HP Z4 G4 Workstation Upgrade Recommendations

[Jorge_FT]

Hello all,

I have an HP Z4 G4 workstation with the following specifications:  

- **Processor:** Intel(R) Xeon(R) W-2133 CPU @ 3.60GHz, 3600 MHz, 6 cores  

- **System Board:** 81C5 MVB  

- **RAM:** 32 GB (2x16 GB, 2666 MT/s)  

- **Graphics Card:** NVIDIA Quadro K5000, 4 GB  

-**SSD 256 GB

-** HD 1 TB

I am looking to upgrade various components of my computer, including the motherboard, RAM, processor, SSD, and video card. Could you please recommend compatible hardware for these upgrades? 

I appreciate any help you can provide. Thank you!

[NonSequitur777]

@Jorge_FT,

Welcome to our HP Community forum!

How far do you want to take it?  Your Workstation is compatible with the Intel Core X-series Processors such as the i9-10900X, i9-10920X, i9-10940X and the i9-10980XE.  Personally, that is what I would go for, especially if gaming is the objective.

RAM: go for at least 4x16GB such as Hynix HMA82GU6DJR8N-XN or HMA82GU6CJR8N-XN running at 2933 MHz.  The max RAM speed of your W-2133 is 2666 MHz.

Other RAM options: 4x32GB such as Samsung M393A4K40DB2-CVF or Samsung M378A4G43AB2-CWE, all running at 2933 MHz depending what processor you pick.

As far as graphics cards are concerned, that totally depends on your budget.  Consider this HP Z4 G4 Workstation User with an i9-10980XE and an RTX 5070: https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/70111407.  This combination looks almost picture perfect to me.

For all of this, you'll need the 750-watt or better still, the 1000-watt power supply upgrade.

M.2 NVMe SSDs: Samsung 990 EVO, Samsung 970 Evo Plus, Samsung 980 Pro, etc.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[DGroves]

NonSequitur777 forgot that this workstation model has to different motherboards one for Xeon and one for the core CPU's due to intel creating slightly different motherboard chipsets for each CPU line

since the poster stated he has a Xeon CPU he cannot use any of the core CPU's like the i9-10900X he is limited to the w-21xx and the w-22xx series of CPU's last, the Xeon supports ECC ram, the core based motherboard does not

https://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/getpdf.aspx/c05527757.pdf

BTW, you can thank intel for this mess due to them wanting to extract more money and artificially forcing this CPU segmentation most of the older intel chipsets had no issue with supporting both cpu lines

[NonSequitur777]

@DGroves,

Excellent point: even though both motherboards carry the same SSID: 81C5 (which led me to believe that they were one and the same), the manual shows that there are indeed two different motherboards -my bad:

p/n: L12125-601 "System board (motherboard) - For use in WS Z4 G4 (BasinFalls) models with Core-X CPUs and Win10"

p/n: 914285-601 "System board (motherboard) - For use in WS Z4 G4 (BasinFalls) models with Xeon CPUs and Win10"

Thank you for bringing this up!

[EDIT:] Interestingly, when I looked at various HP Z4 G4 Workstation motherboards for sale via eBay Sellers, both motherboard versions are sometimes mistakenly offered for one or the other -in other words: be careful if you want a particular motherboard version.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[DGroves]

even i have forgotten this...... as i recall the last time i forgot "SDH" reminded me of this

i do think that HP should have distinguished this CPU/Motherboard difference better by giving each a method of uniquely specifying which CPU/MB the system has (Like Z4 G4-A and Z4 G4-B)