HP Z840 Workstations

Chassis and form factor

A rackable tower in black and hematite, 444 mm high and 203 mm wide, with seven bays: four internal 3.5-inch bays with acoustic dampening rails, two external 5.25-inch bays and a slimline optical bay. The front carries four USB 3.0 ports, the top one with charging capability, a headset socket and a microphone socket. A barebone Z840, as we stock it, is this chassis with the system board, power supply and cooling fitted, ready for processors, memory, drives and a graphics card. Unlike the Z640, both processor sockets are on the main board rather than on a riser.

Processors

The Z840 takes only Xeon E5-2600 series processors, in the v3 (Haswell-EP) and v4 (Broadwell-EP) generations, one or two, and the second must match the first. Several slots and half the memory depend on the second processor being fitted, so most Z840s were sold with two. HP's QuickSpecs list these v4 processors; the v3 list covers the E5-2620 v3, E5-2630 v3 and E5-2643 v3 among others.

The power supply column matters when buying a barebone: HP requires the 1125 W supply for the E5-2643 v3 and for every v4 processor from the E5-2637 v4 upwards, as well as for the higher v3 parts (E5-2687W v3, E5-2690 v3, E5-2695 v3, E5-2697 v3 and E5-2699 v3). Two E5-2699 v4 processors give 44 cores in one workstation.

Memory

Sixteen DDR4 slots, eight per processor, on the main board. Only ECC registered (RDIMM) and load-reduced (LRDIMM) modules are supported and the two types cannot be mixed. Memory must not be fitted to the slots of an absent processor, and a two-processor system with memory on one processor only is not supported. The QuickSpecs list supported speeds of 1600, 1866 and 2133 MT/s on the board, with v4 processors able to run memory at 2400 MT/s.

Each processor has four memory channels, so populate in sets of four, or eight per processor, for full bandwidth. Compatible registered DDR4 is listed under server memory; tell us the processor generation so we match the speed.

Graphics

The Z840 was qualified for the widest graphics list of its generation. The QuickSpecs group the cards as professional 2D (NVIDIA NVS 310, NVS 315, NVS 510), entry 3D (Quadro K420, K620, P600, AMD FirePro W2100), mid-range 3D (Quadro K1200, K2200, M2000, P2000, FirePro W4300 and W5100, Radeon Pro WX 4100), high-end 3D (Quadro M4000, M5000, M6000 in 12 GB and 24 GB, P4000, P5000, FirePro W7100, Radeon Pro WX 7100) and ultra 3D (Quadro P6000 24 GB). Up to three cards are supported for the K1200, M4000, M5000, P5000 and WX 7100, and up to two of the M6000 and P6000, with the third and fourth NVS cards possible through option kits. For compute, HP listed up to two NVIDIA Tesla K40 coprocessors alongside a display card, which requires the 1125 W chassis. The supply includes three 6-pin graphics power cables. Our graphics cards collection lists current stock; give us the card model and we will confirm slot spacing and power.

Storage

Drives connect to a six-port SATA 6 Gb/s controller with integrated RAID 0, 1, 5, 10 and HP's RAID 0 Data, and to an integrated LSI SAS 2308 controller with eight 6 Gb/s SAS ports and RAID 0, 1, 1E and 10. The SAS ports can be brought out of the chassis with HP's bulkhead and back-panel connector kits for external enclosures. An LSI 9270-8i RAID-on-chip card with the iBBU09 battery was the hardware RAID option.

The HP 4-Bay SAS-SATA 2.5-inch High Density Storage kit converts two 3.5-inch bays into four tool-free 2.5-inch bays; two kits give the eight small-form-factor drives, including 15 mm enterprise SAS drives. A 4-in-1 SFF carrier for a 5.25-inch bay is also listed. All drives in a RAID set must be identical in size, speed and type.

Expansion slots and ports

The x8 connectors are open-ended, so an x16 card seats in them at x8. With a single processor only slots 1, 2, 5, 6 and 7 are live, which is the main reason to specify two. Rear ports: four USB 3.0, two USB 2.0, one serial, PS/2 keyboard and mouse, two RJ-45 Gigabit Ethernet on the integrated Intel I218LM and I210AT controllers, audio line in (retaskable as microphone) and line out, and a rear power button. Internal headers give two USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0 port. An Intel I210-T1 adapter and an HP Thunderbolt 2 card are among the listed options.

Power supply

Two supplies: 850 W at 88% efficiency, or 1125 W at 90% efficiency, both wide-ranging with active power factor correction and two 80 mm fans. The 1125 W supply delivers 1275 W when the input is above 105 V and 1450 W when it is above 200 V, which is the case on Qatar's 240 V mains. HP requires it for the higher processors, for the Tesla K40, and it is the sensible choice for two or three high-end graphics cards. Check which supply a barebone carries before choosing processors.

Physical specification

Supported operating systems

Preinstalled options were Windows 10 Pro 64-bit, Windows 10 Pro with downgrade to Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, Windows 10 Home 64-bit, Windows 7 Professional 64-bit, Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit, Ubuntu 14.04, the HP Installer Kit for Linux (RHEL 6 and 7, SLED 11, Ubuntu 14.04) and a Red Hat Enterprise Linux Workstation paper licence. Windows 7 and 8.1 Enterprise, RHEL Desktop 6 and 7, and SLED 11 SP3 and 12 are listed as supported. Newer releases are outside HP's published list for the Z840, so tell us what you intend to run and we will advise on drivers.

Buying a refurbished HP Z840 from ServerDove

Our Z840 is stocked as a dual-CPU barebone tower in Doha, tested before listing and covered by the ServerDove warranty, with extended cover available on request. Delivery across Qatar is typically one day. Send us the processor pair, memory, drives and graphics you need and we will quote the complete machine, or supply the barebone and parts for your own build.

The compact HP Z640 shares the processors and chipset in a smaller box, and the HP Z820 is the previous-generation dual-socket tower at a lower price. All our HP models are listed under HP workstations. Installation and base configuration are available as a service, business customers can request bulk quotations, and we answer on WhatsApp (+974 5521 2108), at sales@serverdove.com and through the contact page.