Is the HP Z820 Workstation Class Machine…

[Duke Sweden]

Here’s an update that should prove I wasn’t expecting more than a Z800 can do. I just heard back from the seller. He said his techs confirmed that when they started up the box I sent back to them, it was very slow. But after searching for and installing new updates it works fine now.

Now, he didn’t mention the graphics oddities I was getting from Premiere Pro and Photoshop, but he did admit it was slooooooow. But I had installed all of the updates myself, in fact, it took over 40 minutes and THREE reboots to download and install them all. There couldn’t be any more updates unless Microsoft released them between the time I shipped it back to them and they checked it.

Anyway, that’s the latest on the situation. I wanted to re-order but I don’t know if I should. No one else is offering what they are for the price they charged ($685.00) but at the same time I can’t trust them to send me back the same machine, 100% satisfaction rating or not.

Plus, for Joe and the rest of you who own Z800’s, did you need to install the updates before it ran faster than a Windows 95 based Compaq from the 90’s? I can understand the updates making it run even faster and all, but not so clunky that it absolutely needed the updates.

[Duke Sweden]

Not sure if I should start a new thread or continue this one so I’ll play it safe for now. I found another deal, MUCH cheaper, the seller is here in my neighborhood practically. This unit has (previous unit in parentheses):
48gigs of RAM (24 gigs)
Quadro 400 graphics card (FX4800)
2.4GHz processor (2.93GHz)

Other unit was $730.00. This one is $520.00. Free shipping but $35 tax. That’s beside the point. Do the specs on the new unit measure up to the previous unit (which was defective. I’m talking reasonable expectations). At that price I can then buy a second HDD. Opinions needed quickly before the price expires! Joe! Get off that project that’s bringing you in $20,000.00 and answer me!!! 😉

[Duke Sweden]

Really wish I could edit my posts on this board! One other spec.
Xeon x5620 (Xeon x5570)

[Chris Wright]

aw the old junky Nehalem series. edit in SD 🙂 it might actually be slower than what you have now, lol.

2008 Nehalem (you’re here)
2008 Bonnell
2011 Sandy Bridge
2013 Haswell 14
2015 Skylake 14

[David Roth weiss]

I agree with Chris – I think the newer MacBook Air might have more horsepower.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist & Workflow Consultant
David Weiss Productions
Los Angeles

David is a Creative COW contributing editor and a forum host of the Apple Final Cut Pro forum.

[Duke Sweden]

Wow, thanks guys.

[Duke Sweden]

Just out of curiosity what makes this Z800 so much worse than the previous one? The x5620? The Quadro 400?

[Chris Wright]

I think it was pretty much the same one; old architecture with low clock speed.

Ok, I’m going to suggest a few “tweaks” to premiere pro so NO promises; this stuff is floating around adobe and it helps some people. So as after a boiler plate disclaimer(because this could possibly break adobe software), here I go:

some more ways to “hopefully” get premiere from “lagging”:
19. Changed Audio Hardware from MME to ASIO.(lower level audio driver for lower latency)
20. Limited Premiere’s RAM allocation to 32Gb if you have 64GB
21. In task manager, set affinity to utilize only 16 cores for PP (unfortunately, this setting does not hold on

re-launch)
22. Turned Hyperthreading off in BIOS.
23. in bios, disable Intel Speedstep.
24. disable C1E – in the bios, power settings,change to performance.

25.
– go to CTRL+F12 inside premiere and find these settings:
– DisableSpeculativePrefetching – set this from false to true
– ImporterMXF.ReadBlockSizeinKB: default is 1024. Experiment with this.. I’m trying 2048 with good results
– CodeProfiler – set to true
– GPU.EnableGOPFormats: set from false to true
– Player.MainMaxOutstandingAheadofPlayback=3
– Player.MainMaxQueuedFrames=10

The above two can make a difference. Higher values if you’re working 60P rates.

if you’re interested in an editing system, I’m going to tell you a little secret,
the intel 4790k (overclocking) processor is the same speed as a brand new skylake 6700k for premiere pro.
https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Haswell-vs-Skylake-S-i7-4790K-vs-i7-6700K-641/

with a 4x pci3 M2 slot mobo, you can run a samsung 950pro and get over 1500 MB/sec transfer speed

that’s why we needed to know the video codecs you’re using, because I’m talking 4k full debayer systems for $1,000
which means HD systems would be a fraction of that.

[Duke Sweden]

Hey Chris. You do realize my current “workstation” is the consumer PC I’ve mentioned quite a few times before. I’m thinking with all the posts in this thread you skipped over a few, and who can blame you! But the previous workstation was defective. I sent it back. I only have my HP “Envy” which is i5, 12 gigs of RAM, Intel built in graphics, etc.

Were your suggestions meant for a slow workstation or a consumer PC? I’d like to know before I bother trying them out. Also, to grab the most relevant points from my previous posts, I’m NOT a professional like you guys. I’m not editing Jurassic Park IV with Spielberg looking over my shoulder and pacing the floor. I make simple 1 minute videos for myself, but since this hobby is taking up more of my time, the annoyances of trying to edit with a computer meant for Word or “surfing the web”, as the youngsters say, are making it more of a chore than a joy.

In short, I don’t need ILM, but I don’t want a system that’s barely faster than what I have, which the previous workstation was, due to problems with the graphics and CPU, I’m assuming. Thanks for all your help. I await your response regarding whether to follow your instructions on a consumer PC.

[Duke Sweden]

Just as a follow up:
19. I don’t have a choice. I only have MME
20. I have 12 gig of RAM
25. When I hit F12+Control, a blank dialog box pops up.

In other words, I’m now pretty sure you weren’t referring to my consumer PC with those tips of yours 😉