- Moderator
- #41
Jeff Kilgroe
Well-known member
I still have one Z820 workstation here and use it all the time. Dual 2687W 8-core 3.1GHz CPUs and 128GB RAM. I have a Titan X GPU (previous generation, not the latest Pascal Titan Xp) and it still runs great. Almost sold this system a couple times, but it just keeps on ticking after updating to all SSD storage and the Titan X GPU -- about 18 months ago. I can upgrade to slightly newer CPUs and up my RAM with those CPUs from 1666MHz to 1866MHz, but it's not cost-effective to do so. The Z840 at this point is a better bargain since they can be picked up for not much more money and can hold more current CPUs and DDR4 RAM memory.
Do be careful if you pick up a used Z840 though. There are some Z840 models that are still limited to DDR3 1866MHz RAM and can't host the current v4 Xeon CPUs.
@Brian -- I'm going to assume the Z820 you're looking at has E5-2680 (v1) CPUs, so dual 8-core at 2.7GHz (3.5GHz turbo) and 1666MHz RAM. With 128GB, it's a fair price under $2K. The K5000 GPU is useable, but you would be best served to sell that and pick up a current 1080TI 11GB GPU. K5000 is not very powerful, it was a mid-range GPU 3 years ago and great for consistent performance in certain applications -- mostly CAD or 3D modeling work, it won't pack the same punch for processing or computational work or visualization processes that the newer cards have.
Do be careful if you pick up a used Z840 though. There are some Z840 models that are still limited to DDR3 1866MHz RAM and can't host the current v4 Xeon CPUs.
@Brian -- I'm going to assume the Z820 you're looking at has E5-2680 (v1) CPUs, so dual 8-core at 2.7GHz (3.5GHz turbo) and 1666MHz RAM. With 128GB, it's a fair price under $2K. The K5000 GPU is useable, but you would be best served to sell that and pick up a current 1080TI 11GB GPU. K5000 is not very powerful, it was a mid-range GPU 3 years ago and great for consistent performance in certain applications -- mostly CAD or 3D modeling work, it won't pack the same punch for processing or computational work or visualization processes that the newer cards have.