16 Core 32 Thread HP Z820 Workstation Build

[storm-chaser]

Sorry for the late reply, it was on Ebay months ago, but i bought a Xeon 2678 v3 for 83 bucks for the computer i am using now, and back then i bought a 2650 v2 for 50 bucks for my second computer. I get everything from ebay, its the best place for computer stuff.

207 to 197 is not that much of a difference in benchmark averages. and I want you to know I take your concerns seriously. EDIT: This was for a different thread, disregard

 

[bobbybluz]

Interesting thread. I got my E5 2699 V4 two days ago and it's a big improvement over the 2683 V3 and 2683 V4 I was previously using. The first Cinebench20 and Passmark 9 benchmarks are posted in the Xeon forum. Watching Cinebench 20 run was a hoot, very quick. I have a lot more work to do in it though.

 

[storm-chaser]

Interesting thread. I got my E5 2699 V4 two days ago and it's a big improvement over the 2683 V3 and 2683 V4 I was previously using. The first Cinebench20 and Passmark 9 benchmarks are posted in the Xeon forum. Watching Cinebench 20 run was a hoot, very quick. I have a lot more work to do in it though.

Yeah my rig with two E5 2696 v2 processors, which comes out to play with 24 cores and 48 threads in total is about as powerful as a threadripper 1950x

 

[bobbybluz]

Yeah my rig with two E5 2696 v2 processors, which comes out to play with 24 cores and 48 threads in total is about as powerful as a threadripper 1950x

I beat a 1950X in Cinebench20 but by only 5 points on the only test run I did. I suspect I can get more out of it with a bit of tweaking though. The 2699 V4 actually has 24 cores but two are disabled and Intel never offered a higher end one with all 24 enabled (I suspect for power draw reasons). I'll be getting it sorted out in the next few weeks. Xeons are an addiction. I bought one to play with a little over a year ago and now have five of them, three in currently fully functional rigs.

 

[storm-chaser]

I beat a 1950X in Cinebench20 but by only 5 points on the only test run I did. I suspect I can get more out of it with a bit of tweaking though. The 2699 V4 actually has 24 cores but two are disabled and Intel never offered a higher end one with all 24 enabled (I suspect for power draw reasons). I'll be getting it sorted out in the next few weeks. Xeons are an addiction. I bought one to play with a little over a year ago and now have five of them, three in currently fully functional rigs.

Xeons are definitely a Narnia of sorts... if you know what I mean

EDIT:
Here is my z820 with two E5-2696 v2 processors against a 1950X...

 

[storm-chaser]

I beat a 1950X in Cinebench20 but by only 5 points on the only test run I did. I suspect I can get more out of it with a bit of tweaking though. The 2699 V4 actually has 24 cores but two are disabled and Intel never offered a higher end one with all 24 enabled (I suspect for power draw reasons). I'll be getting it sorted out in the next few weeks. Xeons are an addiction. I bought one to play with a little over a year ago and now have five of them, three in currently fully functional rigs.

Here is my twin E5-2673 v2 rig.... on CBR15

 

[Woutch]

Here is my twin E5-2673 v2 rig.... on CBR15

Hi Storm-chaser,

Just reinstalled my dual e5-2667 v2 machine with windows 10 and an RTX 2080. But i'm seeking the best bios settings. Do you have anything that you can recommend? Do I set numa on or off? some other settings to keep an eye on?

The machine is running very good, but during gaming I get some regular FPS drops to sub 10 fps...

Thanks for some pointers!
Wouter

 

[Toothless]

Hi Storm-chaser,

Just reinstalled my dual e5-2667 v2 machine with windows 10 and an RTX 2080. But i'm seeking the best bios settings. Do you have anything that you can recommend? Do I set numa on or off? some other settings to keep an eye on?

The machine is running very good, but during gaming I get some regular FPS drops to sub 10 fps...

Thanks for some pointers!
Wouter

You issue either is the game not being NUMA aware (locked to a single cpu) or some generic issue, like thermals. You haven't given us enough details on the machine in general for anyone to give proper advice, like what games, your entire spec, etc.

 

[Woutch]

You issue either is the game not being NUMA aware (locked to a single cpu) or some generic issue, like thermals. You haven't given us enough details on the machine in general for anyone to give proper advice, like what games, your entire spec, etc.

The game is cod: Cold War for example. Most of the time it is around 90fps. And every minute or so i get a dip below 10fps for 3 second. I think numa is turned off in the bios now, do I need to turn it on? Is there a program I can use to check the termals?

