Upgrading an HP Z400 Workstation

[NonSequitur777]

Hi Paul,

You mentioned the Samsung 870 QVO, but the Amazon link was for a Samsung 870 EVO.

Not to worry: also placed a bid on a 1TB Samsung QVO SSD, one can never have enough drives:

[EDIT:] Seller accepted bid:

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

Yes, that is the one...WD Blue's old model used to have the same specs and cost less than the Samsung 870 when it first came out.

But now WD Blue discontinued that drive and now has it labeled as an SA510.

It has the same 560 max read speed, but only a 520 max write speed.

The Sandisk SSD Ultra 3D used to have the 560/530 but now it has been reduced to 560/510.

The Samsung drive has come down in price and that is the one to go with for max SATA performance.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

I'm not sure what the difference is between the QVO and the EVO.

They both have the same read/write specs, but the QVO does not seem to come in a smaller capacity than 1 TB, where the EVO does.

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

Installed an ATX power supply (using the HP Z400 Workstation 24-pin to 24-pin ATX power supply conversion cable), an HP OEM RTX 2080 8GB, the 500GB mSATA drive as mentioned, overclocked the i7-990X to run at 4.00 GHz on all 6 Cores (using ThrottleStop), and overclocked the RTX 2080 (using MSI Tweak III OC) -and yes, distinguished Forum members, off-the-Reservation renegades and HP legacy PC aficionados: now are we getting somewhere:

Link: HP Z400 Workstation Performance Results - UserBenchmark.

Changed the six Core Ratios from 28, 27, 26, etc. all to 32.  I tried 34 and 33, but alas, both settings caused my system to crash, 32 is stable, and increased the i7-990X core speed from 3.73 GHz to 4.00 GHz:

Using Tweak III OC, increased the RTX 2080's Power Target from 100% to 104%, the default GPU clock speed from 1515 MHz to 1699 MHz, Memory clock speed from 1750 MHz to 2053, and the Boost clock from 1710 MHz to 1894 MHz:

In order for ThrottleStop to automatically start each time I turn on my HP Z400 Workstation, I am using Windows Task Scheduler as explained in this YouTube video.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[Yoyopizzacat]

Hi,

You seem to be an expert in these sorts of things so I would like to ask about the hp prodesk 600 g3 mt. I saw one with i7 7700 and ssd at roughly 80 usd on facebook marketplace in australia. Is this a good deal and could i upgrade the psu to like any psu or is it only the 400 watt hp proprietary one? i would rather just be able to like upgrade with a cheap psu or like have a seperate psu to power the gpu and buy an rx 6600 and use it as a gaming pc. Never built a gaming pc before but really do want to have one without having to spend too much. Also like does it matter if i did use a pcie 4 gpu on a pcie 3 board. I don't really know that much about this but would love to have a cheap gaming pc. Maybe could get an rx 580 instead because i did see some cheap ones and the price would be like half the price of an rx 6600 and maybe still be okay.

Thanks

[NonSequitur777]

@Yoyopizzacat,

Welcome to our HP community forum!

An HP ProDesk 600 G3 MT was one of my legacy upgrade projects (later upgraded to an HP ProDesk 600 G4 MT), and there are at least two power supply upgrades: a 400-watt unit with p/n: 942332-001, which is equipped with one 6+2-pin PCIe power cable (good enough for an RTX 3060, an RTX 4060, an RX 6600, or an RX 580, for example), and a 500-watt unit with p/n: L05757-800, which is equipped with one 6-pin and one 6+2-pin PCIe power cables, good enough for an RTX 2080 or an RTX 4060 Ti, for example).

I upgraded my HP ProDesk G3 MT with an i7-7700K, and this system performed very well -still #1 at UserBenchmark.

Anyway, I digress.

Yes, US$80 is a very good deal in my opinion.

A Gen4 M.2 NVMe SSD will run at Gen3 I/O speeds on your platform, but it doesn't matter.

Hope this was helpful.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[Yoyopizzacat]

Thank you. Sorry for bothering you but where did you buy the 942332-001 psu from? Also is it possible to just buy a cheaper psu and use that instead or like have it outside of the case? Also do you know much about a good gpu for i7 7700 and like gpu pricing and how much I should spend and such. Thanks for your help.

[NonSequitur777]

@Yoyopizzacat,

You can purchase an HP 942332-001 (400-watt) power supply online, such as via AliExpress or eBay-Australia: Hp 942332-001 for sale | eBay.

Yes, you can use an externally placed ATX power supply to power your graphics card connected to your PC through an ATX power supply adapter such as this one.  The ATX power supply's 24-pin is connected to this adapter, and the adapter is connected to your motherboard using a SATA 15-pin power cable.  The ATX power supply is thus synced with your PC, and will turn on/off with your PC, and can power your GPU.  You keep the original power supply in place.

A great GPU for an i7-7700, in my opinion, would be an RTX 4060, such as this purchase example via Amazon-Australia.

Please, start a new subject here, and let's not continue this conversation in this particular link.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777]

Dear Forum,

Decided to swap the original (4-RAM slots) HP Z400 motherboard version [Hewlett-Packard 0AE4h] with the newer (6-RAM slots) motherboard version [Hewlett-Packard 0B4Ch]:

Not surprisingly, had to update ("flash") BIOS again using a USB stick:

Which completed successfully:

Performed some optimizations and ran UserBenchmark again with satisfactory results: already at 7th place:

Link: HP Z400 Workstation Performance Results - UserBenchmark.

[EDIT:] I had 4 x 8GB Patriot Viper DDR3 PC3-14900, 1866 MHz, Non-ECC, UDIMM, 240-pin RAM sticks (PV316G186C0K) which I used, and complemented this with 2 x 4GB of Samsung DDR3 PC3-12800, 1600 MHz, Non-ECC, UDIMM, 240-pin RAM sticks (M378B5273DH0-CK0).

Even though this RAM combination runs in 'Triple Mode' and Dual Rank', I decided to buy an additional two 8GB Patriot Viper 1866 MHz RAM modules in order to 'stick' with identical RAM -same brand, model and capacity, which is, after all, one of my own mantras:

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777

[NonSequitur777 · Accepted solution]

Esteemed Community,

All right, then: yes, still aspiring to a top position in UserBenchmark -just swapped ATX power supplies: installed a fully modular Corsair RM750e:

And swapped graphics cards: installed an Asus RTX 4070 12GB OC Edition:

Applied various optimizations (including reinstalling MSI Tweak III and the relevant Nvidia driver) and ran Userbenchmark once again, and where do I stand at this point in time amongst UserBenchmark "HP System Z400 Workstation" Users:

Yip, #1! -Could have further optimized my RTX 4070 if needs be.

Link: HP Z400 Workstation Performance Results - UserBenchmark.

Kind Regards,

NonSequitur777