1. Z600 Ram Slots Reviews
2. Hp Z600 Ram Slots

A few months ago we had the opportunity of reviewing the HP Z800 and it got our praise in just about every way. Today we are looking at its little brother the Z600.

The Computer has 6 Slots to install memory, already with 4 GB standard memory installed. For best Z600 Workstation (C2 Rev) Computer performance use the maximum amount of 24 GB ECC / 48 GB Reg ECC, fill all the slots with the max allowed memory per slot for your Computer. HP Z600’s are a dual socket Xeon based workstations. The Z600 V2 supports up to 96GB of DDR3 memory and 2 Internal SAS/SATA Hard Drives. It is important to note that it has an standard 600W Power Supply, which limits the Graphics Cards that you can install. Let us show you how you can build an effective HP Z600 V2 Gaming PC. Product: HP Z600 WorkStation Condition: Refurbished Form Factor: Tower Model Processor: 2 x Intel Xeon Quad or Hexa Core E5500, X5500 & X5600 Chipset: Intel 5520 Memory: 6 DIMM Slots RAM: Support Upto 96GB Memory Hard Drive: Three 3.5-inch SATA, Three 5.25 inch Slots: 2 PCI Express x16 Gen2 Graphics Slots 1 Year Warranty on RAM & Processor 3 Months Warranty on Remaining Parts. Intel Xeon processor1,2 E55603, 2.80 GHz, 8 MB cache, 1333 MHz memory, Quad-Core Intel Xeon processor1,2 E55703, 2.93 GHz, 8 MB cache, 1333 MHz memory, Quad-Core Chipset Intel® 5550 Memory4 6 DIMM slots, up to 24 GB (expected availability May 2009), 6-channel DDR3 1333 MHz., 3 channels per CPU (.actual memory speed dependent on processor.

Features

• Engineered to perform
  The HP Z600 is engineered to optimize the way processor, memory, graphics, OS, and software technology work together to deliver massive, whole-system computational power.
• Sleek new industrial design
  Brushed aluminum side panels, integrated handles, and visually cable-less engineering are just a few of the new design features that create new standards for lowered acoustics, serviceability, and energy efficiency.
• Designed with the environment in mind
  Lower power and cooling costs with ENERGY STAR® qualified configurations, 85% efficient power supplies, and HP WattSaver, an energy-saving feature that, when activated, helps lower energy consumption in off mode.
• Revolutionary architecture
  Tackle bigger problems faster and process more tasks and threads in parallel with the new Intel® QuickPath Technology and new Intel® Xeon® processors* with integrated memory controllers.
• Compact and unassuming
  Enhance your work area with HP’s quietest workstation, designed for environments where space is at a premium.
• Ease of service without comparison
  The tool-free chassis and the uncluttered and highly streamlined internal design gives you the ability to add or change components in mere seconds.
• Easy-to-use system diagnostics tool
  Quickly capture complete system configuration data and share with IT personnel with HP Vision Field Diagnostics, an easy-to-use system diagnostics tool that runs outside the OS.

Packed with either one or two Quad Core Xeon processors and clock speeds between 2.00 GHz and 2.93 GHz the Z600 workstation is all setup to provide exceptional performance.

One of the things that impressed me the most about the Z600 was the design. To come up with the design HP employed the services of BMW DesignWorks.

The Z600 workstation is very expandable, if you are willing to pay for it. The system supports up to 24GB of RAM, but it does not come cheap. To add the full 24GB of DDR3 RAM it is going to add $2920 to the cost of the system.

The Z600 workstation is also built to be green. No, I am not talking about the color, I am talking about how energy efficient it is. I know that a workstation with 2 Quad core CPU’s and 24GB of RAM is not going to be a low power machine, but the Z600 does have an 85% energy efficient power supply.

One of my favorite things about the Z600 workstation is how easy it is to take apart. There are lots of easily removable parts, but the one I liked the most is the power supply. This power supply only has one cable, so it is easy to pull out and replace if needed. I will talk more about the power supply below.

Design

The whole case, inside and out, was designed by BMW DesignWorks. BMW spent quite a bit of effort making the case very easy to get into, easy to take apart, and quite and cool. There are no tools required to open the Z600 case, or to access each of the parts. When you look inside the case you will notice lots of green touch points. Each of these touch points indicate a part that can be moved or removed.

The front of the Z600 case has a simple design without a lot of frills. In the middle is a single slot loading DVD, with an eject button just below the slot. On the right side of the case is the power button, 3 USB ports, a headphone and microphone jack, and a Firewire port.

The back of the Z600 case is fairly standard, it has 2 80mm fans on the right and on the left are a bunch of I/O ports. The I/O ports consist of 2 PS/2 ports, 6 USB ports, a Network port, a microphone, audio in, and audio out jack. Below all that are the PCI card slots, in the machine I have there is a single video card with 2 Display ports and a DVI plug.

Now we get to the interesting part, the left side of the case. The left side of the Z600 case is mostly bare except for a small handle and a lock. When you lift the handle the side comes off very easily and we get our first view of the inside.

The first thing to notice, when compared to the Z800, is that the power supply is at the bottom instead of the top. However, just like the Z800, the power supply is what I like the best. The power supply in the Z600 is very unique and it has several innovative design features. As you can see from the picture the power supply spans the entire length of the case. This was done so that the power supply can get its own fresh air from the front of the case and expel it out of the back. Unfortunately, the second thing that I liked about the Z800 power supply is not the same with the Z600, the Z800 power supply was completely cable-less. The Z600 however, has a single cable that comes out of it for the graphics card. Only having one cable still allows the power supply to be easily removed and replaced without having to unplug all the cables of a standard power supply. Instead of the cables being attached to the power supply they are attached to the case. There are two plugs in the case that the cables are attached to and there are two plugs on the power supply that connect to the plugs in the case. The reason I like this feature so much is because I recently had to replace the power supply in my personal computer, so I know how much of a pain it is to remove all the cables.

