new egg refurbished z420 buying advice needed

[Brian Merlen]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA4GH3EF2961

so it seems I can get a decent machine with 64gb ram, SSD (or repurpose one of my own), and its not a lot of money. what kind of performance can i expect with resolve/AE/PS in this level of a machine coupled with an Evo storage device with 24 bays? my I/O with the Evo will be great and this machine and price looks great since its really cheap as a refurb unit.

one thing bothers me is the the GPU options. i called just now trying to get a better GPU but had to leave voicemail with refurb company. i'd like a 980ti or even 12gb Titan if budget allows and im afraid if we go with quaddro it will end up not performing as well and that i need more VRAM. my budget is very limited which is why im looking at refurb and the new egg refurb prices seem more compelling than HP business refurb prices. a newegg chat support guy online claims i cant use the quadro and a 980ti together, is that true? cuz its looking like it might be a hassle making them swap the GPU included for the better one thats not an option on new egg but im hoping they can do it for me or even i can dual GPU it up? dual might perform better right in resolve if the machine can handle it? the online rep told me i need to match another quadro in there if i want dual GPUs, but i dont even want the first one just a 980ti or titan to kick some major pixels. the end goal is graphics/coloring station for 4k and hd content. thanks!

 

[Elsie N]

Looks like the Z620 is a better deal. Two 8 core CPUs. Add the RAM necessary to fit your needs. Not sure of the cost difference between the RAM and the second CPU, but RAM is much easier to install than a CPU, if doing building work is not your thing.

The ideal thing would have been to buy the one Jeff Kilgroe had for sale, but I'm sure that one is gone by now.

 

[Brian Merlen]

ok so i upped the specs a bit based on what you said and my own paranoia...

hpz820 e5 2670 dual 8 core (16 cores balling)
128gb ram
windows 7 (not 8 or 10)
SSD

and now trying to deicde between k5200 for a bit more money vs q6000 for a bit less money. but its still 6GB to 8GB of v ram in either case so im hopeful for good performance. ill use Evo for media so in theory this thing should fly..

best part is its only 1800 to 2400 bucks depending which video card we get...refurb prices are awesome!

 

[Elsie N]

ok so i upped the specs a bit based on what you said and my own paranoia...

hpz820 e5 2670 dual 8 core (16 cores balling)
128gb ram
windows 7 (not 8 or 10)
SSD

and now trying to deicde between k5200 for a bit more money vs q6000 for a bit less money. but its still 6GB to 8GB of v ram in either case so im hopeful for good performance. ill use Evo for media so in theory this thing should fly..

best part is its only 1800 to 2400 bucks depending which video card we get...refurb prices are awesome!

Yeah, can't wait 'til the refurb 8k cameras become available! '-)

 

[Elsie N]

ok so i upped the specs a bit based on what you said and my own paranoia...

hpz820 e5 2670 dual 8 core (16 cores balling)
128gb ram
windows 7 (not 8 or 10)
SSD

and now trying to deicde between k5200 for a bit more money vs q6000 for a bit less money. but its still 6GB to 8GB of v ram in either case so im hopeful for good performance. ill use Evo for media so in theory this thing should fly..

best part is its only 1800 to 2400 bucks depending which video card we get...refurb prices are awesome!

If you have an extra PCI-e slot (4 lane I think) there are some PCI-e SSDs hitting the market soon that may perhaps even be faster (someone with knowledge, please intervene if I'm wrong.) Read something about a brand called Zotac (I think) who are getting into the arena with a new release soon. Supposedly cost/benefit good buy. But others are already in the market and may also be a good value.

 

[Brian Merlen]

yes, OWC has some nice ones now too but sadly my budget is fairly limited. still very happy with what i was able to build on a shoe string budget though and The Server Store has some great deals! like my GPU alone is 1700 new I saw online and here I'm getting a whole high end machine plus a k5200 for only $2,400 with water cooling so its basically a huge improvement vs our old school mac pros and z400s

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

You don't want that K5200 GPU, seriously, it's weak. Other than that it's not a bad deal. Seriously though, unless you can definitively tell me what Quadro features you need, then you don't need the Quadro. And not only that, but you can drop a GTX960 or better in there and it will smoke that K5200.

