HP Z840 36C/72T Workstation Build
- Thread starter Storm-Chaser
- Start date
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Sorry about the potato phone, I should have something better soon.
Computer arrived yesterday. Has some scratches that will have to be delt with, however, easy fix ebay it (new side cover).
Other than that it's in great condition, in fact, it has very little use on it at all. You can tell when something has been dusted, but in this case I don't think it was. There is absolutely no dust anywhere on anything, the fans look perfect as well and no dust on the undersides. I think the PC was used maybe a few times and then stored away or something because it should not be this clean. The scratches were probably from moving it around on shelves or something, i dont know, but I'm happy with it!
Anyway, I'm excited to see how this turns out, especially in benchmarking. Also, I want to try to figure out if it's possible to hack the turbo so all cores can run at turbo speeds. I need to crush this phone in the vice.
Computer arrived yesterday. Has some scratches that will have to be delt with, however, easy fix ebay it (new side cover).
Other than that it's in great condition, in fact, it has very little use on it at all. You can tell when something has been dusted, but in this case I don't think it was. There is absolutely no dust anywhere on anything, the fans look perfect as well and no dust on the undersides. I think the PC was used maybe a few times and then stored away or something because it should not be this clean. The scratches were probably from moving it around on shelves or something, i dont know, but I'm happy with it!
Anyway, I'm excited to see how this turns out, especially in benchmarking. Also, I want to try to figure out if it's possible to hack the turbo so all cores can run at turbo speeds. I need to crush this phone in the vice.
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I have lusted over one of those for a while. Sadly my sources for cheap gear only have Dell products. Although the Dell T7600 series is nice it is no where near as nice as the HP Z800 series. I am tempted to upgrade to a Dell Poweredge R730 for my desktop though. Not really meant to be used as a "workstation" but I kinda like how handy idrac is among other things.
Me too. I have three Z820s in addition to the z840.
I source a lot of my server stuff from ebay. Seems to be some decent deals if you look around. I paid:
$350 for bare bones chassis
$300 for two E5 2696 v3 CPUs (This CPU is better than the flagship 2699 v3 due to higher turbo (3.8 vs 3.6)
$300 for 20 DIMM Modules rated at 2400MHz (currently running at 2133MHz due to v3 CPU limitations)
$30 for liquid metal thermal paste
So that's about a total of $980, regardless of age, I still get current tech levels of performance out of the machine. About the same as a 12900K at 5.2GHz or a 5950X at 4.5GHz. Plus I steamroll them in memory performance, even, the latest DDR5 6600 MHz stuff falls behind in memory bandwidth. Obviously, I can only do this by populating all 16 memory slots for octal channel configuration.
First of all, it's the culmination of HPs research and development of the premier market workstation in it's day, and I think the case is outstanding, with brushed aluminum sides, HP really knocked out of the park. It's built like a tank, but more on that later. Looking forward to benchmarks and turbo hacking.
And possibly adding a 360 radiator if stock cooling system needs a boost. It will be very easy to do this if needed.
The build consists of two Xeon E5-2696 V3 CPUs, single core turbo of 3.8
Yes, that's a whopping 20 DDR4 DIMM modules and two 2696 v3 CPUs
So I can run an 8 channel memory configuration (DDR4 @ 2400MHz)
Liquid coolers are rated for 150W each.
Sick case:
Some pictures from last night during the liquid metal install.
PC on the left is a Z820, which is also maxed out with 64GB 8 channel memory and two 2673 v2 processors. Again, please forgive my potato phone.
Moving on to undervolting this processor next. Im happy with memory bandwidth for now. Plus a fresh install of Windows 10 to go with the new rig.
Good Day Storm-Chaser, I am very sorry to ask such a newbie question, but I have a Z820, and I am having a heck of time getting it to boot off of my USB drive so i can set it up as an UNRAID NAS. I thought I had everything set to boot off only the usb, but still boots off the SSD i have installed. If you could share some tips or a link it would be very much appreciated. Thanks!
Hit ESC key when it posts and you will be able to select from the boot menu list