650 processor(s) shows that you have the version 2 motherboard.  You also can check the boot block date in BIOS to see that your BBD is the later one.  Both those dates have been published in here many times.

The memory you have is rated at 1333... it is double data rate, hence 1333 from 667MHz.  That is the max speed that processor supports and also the max speed the X5675 runs at, so you are set there.  Your only speed bump will come from swapping the processors.  Both run at 95W max TDP.... so if you have two X5650 now you already have two proper heatsink/fans.  Thermal compound.... I use Noctua, and they have two types now so I'd use the most recent type.

Memory should be all 6 slots filled with identical RAM for max memory performance.  Video card.... that can make a real difference in perceived speed even if all else is identical between two workstations.  For Quadro quality and low price and excellent speed we're using the Quadro K2000 or even significantly better is the K2200 used off eBay.

A project that I like for these is putting in one of the HP Texas Instruments based USB3 PCIe cards.... Have posted on that here in the forum.  If you don't use USB much it would not be a significant positive for you.

[YourRiver]

It figures that the best performance out of this boxes you get by running software of that generation...sure...like Windows Vista, Avid 4 (that It came with) hell on earth lol. I'm running now a 1050 GTX with no problem. The 1660 is a cut down version of the faster and power hungry out there, as I could never fit a full size video card in it unless is the full length Qadro or something old like that. I'm using it as a day to day PC not editing or video processing sometimes games and stuff like that...so nothing specialised. Thanks for all your answers. Now I just have to buy the things. IlI' keep you updated. 

[Hiatus]

I wasn't necessarily talking about the OS... 🙂
I run win10pro on mine and I see no problems with that.

But when it comes to specialized software (i realize now that this does not apply to your workload) such as 3d rendering, CAD and other CPU/GPU heavy applications, the best utilisation of the hardware comes from software built for that exact hardware. A bit boring, but still...

I bet the 1050 GTX makes it fly already?!

It would be interesting to know how much of a bottleneck you get from the PCIe3 1050 GTX in a PCIe2 slot and if any upgrade would make a huge real world difference. I'm not convinced about that. I'd say that the 1050 GTX performance is probably way beyond what your motherboard can transfer (without having a single benchmark to go by. Just a hunch). Maybe it's different with gaming? Frames per second arn't that important to me. Games might be able to utilize resources that other GPU heavy applications can't? I'm not a gamer, after all...

Looking forward to follow your upgrades!
It would be interesting to see a couple of benchmarks pre upgrade and post...
Both for the CPU and the GPU upgrade.

Hiatus

[YourRiver]

In terms of games performance I cannot tell as I can't play the same game on Gen3 PCIe slot...with this same GPU if it means anything for you... Wolfenstein 2 : The New Collossus it's the upper limit for my rig. It loads it starts...I can't render too much of the textures and it moves like crap even on the minimum video settings. But you can imagine I can play on high and ultra hight most of the other games. 

[Hiatus]

I think the Xeons are the bottlenecks for your gaming experience.
I've seen gameplay with that card running Wolfenstein 2 at 63fps... Couldn't tell you the overall settings, but still.

I know that the quad CPU was running at about 75% on that particular stream, so in that case, the GPU probably maxed out...

Your 1050GTX is the single fastest component in you rig. I would leave it alone... Probably not, come to think of it. If I had the money I would probably fit the most powerfull GPU and CPU the motherboard allows just to see if it works. And I would probably do it today without hesitation. 🙂
I try to be reasonable when it comes to hardware, but it's really hard to keep up that image ... 🙂
Since SDH mentioned the K2000's I've been thinking about SLI-ing two of those bad boys for my rig. Keeps the upgrade under $50 and it would net me 2.5Gb extra graphics memory and a lot quicker clock speed on the GPU.

It all comes down to practical use.

I don't need a gaming card. You do. Get the best one that will fit! 🙂
But I would go for the CPU upgrade first to see what difference that makes for the GPU performance (if any).

Hiatus

[YourRiver]

I think you're right, I could throw the biggest and baddest GPU out there, but since I have one. 2nd Gen PCIe and two. Xeon processors I will be bottlenecked whatever I do. Since you mentioned W2 going over 60 fps on 1050 fills me with confidence that i'm running a quite beefy GPU - and yea in Windows 10+256Gb SSD as main hard drive makes really the whole diffrence - it does everything very quickly and the CPU fans NEVER and i say I NEVER HEARD them going UP to cool down if the processors are hammered. I could hammer them, but doing what... Running Roblox 10 times? maybe...yes. . I wasn't tbh a mad gamer and my 7yo son plays more Roblox and Minecraft than i'm playing my own things so, I will probably sit on this one until it gives up. 

