HP Z440 Workstations

Chassis and form factor

A fixed minitower in Jack Black with an integrated front handle and a rear grip, so one person can carry it. Unlike the Z420 it is not convertible to a desktop orientation. The chassis has two internal 3.5-inch bays on acoustic rails, two external 5.25-inch bays that take a third and fourth drive through HP's bay adapters, and a dedicated 9.5 mm slim optical bay so a DVD writer does not cost a drive position. The side panel, cards, processor heatsink and memory are tool-less.

HP rates the Z440 at 4U for rack use and listed a depth-adjustable fixed rail kit for it, so it works as a racked render node as well as a desk-side machine. A front fan and card guide kit is optional, and mandatory with high-end graphics or PCIe SSDs.

Processors

One LGA2011 R3 socket on the Intel C612 chipset. HP qualified the Xeon E5-1600 v3 (Haswell-EP) and E5-1600 v4 (Broadwell-EP) families with four, six and eight cores, plus a few E5-2600 v3 and v4 parts. The E5-2600 series can run in pairs in other machines, but the Z440 board has one socket and HP states that dual-processor configurations are not supported. The v4 processors bring 2400 MT/s memory support; v3 tops out at 2133 MT/s.

Xeon E5 v4 (Broadwell-EP)

Xeon E5 v3 (Haswell-EP)

The E5-1603 and E5-1607 in both generations lack Hyper-Threading; every other part has it. For CAD and modelling the six-core E5-1650 v4 is the sweet spot of clock speed and threads, which is why ServerDove's ready-built Z440 systems use it. Upgrade CPUs are in processors.

Memory

Eight DDR4 slots on four channels. The Z440 takes registered ECC DIMMs (RDIMM) only, in 4, 8, 16 and 32 GB capacities; DDR3 and unbuffered modules are not supported. Supported speeds are 1600, 1866, 2133 and 2400 MT/s, and the processor sets the clock, so 2400 MT/s DIMMs run at 2133 MT/s on a v3 CPU. Any build with more than four DIMMs, or with 32 GB DIMMs, requires the HP Z440 Memory Cooling Solution, a fan shroud over the slots.

HP's own table rates one DIMM per channel as "Best" and uneven layouts lower, so buy memory in fours. DDR4 RDIMMs are in server memory; say they are for a Z440 so we pick registered modules and add the cooler where needed.

Graphics

There is no integrated graphics, and the power supply fitted decides what the two PCIe Gen3 x16 slots can carry. The 525 W supply has no graphics power cable and is for 2D and entry-level 3D cards. The 700 W supply has two graphics power cables and feeds up to 225 W of graphics, which is the requirement for every card in HP's high-end tier and for running two mid-range cards. High-end cards and dual configurations also need the front fan and card guide kit.

If you want a P4000 or above in a unit, tell us so we confirm the 700 W chassis. Cards are in graphics cards.

Storage

Six SATA ports at 6 Gb/s from the C612: two on the SATA controller with RAID 0 and 1, four on the sSATA controller with RAID 0, 1 and 10. Integrated RAID is factory-configured for levels 0, 1 and 10; RAID 5 is supported but was not offered from the factory, and the onboard RAID works under Windows only, with Linux expected to use software RAID. Arrays over 2 TB are fully supported. SAS drives need an add-in card: HP qualified the LSI 9217-4i4e and the LSI 9270-8i with battery backup.

Two practical limits: the 525 W supply has power leads for two drives, so a third or fourth needs a 4-pin to dual-SATA cable, and PCIe SSDs cannot be combined with a SAS controller. A common refurbishment recipe is a SATA SSD for the operating system and a 3.5-inch disk for data, from solid-state drives and hard drives.

Expansion slots and ports

• Front: 4 x USB 3.0 (topmost is a charging port), headset, microphone
• Rear: 4 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0, 2 x PS/2, RJ-45, line in, line out
• Internal: 2 x USB 2.0 on one header, 1 x USB 3.0 header, one serial header
• Network: integrated Intel I218 Gigabit Ethernet with AMT 9.1, TXT, DASH 1.1, Wake on LAN, VLAN, teaming and PXE 2.1
• Audio: integrated Realtek ALC221; security: TPM 1.2, upgradable to TPM 2.0 by firmware

There is no IEEE 1394 on the board. Optional cards included a two-port 1394b adapter, Thunderbolt 2, Intel I210 and I350 Gigabit adapters, the HP 361T dual-port Gigabit card and an Intel 7260 wireless card.

Power supply

Two supplies were offered; check which one a unit has before planning a graphics card.

Both are wide-ranging units accepting 90 to 269 V AC at 47 to 66 Hz, with active power factor correction, surge tolerance to 2000 V and a built-in self-test LED.

Physical specification

Supported operating systems

HP's QuickSpecs list Windows 10 Pro 64-bit for Workstations, Windows 10 Pro with downgrade rights to Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, Windows 10 Home 64-bit and Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit as preinstall options, with Windows 8 and 8.1 Enterprise and Windows 7 Enterprise supported. Linux support covers Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 6 and 7 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 SP3 and 12, and the HP Installer Kit for Linux includes drivers for RHEL 6.6 and 7, SLED 11 and Ubuntu 14.04. Windows 11 postdates the document and is not on HP's list; ask us before relying on it.

Buying a refurbished HP Z440 from ServerDove

ServerDove holds the Z440 in Doha in two forms: ready-built systems around the six-core Xeon E5-1650 v4 with NVIDIA Quadro K2200 graphics, ECC memory and a large hard disk, and barebone towers for buyers who want to fit their own processor, memory, graphics and drives. Other configurations, including 700 W chassis for high-end graphics or systems with SSD boot drives, are quoted on request. Refurbished units are tested before listing and covered by the ServerDove warranty; extended cover can be quoted.

Delivery across Qatar is typically one day from Doha stock, and installation, base configuration are available as a service. If you need two processors or more memory, the HP Z640 and HP Z840 are the same generation; the HP Z420 is the cheaper predecessor. Browse all models in HP workstations, or send the specification you need by WhatsApp on +974 5521 2108, email sales@serverdove.com or the contact page.