HP Z420 Workstation – Intel Xeon Six Core Second Gen E5-1650v2 3.5GHz – 32GB of RAM – 3TB Hard Drive – DVDRW – Quadro K4000 Video Card – Windows 10 Pro

Pros: I picked this up on sale for $320, figuring it wouldn’t take much to make a middle of the road gaming machine out of it. I used the 250 GB drive it came with as a clean boot drive and put in a 2 TB drive I had hanging around for everything else. The graphics card was replaced with a GTX 1050 ti (4GB) which is allowing high/ultra graphics on most titles at 1080p (tested on Just Cause 3 with no issues as well as Skyrim with full texture mods). As others have said, the PSU only has a 6-pin connector (75 watts plus the 75 from the pci slot) available, so selecting a graphics card with lower power draw (150 or less) is a must. Either that, or you have to Frankenstein an 8-pin power connector out of the 6 pin and Molex, which seems risky. The 1050 ti comes in both a pci power only version, which I chose, and an overclocked version that also takes the 6 pin power connector and has slightly higher speeds. I figure I can get 2 or 3 years out of the card before an upgrade, at which point I’ll have to do a reassessment of how much life the CPU has left in it anyway.
I haven’t upgraded the RAM yet, as it has yet to bottleneck me. I assume it will become necessary at some point in the future, but for now 8GB is enough for my games (though probably too little to get the full potential out of the CPU). Fot the curious, the RAM mine shipped with was SK HYNIX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600 Memory HMT451U6AFR8A-PB PC3-12800E. One of the bays had a cooling fan, but the other did not. Awkwardly, the memory was also secured in place with a dot of hot glue (I assume to prevent it from walking out over time with repeated hot/cold cycles). This seems unnecessary and messy. If I want to glue components (no thanks) , I can do it myself rather than having to carefully clean up somebody else’s mess. I guess you accept some oddities and clean up with a refurbished machine.

Cons: Windows 10 install appeared to be the old install from the last user, rather than fresh. It was password protected. Reset to factory and performed a fresh one myself.
Older PSU with 6 pin GPU connector. This means you’ll have to select a more power-friendly card and avoid SLI/Crossfire unless you’re comfortable with bodging together something with adapter cables. And the PSU looks difficult to replace unless you really, really want to get into custom wiring work.
Loud on startup, but becomes quiet within 30 seconds.
Glued-in RAM.

Overall Review: Overall, I’m pleased with the computer as a starting point to build on. The GPU and HDD obviously need an upgrade, regardless of what type of work you’re doing with the machine. However, the bones of it are sound. You’re not going to save yourself any effort buying this and upgrading over purchasing individual components and starting from scratch though. You almost have to view this as a components (and OS) bundle, rather than a desktop computer that’s workable right out of the box. If the price is right for those components, then consider buying this.

Pros: Comes with a nice, clean, pre-installed version of Windows 10. No bloatware, and the only setup is entering the activation key that you read off a sticker on the case. Because this is a workstation not a consumer PC, it is has vast space and assets for upgrade (e.g., up to 64 GB of RAM), if you ever find that necessary. Also, extremely detailed documentation is available from HP’s web site, e.g. a 66-page PDF “HP Z420 Workstation” — crammed with info that is all very specific to the Z420, not just generic PC guidelines.

Cons: The supplied graphics card does not do resolutions beyond 1900×1200, but I was always going to install a better-than-original graphics card anyway.

Overall Review: I take the trouble to write this review because I am very grateful to Newegg and the affiliated company for such a terrific deal!

Pros: This item was extremely well packed. The unit looked brand new without any blemishes and the inside was clean and dust free. I had a question and called the customer support number. I got a recording but the tech support guy was calling me back as I was leaving a message. The first bootup was successful without any issues.

Cons: I have mixed feelings at this point. If you are expecting a quiet unit this one is terribly loud and sounds like a model plane taking off. I find loud fan noises extremely irritating and will never use this unit in it’s current inception. This has not been a common complaint in the reviews as near as I can tell so maybe the hearsink needs to be reset or others find the noise less irritating. Once the workstation is fully booted it is very fast but the mechanical hard drive really limits its performance.

