Howdy
Something a little different
HP Z640 Tower
Intel Xeon E5-1650 v3 3.50Ghz 6C/12T
16Gb DDR4 ECC Ram
240Gb SSD
Quadro M6000 12Gb
Win 10 Pro
All units also have the HP 4 Bay 2.5" STORAGE DRIVE CAGE installed too
If this goes well, we have a very large batch that I should be able to do again before the end of the promo period.
They probably are power efficient for heavy loads. This one is 130W.
That graphics card on paper has 250w tdp so when you add the CPU @ 130-140w tdp. I would think its going to chew some power :)
Depends on use case, as misu p pointed out.
The host on a podcast I listen to has/considered changed/ing their Xeon server to an Intel Core series due to power usage, specifically thanks to Intel Quick Sync which enables hardware transcoding for services like Plex. The Xeons were just chewing power doing transcodes whereas the Intel Core was just sipping thanks to Quick Sync.
This thing will use more power at idle than the n40l at full load.
I had an n40l I remember looking at some specs the AMD chip in it was about ~20w. This will eat a lot more power. Different use cases - NAS vs full blown server with heavy workloads.
Almost the same as an i7 5930K so no it's not very power efficient. Idle power consumption would be well above 50W, maybe even above 100W.
For anyone wondering, the CPU is Haswell based.
Technically a server is a service that a PC does… a raspberry PI can be a server. This is a workstation (that is how HP names it). You can run it as a server yes.
That wouldnt stop me from using it as a workstation…His point is that any computer can be used as a server. Whether or not it was ideally built for that purpose is a whole different story
The title of that page is: "HP Z640 Workstation" where do you see the server part?
They use the same server grade components. But…
Servers typically dont have the slots or power plugs or PSUs for big GPUs. And rarely a quiet desktop case.
Workstations are specifically designed to run big GPUs. And are a quiet desktop case.
For anyone wondering, the Quadro M6000 12Gb you can sell it for more than the entire PC costs… It can be run for Plex but it does not have H265. It is a little worse than a GTX 1070.
The CPU consumes 130W and it is comparable with a Ryzen 5 1600 (65w).
You can probably change the CPU (to a Xeon E5-2xxx v3 or v4) and with an additional plug-in board, it can be made to run a dual CPU setup (at least my HP Z620 did).
… and with an additional plug-in board, it can be made to run a dual CPU setup …
For when you want it to consume even more power…
bought! been looking for a cheap Quadro for the last 1-2wks
Just beware that with some of those E5-2xxx CPUs (maybe only the ones ending in 'W') you might also need a proprietary HP Liquid Cooler.
Quadro m6000 worth $750
its a quasi 980 titan x???? its that good?
That's if you can sell it. I think the market for Quadro cards is non existent.
Last one sold in August. $285.
Not a bad indication, but nothing like the above.
In Aus? One sold in the US on 16/10 for almost $550.
Great price compared to ACT Networks which is linked in the related stores, which has double the RAM but a lesser graphics card (M4000)
https://www.actnetworks.com.au/hp-z640-e5-1650v3-6c-12t-3.5g…
Can this be used for gaming?
How long is a piece of string?
the sum of the two halves
How long are the two halves?
The GPU is a little worse than a 1070, the CPU is like a ryzen 1600. So it is a good contender for the price but it will be quite loud + consume a lot of power => output a lot of power in your room. I would personally not buy (I would pay a little more and enjoy the silance, it is quite loud) it but it is not bad for the price.
Yeah eff it - I'd rather just wait for the prices of the 6800XT to go down or some crap.
That would be called HODLing :)
how much more would I be spending to get similar performance setup for home pc and casual gaming？ Is sub 500 achiveable？
With brand new parts, you're looking at 600 bucks minimum for any pc at all. And you're trying real hard to skimp every dollar.
With second hand market, 500 bucks is doable.
This is pretty decent if you just want to pick it up and don't tinker.