Also, I suppose I'm shilling a bit here, but I have a couple Z820 systems that I need to retire if anyone of you guys are interested. Both are 16-core (dual 8-core E5-2687W CPUs) with 64GB RAM and 6GB Titan GPUs, 512GB SSD, Blu-Ray writer. 1120W PSU and liquid/ evaporative coolers. Windows 7 Pro and Windows 10 included. Some freedom to adjust options, swap GPU, add more RAM, etc..

Sorry for the sales pitch... Just thought I'd throw that out there.

 

[Brian Merlen]

no worries man, I would of gone to you had I known but grabbed elsewhere already. The main thing is they gave us a deal on the GPU, for less than a new titan goes for and this is a budget purchase. the other choice was q6000 but that seems to be worse in that its less v ram (but they would of priced my total at 1800 only)? they dont know what their needs are here yet necessarily and lots of clients work on slow externals thus defeating the machines power and superiority anyway throughput wise vs using our faster Evo, so for 2,400 total for the system with 480gb SSD, 128gb ram, k5200, water cooling, and dual 8 core it looked very attractive compared to new prices. i been looking at new systems on mediaworkstations.net and HP and the prices seemed crazy vs what i got refurbished. my budget was honestly stretched to reach the 2,400 significantly so i figure this is about as good a deal as possible without increasing costs. I basically doubled my costs just to reach what I did and am happy i convinced the powers that be cuz im working on a 2.1 stock mac pro other than SSD right now (8gb of ram), so this is a significant improvement vs the almost stock other systems (which run great still for other tasks, so they have their uses and still make tons of cash)..

if i were building my own i would of gone dual titan or maybe even that new m6000 24GB? but my cars dead so im buying nothing til i get a tesla or a volt ive decided though and these days i do so little freelance post/media managing it basically doesnt matter at all my rMBP works fine for my lower ended clients.

one thing im wondering jeff if you dont mind shedding light is with these HPs what are my GPU options as far as mixing and matching? down the road if i convinced them to add a titan or something to this machine in addition to the k5200 is it possible? or must i replace the k5200 with the titan instead? its amazing whats out these days in general vs apples line up. i cant keep convincing myself to stay OSX only when pcs can have multiple GPUs that are 12 times the v ram as my top of the line mac laptop. trash cans are great looking but just dont work for super power uses it seems. if they refresh it maybe id stay apple based but its very hard to buy a three year old trash can right now at these prices i think, that was another option we considered but we want to use resolve and are weary of render issues reported by so many trash can would be encoders. personallly i let my avid and adobe lapse so ironically my only up to date apps are resolve and fcpx on my home machine...which obviously gives me some incentive to stay in an osx world, at least for now. i could see myself just using resolve for everything though these days though honestly even if i went PC for my mainstay machine

 

[Andrew Linga]

Also, I suppose I'm shilling a bit here, but I have a couple Z820 systems that I need to retire if anyone of you guys are interested. Both are 16-core (dual 8-core E5-2687W CPUs) with 64GB RAM and 6GB Titan GPUs, 512GB SSD, Blu-Ray writer. 1120W PSU and liquid/ evaporative coolers. Windows 7 Pro and Windows 10 included. Some freedom to adjust options, swap GPU, add more RAM, etc..

Peaked my interest. PM me a price on one of these bad boys =) Thanks in advance

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Hey Andrew,

Didn't notice this the other day. Watch for a PM, going to send you one momentarily.


FWIW, and this is for others looking at these HP systems too, the GTX 1080 GPU is breathing new life into these boxes. One of the weakest parts about the z820/z840 workstation is the lack of PCIe power support for two or more powerful GPUs. The 1080 only needs a single PCIe power connector, so we can run three of them without over-stressing the system! If you can spare enough slots...

 

[Marc Wielage]

FWIW, and this is for others looking at these HP systems too, the GTX 1080 GPU is breathing new life into these boxes. One of the weakest parts about the z820/z840 workstation is the lack of PCIe power support for two or more powerful GPUs. The 1080 only needs a single PCIe power connector, so we can run three of them without over-stressing the system! If you can spare enough slots...

I gotta say, the GTX 1080 GPU is a real game-changer.