Overall Review: In reference to the noise factor above I plan to remove the heat sink and check it. CPUID gave readings of 55-60 degrees centigrade at idle. I do have a Noctua that I will mount. These cpu’s are known to run hot and we all know about Intel oem heatsinks. Accessing the bios is difficult with a usb keyboard. I found it much easier to use a ps2 keyboard as it seems to be recognized on post quicker. If you are looking for an inexpensive option for a performance rig at a reasonable investment price point this is a good choice. This is an addendum. I pulled the heatsink and the thermal paste was all dried out with incomplete coverage and one of the sink screws wasn’t even engaged. I reset the heatsink with Arctic Silver and idle temps dropped into the 34-35 centigrade range. I have had the unit running under Prme 95 for two hours, 100 % on all cores,and max temps briefly reach 82 degrees centigrade, no throttling, and little fan noise. I am pleased.

Pros: Works great so far, added 3 drives to it without any issue. Very fast and what a great price! Full size case, includes cables to connect up to 6 drives total. Includes USB 2 and 3 plus two Firewire ports. Slight fan noise, but not loud.

Cons: Nothing serious so far, it does require ECC RAM if you want to upgrade, a minor cost issue. Does not have media reader, but enough USB ports to add an external one if needed.

Pros: Spotlessly clean inside and out. Win 10 activated online. I got it to run headless (see other thoughts).

Cons: I saw reviews complaining of “coil whine”. Mine is in a closet now but when I was setting It up I observed the sound described when the CPU was under load. I’ve heard PC components make a lot of sounds but this is a little different and I suspect it could actually be coming from the onboard speaker. I haven’t investigated that yet.

Overall Review: Added two HDDs (so far) and an SSD. No issues there. The refurb HDD that came with it has been reliable and it sounds healthy.
This machine wouldn’t boot without a video card initially, and there is no option in the BIOS. However, you can output all of the settings to a text file onto a usb flash drive. There is a “headless” option in that output txt file that you can easily modify then import into the BIOS. Pretty straight-forward, thanks HP!

Pros: CPU is a beast, server RAM that is required is cheaper than standard desktop RAM. These workstations are very reliable and built to last forever with high reliability. Buy with confidence, and this CPU will not become obsolete any time soon!

Cons: CPU fan does not dynamically speed up and slow down with CPU temps, even though it has PWM pin. I googled this and HP forums basically stated that you can speed up the fan in BIOS, but that is permanent. The good news is the XEON CPU can take a ton of heat and still be within tolerances, but it is strange that such a high-end workstation will not have such a basic feature

Overall Review: Mine came with hyperthreading turned off (?!). I was a little disturbed that I *only* got 7.7 out of 7.9 in WEI and low 10,000’s in PassMark CPU score until I figured out only 6 threads were running. Quick check in BIOS and I fixed this. Also, mine had network security turned on and something called AMT (for IT folks to remotely access your PC), which affected boot and installation of a new SSD. If you are not comfortable browsing and editing BIOS settings, then you may want to keep looking. You don’t know what you are going to get from these that are pulled from company leases
Overall VERY pleased with my purchase. Added an SSD, GTX 970 and upped the RAM to 32GB and it is a screaming beast!

Pros: price,
-great shape for a refurb

Cons: -graphics card in it is worthless
-no on board graphics

Overall Review: bought this to do some gaming on, trying to get into PC gaming on the cheap. Replaced the junky GPU included with a $100. R9 and it works great.

Pros: Fast desktop, great for office, and engineering PCs (with upgraded video card.)

Cons: 3 of the 6 PCs I purchased had random reboot options. Two were fixed by re-seating the Ram. One I’m not sure what the problem is yet. I have not tried contacting the seller yet.
Update:
I contacted the supplier, and they told me to try re-seating the ram and then try buying new ram. I followed the instructions, but two of the three computers still have random reboot issues. I would not recommend buying this PC.