Possibly? Second hand can be super variable though.
As a really rough guideline without doing any market research (and assuming you can haggle down to these prices):
~ $200 3600 + b550 mobo
~ $30-70 16GB DDR4 RAM
~ $30-70 500W PSU
~ $10-50 ATX/M-ATX Case
~ $100-200 GPU
Total: $370 - 590
how do you rate this as a home pc casual gaming
I think it would be pretty good value, but not sure how future proof it will be as I don't think there will be many / any driver updates for the graphics card, so modern games might not play great.
My kids are using a much older/slower i5 3570 and R9 280x rig for gaming.
No complaints from them since it still plays all the games they like at max settings at 1080p and 60 FPS (presumably in the most demanding games they'd have to turn down settings, but they mostly play minecraft and Lego games and such).
How would one connect this to a display? I looked at the images and did not see a connection on the outside for either DP or HDMI.
The image shows the case without the GPU in it - it would actually sit in one of those metal tabs at the bottom in image 3. Searching the GPU specs gives the following description:
Four DisplayPort 1.2 Connectors
One DVI-I Dual-Link Connector
VGA Support
My question too, I am guessing it's just a generic picture?
Would this be okay to run Roblox and low intensity games for kids?
Yeah, it's fine. More than enough, really.
I wish it had the E5-1650V4 in it.
Im still tempted tho.
OP is the 16GB of RAM a single stick?
These machines usually have 4 x RAM slots and use 8GB sticks (note it's probably ECC RAM)
I wish it had the E5-1650V4 in it.
Why? I would be really surprised if anyone can tell the difference between v3 & v4.
Intel has been very very complacent in those years.
On paper the base frequency of v4 is only 0.10Ghz faster than v3, but Haswell ( v4) has been found to run slower compared to Breadwell (v3) on some benchmark due to heat issue.
Actually yeah you're right, its not a bad CPU at all. I guess its the mind game of 4Ghz being so much better than 3.8Ghz lol.
Although I was hoping to put it in the kids gaming rig to replace their E5-1620V4, but its rated the same single core speed so no point I guess.
Hmmmm, Do i buy 4 of them to do a 4Way SLI for old times sake???
I bought a HP Z440 from this seller and very happy with it! These are heavy duty workstations, built like a tank, very solid and everything is over-engineered towards reliability. The 1600 series CPUs are low core count, high clock speed, whereas the 2600 series are high core count, low clock speed. The 1650V3 is from the Haswell generation and a good balance of clock speed and core count, meaning it won't feel overly sluggish like some of the lower clocked 2600 CPUs.
Other highlights are Quad-Channel memory, check with seller, you don't want a single 16GB stick, ideally you want 4x4GB sticks. Quad channel DDR4 2133 performs like dual channel 4266, very nice. Registered ECC gives you protection against RAM errors and memory is buffered, meaning it's wont have stability issues if you fill all the RAM slots.
On the Z440, if you fill more than 4 RAM modules it will not boot until you have an additional RAM cooling unit installed. Same goes for large amounts of RAM, I believe the cutoff is with 64GB but not sure.
These machines hare highly proprietary, so forget about case transplant, swapping PSU or anything like that. My Z440 came with a 700W PSU and 2x 6-Pin power connectors, enough to power some decent GPU if you want.
Another highlight are 40 PCIe lanes connected directly to the CPU, not via chipset. Perfect if you are running PCIe 4x capture cards, RAID controllers or want to do things without compromises like you see on consumer motherboards.
HP website has BIOS updates, drivers and download the manual, it goes into great detail as to additional adapters and bay devices you can buy. It will boot from PCIe M.2 NVME with a cheap PCIe adapter.
Highly recommend them for people that want something super reliable and happy to pay a premium. For something basic you are better off with a HP ProDesk or Dell OptiPlex type machine.
