HP Z2 mini G9 - upgrade CPU to Raptor Lake, getting PCA not fully compatible warning

[Trappenbild]

I'm going 14900, non K, 65w. End of.
Had the 12900, and the 13900, and both were basically silent fan wise. I think the RTXA2000 was always slowly spinning, annoying since it wasn't being used really.
Not even been able to use the machine since HP and the 7month ticket from hell.
Copper cooler is actually bigger too, the alloy one is smaller, with a whole section cut from it at the back. Copper has this extra 20% missing section, and another heat pipe attached to it.
Was the cost saving REALLY worth it to HP to have to deal with two totally different P/Ns? Must be I guess at scale.
Did you order a new cooler via the channels, or happen on a used one?
What I plan to do is get a monster as my primary workstation, RTX4000 ADA, 14900, 64GB ECC, 2x1TB drives, Thunderbolt flexIO, blah blah, then get a cheapo one with no GFX card, a cheaper CPU, and just have it as a media PC or something in my living room. Hopefully onCPU GFX is enough for 4k streaming etc, but would be a bloody good little box, better than say an Intel NUC. Quieter IMO, and more configurable/upgradeable as long as you don't get a lemon like you and I have seemingly got.
What I LOVE about the machine is the super dim power light, nothing bright and flashy. You can barely see its on, perfect!

 

[NickKX]

You’d be way better off with an arm based streaming box, just my 0.02.

I bought it from HP’s parts store. I’ve gotta order the GPU bracket next. $20 for a damned proprietary bracket!

Which A2000 do you have currently?

I’m bidding on one right now, I think I’ve given up on trying to get an OCUlink GPU working…and the RTX4000 ada SFF is way too expensive.

The A2000 is really the only affordable card for this computer sadly. Though I wonder if a 4060 OC from Gigabyte would work without the additional PCIe power connector. It would be throttled but I wonder by how much?

 

[Trappenbild]

RTX A2000 12GB.
The ADA 4000 SFF as part of a CTO order is actually a LOT cheaper. I think the top spec all in was something like £2k inc taxes. Still silly but "Only" ~£200 more than the card alone!
In retail the HP ADA SFF 4000 is lunacy, something like £1800 GBP. I like my tech, and I like my expensive toys/clothes, but you have to draw the line somewhere at what is taking the urine and what isn't.
I do wonder if the ADA 4000 will ever come down to RTX A2000 levels, or whether it will perpetually stay at such a silly price.

 

[NickKX]

RTX A2000 12GB.
The ADA 4000 SFF as part of a CTO order is actually a LOT cheaper. I think the top spec all in was something like £2k inc taxes. Still silly but "Only" ~£200 more than the card alone!
In retail the HP ADA SFF 4000 is lunacy, something like £1800 GBP. I like my tech, and I like my expensive toys/clothes, but you have to draw the line somewhere at what is taking the urine and what isn't.
I do wonder if the ADA 4000 will ever come down to RTX A2000 levels, or whether it will perpetually stay at such a silly price.

There’s some weird stuff going on right now with video cards and pre built / OEM systems…seems like they are going for deep discounts. Even with the regular size cards like the 4090s.

Anyway, I got the heatsink today… quite a few of the fins are bent on one of the corners.
I showed a photo of it to HP parts support, and they’re going to send another one.

i can bend them back myself, but it’s the principle…fkn $140 for a heatsink lol.

If they let me keep the slightly bent one I’ll update this thread, should anyone want it!

 

[Trappenbild]

Jesus christ!
Talk about adding insult to injury. What a slap in the face to know you are being overcharged for a small heatsink, then you have the extra pleasure of more support calls, and more damaged products.
At this rate HP could fill its own landfill single handedly.
The copper does look miles better though in terms of usefulness, so I will be F5-ing religiously to see how you get on, as I plan to do exactly the same.

 

[NickKX]

Some updates, the copper heatsink is insane. Temps are down across the board and most of the time the fan isn’t even running — even when I’ve got benchmarks cranking. I’m shocked. I also scraped off the pre applied paste and went with arctic mx-6 so maybe that has something to do with it too, but just comparing the two heat sinks side by side, it’s clear that the stock aluminum one is really inadequate.
HP said I could keep the bent copper heatsink, but because it’s backordered it will take a bit to ship the replacement.

I also went ahead and ordered a 14700k from Amazon yesterday. Should arrive by Saturday. I am mainly interested in if it will work / POST at all with my config and the latest bios. I’m hoping it will, but..we’ll see. If it doesn’t work then I’ll just return it for a refund. Good ol Amazon, lol

 

[Trappenbild]

Why did you order a CPU with twice the heat?
Im going 14900non-k, and will get the Copper heatsink for the best of both worlds. All the K CPUs thermally throttle in the Z2 chassis, its well documented.

