HP Z820 Upgrades

Note: This text is many years old that I never got around to posting, I may have written it over 5 years ago. The Z820 is now a very old computer - I still have it but rarely ever use it.

Since I bought myself a HP Z820 Workstation I've made several upgrades to it, in fact - most of the internals are new. The first round of upgrades I did were the following:

• Upgraded the motherboard from a REV 1.00 to a 1.03. The new 1.03 board has a more recent bootblock and supports E5v2 Xeons, Intel AMT 8.x and 1886MHz RAM.
• Upgraded both CPU's from two Xeon E5-2690's to Xeon E5-2680v2's, improving not only core-count (4 extra cores + 8 more threads) but overall performance. The machine now has 20 cores and 40 threads. I didn't go with the 12-core E5-2697v2 option because the raw core speed (base clock and turbo boost) would be too low and the 10-core Xeon E5-2690v2 were almost double the price of the E5-2680v2's for next-to-zero gain - except in some heavily multithreaded workloads (12+ threads). The E5-2680v2's also has a surprisingly low 115W TDP which is a really nice bonus. A benefit from keeping the TDP down is that air-cooling is guaranteed to suffice so watercooling isn't necessary (required for the E5-2687Wv2's according to the specification). This will avoid certain risks a couple years down the line since HP's watercooling is more likely than air cooling to fail over time and will be much more difficult to find replacements parts for as time goes on and stocks dwindle. Another smart option would've been the E5-2667v2's but i favored the lower TDP and higher core count over the improved core speed.
• Replaced the fan shroud with a new and unused one, lowering noise output slightly.
• Upgraded RAM from 32GB (4x8GB) 1600Mhz Hynix with 64GB (8x8GB) 1866MHz Micron RAM.
• Upgraded the boot drive from a HP 500GB SAS drive to a 512GB Samsung 950 Pro M.2 NVMe (that has the required NVMe OOPROM). This, along with a Aqua Computer Kryo M.2 PCIe adapter made a great combo. This should even outperform a HP Turbo Drive G1 that has the slower Samsung SM951. The HP Performance Advisor even detects the 950 Pro as an HP Turbo Drive for some reason.
• Upgraded the Quadro 4000 with a GTX 1080 Founders Edition. Not a workstation card so it's isn't ideal for CAD work but useful for pushing high resolutions on 3 1440p displays.
• Got myself a rather hard to get dual 6-pin to single 8-pin adapter that enables use of cards that has an 8-pin power connector such as the GTX 1080 (Update: Avoid these, system becomes unstable due to insufficient power delivery - go for a dual 6-pin to 8-pin instead).
• Replaced both sidepanels with the more rare black ones, giving the workstation a stealthy look. This is one of the most aesthetically pleasing upgrades you can make - highly recommended these parts if you can find them.
• Bought the slot-loading optical drive carrier option to replace the included, and rather dull, 5.25" inch DVD burner with a slot-loading Blu-ray burner.
• Bought the Z840 Intel vPro Wireless card option - not only giving it the ability connect wirelessly but also bluetooth (I still use ethernet cables though for performance). Not sure if the Z820's AMT supports this card but I don't use AMT anyway.

In my second round of upgrades I got:

