Upgrading an HP Z2 Tower G4 Workstation

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

In addition to my most current HP EliteDesk 800 G3 65W DM upgrade project, decided to start another HP legacy upgrade project, with one of the most affordable, upgradeable and configurable HP desktops available at the moment via eBay -an HP Z2 Tower G4 Workstation:

This particular unit -which I got a little cheaper ($20) than the Seller's asking price ($230.99), comes with a 500-watt power supply (HP p/n: 901759-013 "Power Supply - TWR, 500W ENT17, 90% EFF, 12V") and an i7-8700K processor, which I need for my soon-to-be-created HP EliteDesk 800 G4 65W DM upgrade project.

For sure, an i7-8700K (3.70 GHz up to 4.70 GHz, 6-Cores, 12-Threads, 95-watt TDP) is plenty good for serious gaming, as I have one fitted in my HP ProDesk 600 G4 MicroTower.

The configurability of an HP Z2 Tower G4 Workstation is in part related to its compatibility to be fitted with either 8th or 9th gen Intel (Xeon) processors as specified here: HP Z2 Tower G4 Workstation Specifications | HP® Customer Support.

One of the most affordable yet powerful (gaming) 9th-gen Intel processors available today online -flying a bit under the Radar, so to speak, is an Intel i5-9600K (3.70 GHz up to 4.60 GHz, 6-Cores, 6-Threads, 95-watt TDP), and ordered one:

As mentioned, the HP Z2 Tower G4 Workstation I purchased comes with a 500-watt power supply (equipped with one 6+2-pin and one 6-pin PCIe power cables), which provides sufficient juice to power graphics cards up to an RTX 3060 Ti or thereabouts, but I wanted to pair this rig with an RTX 3070 or RTX 3070 Ti -yet to be purchased, which requires at least a 600-watt PSU.

The aforementioned HP Z2 Tower G4 Workstation specs link also reveals that there happens to be a 650-watt power supply (HP p/n: L36049-003 / L57253-003 "SKO-PSU 650W WS19 EPA90"), which I also purchased.  The least expensive unit I could find online -by a long shot, was through AliExpress:

Of course, other incidentals such as drives, RAM, signature added (RGB) cooling fan, etc. will be purchased when I get to it.

Btw, I am building this gaming unit for one of my sons as a birthday present.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

Looked at best performing RAM for an HP Z2 Tower G4 Workstation here: UserBenchmark: HP Z2 Tower G4 Workstation Compatible Components:

And purchased 2 x 16GB Samsung M378A2K43CB1-CTD: DDR4 PC4-21300, 2666 MHz, Non-ECC, Unbuffered, DIMM, Dual Rank x8 (2Rx8), 288-pin RAM modules:

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

Purchased the primary (boot) drive for the HP Z2 Tower G4 Workstation: a 1TB Western Digital WD Black SN770 Gen4 x4 M.2 NVMe SSD (sequential read up to 5,150 MB/s and sequential write up to 4,900 MB/s) and a copper heatsink:

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

The HP Z2 G4 Workstation arrived in excellent condition and very clean -with the i7-8700K.

However, I noticed that the CPU heatsink was still the standard/stock 65-watt version (p/n: 810285-002) :

Since the i7-8700K has a 95 watt TDP, it makes sense to me to upgrade the heatsink to the 95-watt version, with p/n: L86253-001 "SPS-HEATSINK - 95W Z2 G4 PREMIUM".

However, no such luck to purchase this heatsink (or even finding a picture) online anywhere.

However, having experience with these sorts of things, there are workarounds -of course.  Since the i7-8700K is an LGA1151 socket processor, "plan B" was to purchase the 95-watt HP Z240 Workstation CPU heatsink (6th & 7th gen LGA1151 processors), with p/n: 810284-001:

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

The Western Digital 1TB WD BLACK SN770 M.2 NVMe SSD arrived and installed (using an M.2 NVMe SSD to PCIe x16 adapter in the PCIe x16 wired as x4 PCIe slot).  Also installed the 2 x 16GB Samsung M378A2K43CB1-CTD: DDR4 PC4-21300, 2666 MHz, Non-ECC, Unbuffered, DIMM, Dual Rank x8 (2Rx8), 288-pin RAM modules, and (temporarily) a Dell Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti 6GB GDDR6.

Installed latest HP BIOS version: 01.08.05 (03/20/2023) etc. and Windows 11 Pro (22H2) Version 10.0.22621 Build 22621. All went very smooth with exactly zero issues.  Optimized this rig a little bit and benchmarked.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

Esteemed Forum,

Here are the UserBenchMark performance benchmark specifics as I ran it today after optimizations:

Link: HP Z2 Tower G4 Workstation Performance Results - UserBenchmark

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

Team,

And today the 650-watt power supply I ordered through AliExpress arrived (HP p/n: L36049-003 / L57253-003) to replace the stock 500-watt PSU (HP p/n: L07304-001).  Installed, and the one thing that was different is that this power supply expects a third ('front panel') cooling fan. It reminds me whilst starting up this PC with a beep and a short warning message ('front fan not detected'), that goes away by itself.  This is not an issue since as mentioned earlier on in this thread, the intent was all along to add an additional (RGB) cooling fan (in transit still) directly above the CPU cooling fan anyway.

For testing purposes, installed an RTX 2080 Super 8GB GDDR6 graphics card:

And benchmarked it once again through UserBenchMark, scoring 31st (out of 876 User entries) in the "HP System Z2 Tower G4 Workstation":

Link: HP Z2 Tower G4 Workstation Performance Results - UserBenchmark.

The final graphics card that I will install before handing over this gaming rig to my son will be an RTX 3070 8GB GDDR6:

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

Decided to swap the i7-8700K with an i5-9600K (3.70 GHz to max 4.60 GHz, 6-Cores, 6-Threads, 95-watt TDP), and ran the UserBenchMark performance software:

Link: HP Z2 Tower G4 Workstation Performance Results - UserBenchmark.

And as you can see, this rig is purring along just nicely with encouraging 'Outstanding' designations for each desktop component.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

The Manli Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 8GB GDDR6 graphics card arrived and installed.

Here are the first UserBenchMark performance scores, this rig is now scoring #12 out of 880 benchmarks:

Link: UserBenchmark: HP Z2 Tower G4 Workstation Compatible Components.

Link: HP Z2 Tower G4 Workstation Performance Results - UserBenchmark.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777