The M6000 seems a really good GPU: https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/quadro-m6000.c2638
Maxwell generation with 3072 cores, that's ~ 980 Ti / Titan X level I believe…
I just remembered I have a specced-out z440 here with 12 core Xeon and 128GB RAM etc. Just ordered the Z640 to move the good bits into that.
Thank you OP, I just ordered one but forgot to put the promo code so ordered a second one and requested to cancel the first one. It's going to be a gaming computer for my son, he'll love it.
Could you fit a 4090 in this?
It would probably fit, but you'd probably need to upgrade the power supply…..and it's really not a great CPU for gaming performance.
Sure if you like to throw money at things you don't understand.
Yep Ive been using a few year old HP and Lenovo Workstations for my WFH PC duties for 10 years now. They are fantastic bang for buck and extremely reliable.
Im currently running a Lenovo P510 with a 14 core E5-2697V3 and 128GB of RAM. Before that it was a C20x with dual X5690 and 192GB. Before that a dual x5675 HP Z600.
I prefer the Lenovos because they are slightly less propriatary and quieter than HP offerings.
However I have just bought one of these to rip the GPU out of.
Upgades for these server grade CPU and RAM are very cheap on eBay. Always have been.
Nice! I spoilt myself with the 2699V3, it has 18 cores LOL 64GB RAM at the moment and a GTX 1650 GDDR6. Such a smooth machine, haven't had a single crash or issue, just rock solid.
I do covet that CPU and the V4 versions that these workstations also support. But they are still too expensive for me.
But the 2697v3 has 145W TDP vs your 140W. So it can use the Xeon Turbo unlock better than yours to the tune of 14x3.5GHz concurrent. And at about 1/3rd of the price. The 2697v3 is recognised as the sweet spot for turbo unlocking.
Not that I can use that on a workstation, but maybe in the future I will get one of those cheapo mobos that supports it for server duties.
Nice! I can recommend HUANANZHI motherboards from AliExpress. It's sort of the top brand when it comes to new X79/X99 motherboards.
@PhilsComputerLab: Hi Phil do you recommend to upgrade cpu on this one? if yes which one should i go for? thanks
@Godgodgod: The 1650V3 is a really good CPU already. Good balance with cores and clock speed. Step up would be the 1680V3 with 8 Cores, but likely an expensive CPU. I chose the 2699 with 18 cores because of my video editing. It converts all the video files to proxy files and that runs faster with more cores, even though they are slower. Final render is also faster with 18 cores of course. The actual editing is more responsive on the 1650V3 because of higher clock speed.
@Calmago how many sticks of RAM are in this?
Not a bad price for an off the self pre-built.
However, given Ryzen 5 5600G CPU are now selling as low as $160, you can easily build a similarly configured PC for around $100 more which would be a lot more power efficient but with double the performance.
its an enterprise workstation / server with enterprise reliability. you can do a lot of things for a similar price but it's not comparing apples with apples.
But you’re also comparing brand new hardware to about 10 year old hardware. How does that factor in to the equation? (Honest question).
its an enterprise workstation / server with enterprise reliability. you can do a lot of things for a similar price but it's not comparing apples with apples.
Don’t know how reliable (more importantly secure) these 10 year old unsupported enterprise hardware is compared to brand new actively supported retail hardware. Besides, I highly doubt anyone looking for high reliability is bargain hunting for decommissioned old computers.
Besides, I highly doubt anyone looking for high reliability is bargain hunting for decommissioned old computers.
Yes good, keep it that way please. More for me to choose from.
For gaming/anything which uses the GPU this workstation will be much better than a 5600G. Near NVIDIA 980Ti/1070 levels so will be great for almost any game on a standard monitor (1080p/60) (ok, won't do ray tracing for cyberpunk, etc. and some CPU-intensive games will be more of a struggle)
Is it time to retire my trusty HP Gen8?
I'm wondering the same thing
Edit: noticed the 4 bays are 2.5 inch so I think I'll stick with the gen8
Depending on use, but why would you if its going strong like mine is.