Up at the top is a removable panel that covers the memory slots. When the panel is removed the first thing you see is a fan. The fan helps to keep the memory cool. Below the Memory are the CPUs. Each CPU has a fan and HeatSink so that the CPU’s will stay cool, they are also slightly offset so that the heat from the front one does not go into the back one.

Below the CPUs are the PCI slots. The Z600 only supports one video card. If you will remember the power supply only had the one video power cable also. One upgrade I would probably recommend is a sound card. As you may have noticed, the motherboard does not have enough audio ports to support anything more than a 2.0 speaker system. If you are doing audio or video editing you are going to want more and so a sound card will be required.

To the right of the PCI card slots are 2 hot swappable Hard Drive bays. With my Z600 workstation HP filled the drive bays with 2 150GB 15000 RPM SAS drives. They also put in a single 1 TB 7200 RPM data drive in one of the lower slots. The bays slide out fairly easily, but getting them back in can be a challenge. There is a lever on each drawer that needs to be lowered for removal and raised to lock it into place. If you happen to not get the drive pushed in all the way before locking the lever the hard drive will not be fully connected.

Below the hard drives are the 5.25″ drive bays. These bays a quite a bit harder to get to when compared to the hard drives, but the tool-less design helps to keep things as easy as possible.

Overall the design is great, as I said before it is very easy to get into and access all the various parts.

Performance

With a workstation like this, one would expect that the performance would be really good. So I was very interested in finding out just what the Z600 could do.

Resuming from sleep is very slow. The login screen shows up very quickly, but it takes about 20 seconds before the USB mouse and keyboard start responding to movement and key presses.

I kept my performance testing very simple with the Z600. Most performance tests do not do an adequate job of representing the true power of 8 hyper-threaded cores, so I turned off hyper-threading. In addition PCMark05 and 3DMark06 are getting old and it is time we stopped using those numbers, so I only used PCMark Vantage and 3DMark Vantage. SpecViewPerf is also difficult to use and get reliable numbers from because its programs are all single threaded. To over come this SpecViewPerf runs multiple instances of each program, but so far the max it can do is 4, so half of my cores will go unused.

So on to the actual testing. The first test I did was 3DMark Vantage. This test puts all the components through different tests. As I described above all tests are done with hyper-threading turned off. The scores are decent, as you can see. During the tests the machine stayed very quiet.

The next test I ran was PCMark Vantage. This test does not stress the components as much as 3DMark.

My third test is with Bapco’s SYSMark. This test is similar to PCMark in that it does not really stress the system. Instead it uses programs like Office and Photoshop to test and see how well the Z600 will respond to real world situations. Since this workstation is more likely to run those programs instead of games, this test is more realistic for buyers of this workstation.

So that does it for the performance tests. Next I wanted to see how much heat I could generate and how much power it would take up. For this I turned on Hyper-threading (uses up more power and generates more heat), downloaded Prim95, and started it up. During this I had SpeedFan running and Kill A Watt plugged in. Before I started Prime95 I recorded the power at 154 Watts, and the Heat at about 18 C.

After running Prime95 for a while I recorded the power again, this time at 421 Watts and the Heat at 79 C. It just goes to show that this Workstation is capable of running hot, and using quite a bit of power.

I noticed that during all these tests, even the CPU tests, the fans did not get any louder. This may explain why the CPU temps got so high, but they never got too high to cause concern.

Z600 Ram Slots Reviews

I was surprised to see that some of the tests came out with the Z600 outperforming the Z800. This could possibly be because of updated software or drivers. I wish I still had the Z800 so I could rerun those tests.

For my last test I wanted to see how the 15000 RPM SAS drive compared to my personal machines 2x 7200 RPM Raid-0 setup. So I downloaded a little app that tests hard drives. I first ran it on my desktop with the Raid-0. As you can see the numbers look fairly good. Next I ran it on the HP Z600 with the 15000 RPM SAS drive. When I saw the numbers I was blown away. I only wish I could setup a Raid-0 with the SAS drives. Unfortunately, the Z600 configuration I have does not support Raid-0.

Support and Warranty

Hp Z600 Ram Slots

The warranty that comes with the Z600 is a 3 years parts, and labor with onsite service standard warranty. There is an option to add onto that with additional coverage. The maximum warranty that I could find was for 24×7 4-hour on-site response – 5 yrs, workstation + monitor. The is a great warranty and it only costs $519. Considering that this is the same extended warranty as the Z800 and the fact that the Z600 is not nearly as expensive and cannot have as much hardware I was expecting it to be a bit cheaper.

Support can be found with a quick visit to the HP website for drivers and other downloads. HP also has forums where you can ask questions that can be answered by HP staff or other customers. If you would rather talk to someone in person a call to their support reps can give you the answers you are looking for. Last but not least, you could send HP an E-mail.

Conclusion

After all is said and done the Z600 certainly lives up to the expectations that were set by the Z800. If you are looking for a Workstation and the Z800 is out of your price range then the Z600 may fit the bill. Its performance is very similar in most tests and it costs a lot less. You do lose a bit of expandability, but do you really needs 192GB of RAM? If this sounds like you then give the Z600 a try.