Why I Bought an HP Z420 in 2024

I recently bought an HP Z420 workstation for about $100. Why did I do this? Watch this video to find out!

[@viochrys]

Mythical old PC algorithm pull

[@thenetworkmystery]

Indeed

[@GOTEEMM]

Aah yes Instagram ahh comment

[@tegarmahardhika7113]

Watching this video with Z440 are best moment for me 😂

[@thenetworkmystery]

The Z440 is indeed a newer workstation.

[@honahwikeepa2115]

I have an HP Z440 to. Excellent PC.

[@frederichardy8844]

I'm still using my HP Z400 (since 2010) with 4 displays. In 2010 it was half the price of a MacPro for the same hardware config. Of course a lot of update since (nvme drive, 10G network, USB3, GPU). When I bought it I never thought that I will be able to update it for so long. Writing a file at more than 700MB/s on a locale disk or to a server was not possible for normal people... I'm thinking of bying another one for parts but in 14 years the only thing that broke was 1 SAS HDD and the power button cap: I have to push the power button directly...

[@thenetworkmystery]

You've just proved that these workstations are indeed reliable, durable, and long-lasting! That's great to hear!

[@AlexanTheMan]

Lately Apple has indirectly sold more Windows computers than Microsoft themselves.

[@thenetworkmystery]

How so? By convincing people to switch away from Macs?

[@Anarchistcowboy]

Nice I just bought a z440 to be my first homelab running linux

[@thenetworkmystery]

I thought about a Z440, but I had all that spare DDR3 that I also wanted to use.

[@soulreaper11207]

Would be great to see a power drawl with your setup. Also you stould try Ubuntu instead of Windows once 10 is EOL.

[@thenetworkmystery]

I am running Windows 11, which will be supported for many more years.

[@alexmurray91]

I have a z210 with about 10 drives. It is my TV computer, home server, and even has a tv tuner card it it.

[@thenetworkmystery]

That's cool!

[@LuccianoNova]

Curious what your TDP avg is under load. Z210s are pretty cheap right now and the specs are good for price

[@alexmurray91]

@@LuccianoNova For the CPU? It is a Xenon equivalent to a 3rd gen i7. It is ok but not good for transcoding or heavy video games . It decodes h264 videos fine but you need a newer GPU to decode some h265 smoothly. The drives are attached super jank, with cheap sata power splitters and a HBA card. It is a cheap way to get 14TB with random old drives. But the drives sometimes have a bad connection, happens maybe once a month and the just need to be reconnected.

[@Nnnuuk]

I have two of these, and am very happy except with the PSUs that seem to struggle with and decent graphics cards.

[@thenetworkmystery]

I threw in my spare 1650 Super, and while it's a decent card, it's certainly nothing to write home about.

[@RusRus72]

would love to see more

[@thenetworkmystery]

Yes!! What would you like to see, specifically? I've already started to script a "Part 2" where I discuss performance and more details about the system--would that suffice to you?

[@wildbill-pk1cm]

Following, make more content! I have the same rig lol

[@thenetworkmystery]

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'll certainly have more content this summer--I don't know what about at the moment, but there will be more.

[@bulletthecorgi3245]

bruh make another video about it pls, try PCVR on it lmao

[@thenetworkmystery]

I will likely make another video on it, but I won't test VR, as I don't have the hardware.

[@JuanGonzalez-hv6vs]

Network Mystery: " I don't know how I survived the last 4 years with the Mac setup." Audience: "You survive, and that is all that matters."

[@thenetworkmystery]

Lol, true!

[@tobi4833]

honestly I would hackintosh this computer, it would be much better

[@thenetworkmystery]

It would! I'd need to get another GPU though, as macOS has no drivers for the 1650 Super.

[@Bsuve988]

Cani i buy now Hp z420

[@thenetworkmystery]

You can buy them used on marketplaces like eBay.

[@w10kw72]

Does this run in 4k

[@thenetworkmystery]

Does it run what in 4K? It cannot run games in 4K, but it can edit 4K videos and drive a 4K monitor.

[@taktarak3869]

@@thenetworkmystery It actually kinda does handle AAA games at 4k, assuming you're using the top line cpu of the socket. Preferably with a top line AMD gpu too, that is. the large cache and difference in cpu instruction give them advantage to last so long.

[@ShadowsDescent-um8se]

I bought a Z440 on eBay for $70.00 upgraded it with a 16 core 32 thread CPU, NVMe Hard drive, 256GB ram, 8GB graphics card (all used parts). It's a little beast, and it's very quiet.

[@thenetworkmystery]

Yeah! This one's just a little older, but still holds up, I think!

[@abyshines]

I have bought a lsi 9270 cv 8i from ebay for my z420 to use 3 , 4 tb sas drives I have lying around since this editing pc is running short of hd space and that didn't work for me, now thinking of buying 9260 8i since there are no working videos of the lsi cards on yt other than yours. Anything you have changed in bios or is it default?

[@thenetworkmystery]

I thought the 9260 wouldn't work... I was almost 100% certain it wouldn't. Because I had the same issue as you--there are NO VIDEOS on YT about it!! But when I connected it, it just showed up in the Mini-OROM display. All I had to do was enter the BIOS of the controller using whatever key command it is (can't remember at the moment). I will say, it took a bit of fiddling around to get it in the configuration I wanted (that BIOS is NOT user-friendly at all!), but I got it running, nonetheless!

[@abyshines]

@@thenetworkmystery hmmm good to hear, I have placed an order for lsi 9260 8i, returning non working 9270 cv8i, fingers 🤞

[@abyshines]

@@thenetworkmystery the thing is 9270 wasn't detected in bios, no green lights in the card

[@OlaftheGreat]

I put a 1050 ti in a Z230 for my little brother's first PC

[@thenetworkmystery]

Nice!

[@fakharzaman5380]

I am using this workstation with 32-GB DDR, 250SSD, 1TB Sata, 4gb 3D card, Working perfectly, Supports only DDR3 Ram not DDR4

[@thenetworkmystery]

Right, the lack of DDR4 support is a bit of an issue, but otherwise, the workstation works perfectly!

[@kayngo87]

Just got myself a z420 also for the CNC/3D/poster printer keeping work and play separated. More on this please.

[@thenetworkmystery]

I plan to make at least one more video on it!

[@charlesturner897]

If you stick with windows 10 below 20H4, and use an E5-1650/80 v2 you can overclock it to run at 4Ghz all core, also, they work with regular RDIMMs, not use unbuffered ECC and will take up to 128GB of 1866Mhz ram. I ran mine with a titan X pascal for a while, and it did pretty well in 1440p gaming.

[@thenetworkmystery]

I thought Xeons weren't capable of overclocking... This would be an interesting experiment, except that Windows 10 is out-of-date, even moreso that particular build.

[@charlesturner897]

@@thenetworkmystery the first, second and 3rd gen E5 single socket CPUs had their multipliers unintentionally had their multipliers left unlocked, unfortunately intel realised their mistake by the time they got to the 4th gen. And yes, it is unfortunate that later versions of windows stopped intel XTU from recognising the unlocked xeons.

[@PhantomThinQ]

@@thenetworkmystery "Windows 10 is out-of-date" ... Windows 11 is bloatware.

[@SjKzmi]

i have a z420 gonna buy a lenovo p510 soon becoz of ddr4

[@thenetworkmystery]

DDR4 is the one thing I'm missing from this machine. But I also don't really care too much, because I wanted to put all my spare DDR3-ECC RAM to use!

[@nerman_osu69420]

any z800 owners

[@thenetworkmystery]

I don't have a Z800, but I'm sure there are people still using them out there!