I've had a Z820 in my possession here for about a day now. Overall I like it a lot. HP did alright with the PCIe slot arrangement, but I've encountered one issue I'm not too happy about -- the lowest PCIe X16 slot is perfect for accepting double-width cards as the adjacent slot (the bottom one) is a standard PCI 32bit legacy slot. Unfortunately, the Quadro 6000 (and also the GTX580 or similar) won't fit there because of all the other stuff running along the bottom of the motherboard. Seems like a real goof to me. Oh well... The GTX580 or 680 HydroCopper versions from EVGA would fit like a charm, but I would have to run an external reservoir and radiator as there's no way to incorporate it into the internal system without sacrificing a drive bay. I have all the bays filled and have even mounted my system drive, the SSD, in the gap above the top 5.25" drive bay. So that gives me the SSD, the Blu-Ray writer, and 6 x 2TB HDD's for workspace. :)Originally Posted by Luke Boyce
YI've very briefly looked at the Z820 after seeing you mention it more than once. I need to take a deeper look at it, honestly, but it's certainly not out of the question. In the end, it'll probably all come down to cost. The "hunting" part of the process I rather like.
2690's are a consideration, they seem to do just fine with air cooling. In the end, price will be similar. A good liquid system or, self-contained liquid coolers like what HP is using, come at a premium so that just about offsets the lower cost of the 2687W CPUs. Performance is going to be mostly similar, but the 2687's do score better in intensive tests and benchmarks.Ah, not something I considered. Would it be more prudent, then, to go with something like the E5-2690's then, if I'm not planning on going with liquid cooling, or is there something you'd suggest here alternatively?
I have 64GB in both the HP system and the other SuperMicro based system I've put together. At least for the moment until my other RAM arrives (today). 64GB is a good amount. But for intense rendering where I can maximize all the cores/threads on this system, it's a bit tight. I would recommend the Samsung or Micron DIMMs if you can find them, it's a pain. I had a round-about way of getting them from Micron. There's these modules here by Kingston, which should also work just fine, but they're a bit slower at CAS-11. Which is what the HP system is using. They're HP-labeled, but I'm positive these are the same modules in my Z820. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820239015That's certainly what I was expecting to hear. Which means, for cost-purposes, I may have to go the 64gb route for the time being, then, so I don't double my cost on RAM, and then upgrade later.
Only card I would potentially recommend over the 580 right now would be the Quadro 6000. It's going to be slower for some stuff, especially performance visuals and pushing textures around. On the other hand, even with 3GB you can bottleneck the card with that RAM amount if you're really loading it up with a lot of data. Overall it's better tuned and runs silky smooth in various 3D apps. I like it, but it's pricey. I'll be doing comparison testing between the Quadro 6000 and GTX580 in the HP system this weekend. I still have to get all my software installed though, I just finished installing all the HDDs a few minutes ago and out of time for today on that project.Sounds like the 580 is the way to go at the moment and I won't be disapointed. Good to hear. Granted, I'm coming from using NO CUDA cores, so anything will probably impress me speed-wise. But this, again, is one of the main reasons I'm considering going this route. It would feel great to know that, should a card like that end up being pretty amazing, I could always just add it in 8 months or so. Or for that matter, use the 580 for now and get whatever monster they release around NAB next year.