I changed to the Xeon E3-1265L v2 years ago and its a work horse. Can still get those CPUs for $75 on Ebay - I'd do that if you have the Celeron chip that most of them came with
Damn it.. too late for me to cancel my other order for the Elitedesk 800 G4 for upgrading my home server. Even though this is an older model, it has the drive spaces I need. Lol.
Curious if this comes with a RAID card given they have the 4x2.5" tray in the deal as well.
A lot of the jargon on this thread is over my head. Is this a good option for casual photo and video editing?
It's not the ideal machine for those tasks but it's plenty powerful enough to do them without issues. It's very good value in terms of outright computing horsepower per dollar. Bear in mind that you will need a suitable screen, keyboard and mouse.
The biggest downside is likely to be higher noise and higher power consumption than a more modern PC (this one is likely 7-8 years old). And there's only a small amount of data storage, so you may want to add an extra hard drive if you're dealing with large video files.
Noise, or lack of, really surprised me. The fans are 120mm I believe and the CPU cooler is a large cooler with 4 heatpipes and the entire machine is super quiet. I have a Gigabyte GTX 1650 and that card is the loud part! I want to replace it soon for one that turns off the fans when idle…
Cheers. Would you say the Lenovo P410 is a better option then? https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/185212060069
To correct some of the users posting that Noise is an issue with this system.
I have a Z640 with 256GB ram and dual 2696v4 CPU's.
The machines fans are at full speed upon boot, however once in windows the machine is silent. You cannot hear it at all. Under full load the fans kick on but you can barely hear them.
Fan Noise is a non issue.
Power consumption is nuts tho you would be better off with ryzen LOL
First-hand knowledge beats me :), my Z620 was loud. Thanks for correcting me.
Rep, I just submitted an order cancel for this. Can you please process that cancellation? Cheers.
I was about to post this deal as well.
I bought this on the weekend and expecting delivery in couple of days.
@Calmago
Hey rep, what is the memory configuration for this? Is it 4 x 4 GB? Am I safe to order 4 x 8 GB to go with it?
Pretty sure they are 1 x 16gb.
Would it be possible to buy additional matching 16gb stick?
interesting because they are quad channel?
Yes they are. Just buy 3x more 16GB ECC sticks. They are cheap as chips used on eBay. And being ECC you can test them to make sure they are ok.
@stumo: I can’t see any example of it being cheap as chips? Very expensive actually.
From reading the manual, sounds like you can only use ECC RAM too which is annoying…
@PainToad: Could be inflation lol. A few months back I bought 1x16GB DDR4 RDIMM for $30 shipped. And 4x32GB for $200. Best offers from a local seller.
Maybe everyone else is finally catching on to the used workstation market dammit.
OOS now, will post up another deal towards the end of the week for these.
Awesome. Setup alert and likely will grab one 🙂
looking for a reason to replace my N40L which has been running rock solid for 10+ years… I just can't do it because of the power it draws and its probably quite large also the 3 bay 2.5 sata cage doesn't appeal to me as i have all 3'5" HDD…… sure i could get it doing plex\jellyfin and such, but a decent i7 8th gen in a mini\micro\USFF could do the same at a fraction of the watts per hour.. anyway sorry OP, if i had a ton of VMs and transcoding stuff etc. yes but… but for me personally its the Watts
I still have 2x N40Ls running as NAS and they are rock solid - though I do have a third one in the cupboard should one fail. Best mini PC ever to the point that I'm looking at building a HTPC (again) but m-ITX pricing is too expensive and m-ATX is too chonky :)
![[Refurb, eBay Plus] HP Z640 TWR Xeon E5-1650 V3 3.50 16GB 240GB SSD Quadro M6000 Win 10 $350.22 Deliver @BNEACTTRADER eBay](https://files.ozbargain.com.au/n/83/733683.jpg?h=7b8d7ec4)
Are Xeons power efficient? Looking to replace my n40l.