I’ve been reading the threads on the forum about upgrading the Z420 and Z620 with an E5-1680 v2 CPU.
I know the workstations need to have a newer revision motherboard with the 2013 bootblock date (dealt with a similar issue when upgrading a xw9400 but there’s a trick to fix that!).
i currently have a Z620 with an early revision motherboard and 2x E5-2643 CPUs.
i just purchased a Z420 with a 2013 bootblock.
i also bought a Z420 water cooled heatsink.
In addition to those Z workstations, I’ve got a Z800 with the liquid cooling system and a few Z220 small-form-factors.
A few questions:
The Z620 obviously has a nicer case and some additional features (ignoring the ability to upgrade to a second CPU since that won’t work with a 1600-series CPU).
1. Is overclocking/cooling better in the Z620 than the Z420 (using liquid cooling in both)?
2. I’ve seen mention of a front case fan for the Z620. Is that an option or did they all include one? Or is it something people are hacking in?
3. Assuming I got a Z420 with 600W power supply, should that be enough to power the overclocked E5-1680 v2, a high-end graphics card (e.g., GTX 1080), an SSD, a standard hard drive, and two optical drives?
4. Will the Z420 handle 64GB of RAM? I’ve seen different specs, some saying only 32GB.
5. Is there any chance I could get my Z800 liquid cooling system in any of the Zx20 systems including a Z820?
6. Has anyone tried a Z820 liquid cooler in one of the “lesser” systems?