 

[NickKX]

Why did you order a CPU with twice the heat?
Im going 14900non-k, and will get the Copper heatsink for the best of both worlds. All the K CPUs thermally throttle in the Z2 chassis, its well documented.

Every CPU thermal throttles in the Z2 Mini g9 chassis. Even the non-k. I was just running Prime95 yesterday on my i5-12500. Throttled after 15 minutes.

TBH though, I'm just testing to see if 14th gen upgrade will even work. But I'd probably get the 14700k anyway. It's around the same price (can actually be had for cheaper depending) and It supports Intel XTU...and with that, you can basically do whatever you want with it...undervolt, etc. Plus I'd like to use it on another system down the line, one with more room, for an AIO or water-block.

 

[Trappenbild]

Ahh I see thats the difference between us. I have a 0% interest in mucking around with volts and over/underclocks.
I'm only interesting in rock solid, unblemished stability, in silence.

 

[NickKX]

Ahh I see thats the difference between us. I have a 0% interest in mucking around with volts and over/underclocks.
I'm only interesting in rock solid, unblemished stability, in silence.

It’s not that difficult… It’s basically just a few dials. And you can turn the K into a non K, and make it behave the same, if you want. Can’t do the opposite, though.

 

[Trappenbild]

How do you do that if the TDP is a) hardwired into the chip, and b) done by HP with the fan shenanigans.
Did you get the heatsink thermal pad set with the copper one?

 

[NickKX]

How do you do that if the TDP is a) hardwired into the chip, and b) done by HP with the fan shenanigans.
Did you get the heatsink thermal pad set with the copper one?

“TDP” is just a misleading marketing spec. The specific voltage controls, multipliers, and turbo boost clocks are what are actually locked. With the k you have varying degrees of control over all those values via a ton of settings either in bios or Intel’s XTU software (or combination). You can choose whether or not to adjust them. In fact, according to Intel, most people buy K series CPUs and don’t actually overclock them. And again with the K you can potentially get better performance per watt by undervolting. IME the K series also tend to be better silicon in general. But maybe that’s just selection bias.
The fan is what it is either way, you have total control over that now thankfully (early bios did not have fan control).
The replacement heatsinks come with the new pads attached already, it’s pretty convenient.

 

[Trappenbild]

Nice thats good to know about the pads. Saves a lot of hassle.
You saying that I can order a 125w 14900K, and make it run at a 65w TDP easily in the mini G9? That would be my preferred option.
What do you mean by total fan control now? I remember seeing a setting in the BIOS like a multi drop down box for different fan profiles. I think as you might expect, I set mine to quiet or whatever it was called. lol.

I've done a ton of reading on the dumb Intel TDP situation, jees, what a shitshow, however, the "base clocks" are higher on the K, so I guess under some types of load this is where the higher 125w TDP stuff kicks in, but under max load, and under total idle, I guess they are almost identical as they clock down to next to nothing.

I might still be forced to get the K depending on HP stock levels, but for now I'm gonna stick with the lower base clocked non-K, BUT, do the same as you and ditch the crap alloy cooler. Thank god they supply the thermal pads already mounted, that is actually super cool and means I can plug and play.

I sure hope they can supply the proper spec I requested, I could really do with something going right for once!
Sounds to me like you are on the right path, you seem to know what is what. For me I still love these little boxes, and prefer them over the now discontinued Intel NUCs. At least the HP mini can be upgraded and re-configured as required to the extents HP allow.
I plan to have a monster spec for my main workstation, and a low spec for a mediaPC/living room PC hooked to a TV for streaming/4k Formula 1 playback etc..

 

[Trappenbild]

Anyone got a pic of their Mini G9 Z2 with the Flex IO installed? The one on mine the thunderbolt flexIO was recessed about 1mm inside the outer face of the case, and looked like some random afterthought. very poor.

 

[NickKX]

Some excellent news…no issues with the 14700K upgrade. Received it today and popped it in and it just works. Just to be clear my computer came with a 12500. There is no nag message at POST, nothing.
Windows won’t boot, but that’s another problem. Ubuntu boots just fine. Oddly enough, it doesn’t seem to care if the 65W fan is installed, or the 125W fan. So perhaps they disabled that on newer bios versions. Idk. I’m running the latest March 2024 release. Haven’t done any benchmarks yet. That’s going to take some time.