Then machine is a dual xeon z820 e5-2667. 8core 3.3 GHz. 64GB Ram. RTX 2080

Thanks!

 

[Toothless]

The game is cod: Cold War for example. Most of the time it is around 90fps. And every minute or so i get a dip below 10fps for 3 second. I think numa is turned off in the bios now, do I need to turn it on? Is there a program I can use to check the termals?

Thanks!

Coretemp, HWinfo64 for thermals. Do you have all 32 threads enabled?

 

[Woutch]

Coretemp, HWinfo64 for thermals. Do you have all 32 threads enabled?

I have disabled hyperthreading. That seemed to work better.

 

[Toothless]

I have disabled hyperthreading. That seemed to work better.

Check thermals, and what is the rest of the system spec? What cooling are you using?

 

[Woutch]

Check thermals, and what is the rest of the system spec? What cooling are you using?

Ok, will check thermals first. Cooling solution is a proprietary system from HP. Its a whole blok with like 10 fans or so. And the system is in my basement, so room temp is like 16 degrees. Maybe a fan is broken or so.

 

[Lastmile]

Thanks for so much detail on your build progress!

I really like these HP Z workstations. I started with a Z800 with the rare liquid cooling solution.

I’m currently running a Z620 with a liquid cooler from a Z420 and a E5-1660 v2. The 1650, 1660, and 1680 can be overclocked using Intels Extreme Tuning Utility. There are some great threads on these type of Z620 upgrades on the HP forums.

I also have a Z820 that I want to get up and running. Since the water-cooled Z620 can be overclocked past 4.0 GHz, I’m aiming for maximum multi-threaded performance with the Z820.

@storm-chaser, you mentioned that you’re using 2696 v2 CPUs. I haven’t seen them on any of the Z820 spec sheets. How did you know that they were compatible? Do you know of any other options that aren’t on the official list or am I just not seeing the most up-to-date one? The 2696s sound like the ones I’m looking for.

If you’re still looking for upgrades, the fanless phase change Z cooler CPU coolers from the Z840 will fit in the Z820, you will just get an error on boot. I think the connector on the Z820 is lacking a pin and that causes the error which can be bypassed with a key press.

 

[Oxidizer]

I'm about to embark on a similar build, I always wanted to get one of these HP workstations though now they're so cheap I think I can now justify the expense and indulge in a dual xeon workstation as bedroom PC and claim it on tax too.

On order:
- Z820 with
-1125Watt PSU
- Intel Xeon E5-2620 v2 @2.10GHz
- 32GB DDR3 RAM (4x 8GB 10600R)
- 256GB SSD
- 1TB HDD
- NVIDIA Quadro K5000 Graphics Card
- Windows 10 Pro installed

Intended built:

- Dual Xeon E5-2697v2 CPUs - Ordered
- 1 Additional CPU cooler (Air type)
- 256GB DDR3 RAM (16 x 16GB 14900R)
- 8x 480GB SATA SSDs (Kingston) on RAID 0
- 4x 4TB SATA Seagate Barracuda
- Undecided on GPU, thinking an RX580 8GB, GTX980ti - If the Quadro K5000 supports 4 screens (HP e241i) maybe I'll stick with it.
- Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC

Intended use is a combo of media creation in spare time and WFH workstation during the day:

- WFH - RDP of 4 screens to my work laptop (Lenovo with an AMD 8 core something, cannot remember with 32GB ram)
- Hyper-V Playground for lots of VMs
- Photoshop CS6
- Illustrator CS6
- Autodesk Fusion360
- DaVinci Resolve 18
- Cubase 12
- Ableton Live
- Bitwig
- Reason 11
- & some gaming on occasion (mostly older titles)

 

[lemonadesoda]

Get rid of the K5000 gas guzzler. Swap it for any P series Quadro.

Quadro K5000 vs Quadro P620 vs Quadro P1000 vs Quadro P2000 vs Quadro P2200 [videocardbenchmark.net] by PassMark Software

... at low cost as an ebay swap.

If you are ready to spend a little, consider T1000

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I know the feeling on these old Xeon systems. I think the 2009-2012 Mac Pro was the golden era of Apple engineering. One of them is my gaming rig with Windows 11 and a 5600XT. I then just recently snagged a 2013 “trash can” Mac Pro with the 1650v2. It’s a multi step process, but I’m contemplating opening er up and putting a 2697v2 in it. Paid less than $300 for a machine that once cost $3000, if just for the novelty.