In therms of power draw the 1660 averages 124W 120w TDP and 128 x 42 x 204 mm while  1050 averages 70 W 75W TDP and a smaller 1 fan form/size. So again i'm not sure i can fit a bigger GPU anyway. 

Thanks again for help. 

[Hiatus]

The QuickSpecs says 150w max when running a single GPU. For dual its 75+75 max. I think my quadro fx4800 draws exactly 150w at max, so anything under 150w should work. In theory. Even if the card needs dual 6-pin it should work. HP sells the 6 to dual 6 adapters...

What I'm trying to say is that the limitation in the specifications is 150w. Where the limit is in real life? We won't know until someone tries, will we?

Does Hp see it s a limitation that the Z600 only comes with a single 75w Six-pin connector? Would they have specified it different with the exact same setup but with dual 6-pins?

I mean, the 650w PSU could surely handle it as long as they dont run everything on one rail, which they don't.

With 75w from the PCIe slot, and 75w from each 6-pin (using an adapter), the max could potentially be 225w...
I don't think I'll be the one to try it out, though. 🙂
The dual GPU-setup compatible cards specified in the QuickSpecs all run without a 6-pin connector...

Who will be the one to test it?!

The tricky thing about HP's proprietary hardware and specifications is that you can never know why a specific piece of hardware is listed as compatible while a similar component may not be. It can come down to the fact that HP can't possible test all possible configurations. But it can also mean that it simply doesn't work when you go outside of the hardware specified in the QuickSpecs.
Sometimes it works for everyone who tries, and sometimes only some get it to work. There are several threads about people running really beefy out of spec dual GPU's on their Z800's with dramatically different results. Our friend SDH got flack the other day in a Z400-thread (i think) for sharing his personal experiences with going out of spec with RAM and someone took it for gospel and got mad when it didn't work for him.

A good SSD makes the whole difference when it comes to reviving older hardware. Nothing beats a fresh OS install on an empty SSD. I got my bootup time down by over 15sec compared to my old 7200rpm HDD.

The heatsinks are really effective on the Z-series.
I barely had mine rev up running just a single 5650 while doing some really stupid things... Tried to render a 3d-model in a virtual machine without 3d acceleration the other day. It did not like that at all... 🙂

hiatus

[YourRiver]

Yea it makes sense. 

I have found this. The bottleneck is the proc and motherboard which at the moment i'm not willing to upgrade, if i do i will go to a mainstream kind of PC and all that. 

I have found this Z800 Reddit chat.  apparently the PCIe are 2nd Gen and you can't do anything about it with modern GPUs which will be slowed down because of that. 

[roadrunner321]

Well, the theoretical benefits of running PCI-e 3.0 vs 2.0 are mostly just on paper. Take a look at this thread for example:
https://www.hardwaresecrets.com/pci-express-3-0-vs-2-0-gaming-performance-gain/5/

This shows that in practice you will only see an improvement of 5 to 7% by running a PCI-e 3.0 card in a 3.0 slot, compared to 2.0.

I too own an HP Z600, but it's the older bootblock, of which I didn't know at the time of purchase. It came with a pair of Xeon E5520, so they are quite slow. I was off put by all the trouble of upgrading the CPUs and BIOS bootblock, so I went ahead and bought a similar motherboard, a SuperMicro X8DA3 and a pair of Xeon X5677 @ 3.46GHz.

At first I installed an Nvidia Geforce GT 680 and did some gaming, but now I run an MSI RX 480 8GB GamingX and I am quite pleased with the performance, in GTA V for example. I'm not running on 4k, but on 1080p with Ultra details it's almost flawless.

So I don't think a the PCI-e will necessarily be a bottleneck, it's rather the CPU that you have. In games, it's more important to have a faster per core frequency rather than more, slightly slower cores, so for instance a hexacore pair of CPUs will not be ideal. Nor will a pair of quadcores be ideal on the Z600, since by design, even the newer C2 revisions, they don't support CPUs with a TDP of more than 95W (like my X5677 130W for instance), see the threads about installing X5690. But it might just be enough to slap a pair of X5672 and get decent performance. I know I will try it, after I update the bootblock.

[Hiatus]

How much would a X56xx bottleneck a modern graphics card compared to a modern CPU, would be my next next question...

Hiatus