• Upgraded the GTX 1080 Founders Edition with a Titan Xp. Titans are rediculous cards, I know, but they're also a surprisingly good fit for Z820 while being a lot cheaper than a Quadro P5000/P6000 - and if you get a second hand one for a good price? Why not. The Xp even has a slight performance edge over the P6000 in a number of cases. This is about as high as I think you should go with the Z820 in terms of graphics given the limited power delivery options you have (3x6-pin power connectors) all of which are put to use with the Titan XP. The latest high-end RTX cards require dual 8-pin power delivery which is too much for the Z820. I suppose you might be able to use a dual molex to single 6-pin adapter daisy chained with yet another dual 6-pin to 8-pin adapter and I'm still not sure the two molexes would give you enough power (you need 75w) to make it stable - the custom PSU in these machines might not follow the standards. In theory, it should work, but I wouldn't count on it and the cost of an RTX 2080 Ti card is just way too much when the Titan Xp is a perfect fit. The great thing about the Titan Xp in a Z820, however, is that the Z820's cooling augments the Xp's blower design and keeps it quiet and cool so the thermal throttling these particular cards are known for becomes a non-issue. The best conceivable card for this machine would of course be the P6000 but the price tag is just so over the top for a mere enthusiast. The RTX 2080 Ti on the other hand would probably be a better choice for a Z840 if you could track down a blower version. I suspect the Z820 would bottleneck a RTX 2080 Ti, keeping the cards from living up to it's full potential - I'm already seeing a bit of this with the Titan Xp.
• Replaced the slot-loading Blu-ray drive with the original slot-loading dvd drive the carrier was supposed to come with. Turns out the blu-ray drive I bought was a rather shitty one, oh well.
• Added a second Samsung 950 Pro M.2 drive. Also mounted with a Aqua Computer Kryo M.2 PCIe adapter.
• Added a Samsung 860 Pro 500GB SATA drive, will probably be removed later due to already having two M.2's.
• Added a 10TB HGST SAS (Helio 10) drive.

In my third round of upgrades I bought:

• Dual Xeon E5-2667v2's, I sacrificed four cores and eight threads for higher base/turbo clocks. Performance is about equal to what you would expect from a pair of Xeon E5-2687W v2's eventhough the base clock is 100MHz lower. On UserBenchmark my personal highest CPU score was 97 and the highest anyone has achieved is a score of 100 with a pair of E5-2687W v2's and those have a higher TDP and are limited to 256GB RAM unlike the E5-2667 v2's.
• Another 8x8GB 64GB Micron RAM Kit, topping out at 128GB total.
• Dual HP Z Coolers, they really are better and gave me equal temperatures on the E5-2667v2's to the stock coolers with the lower TDP Xeon E5-2680v2's. My personal opinion on these though? Don't waste your money unless you absolutely need a couple of degrees of improvment. Way too expensive for what they are.

Accessories I got are

• 3x HP Z24nq (Quad HD) IPS displays. These are 60Hz displays and might be suboptimal for gaming, but excellent for professional work.
• A triple monitor stand.
• Creative Katana Soundbar. Amazing sound for what it is and does not take up much space with minimal cabling - I recommend this one.
• Corsair RGB Mechanical keyboard.
• Corsair RGB Mouse.
• Corsair RGB headphone stand.
• Corsair M300 extended mouse pad.
• Corsair HS50 headphones, as daily drivers.
• Audio Technica ATH-M50x headphones, for professional work.

Some regrets

I regret buying a cheap triple monitor stand off eBay instead of looking around more and checking reviews. Quite frankly it was utter garbage and poorly designed. I had to get a new one and this time I followed other people's recommendations.

I regret buying so many "gamer" accessories. I don't even game all that often so they look a bit out of place hooked up to a professional workstation. Corsairs build quality is top notch and some of the best accessories I've ever used but the gamer features are silly and in some cases poorly thought out. The RGB features are proprietary on both the Creative Katana and Corsair gear so multiple softwares are required to configure lighting. The rediculously fast polling rate on the keyboard forces you to leave it in BIOS mode at all times because otherwise keystokes don't register during the early boot process, preventing you from entering BIOS, but BIOS mode also cannot be enabled when you use the iCUE software so flipping back and forth between modes still becomes a neccessary thing. The headset stand is unable to save RGB configuration on the device itself so during boot you get the default rainbow effect and the iCUE software is thus required to run at all times to sustain the RGB effect you configured (Why on the headset stand only?! Annoying as hell). Also, the headset stand apparently presents itself as an input device over USB so if it's connected and powered on during boot it might, annoyingly, cause conflict with your actual keyboard and once again make your system unable to register keystrokes. Still, I can't go back to generic OEM keyboards because the build quality of both the mouse and keyboard are just that good and the typing experience is second to none. Eventhough the headset stand is so annoying I can't complain about the excellent build quality, aesthetics and the awesome built-in DAC. This leaves me torn and longing for accessories with the same build quality yet with all the gamer features stripped out and paired with a stronger focus on compatibility with a wider range of systems.