HP Z2 G9 Tower - Upgrading a basic model

[98Martin]

Budget (including currency): £1250

Country: UK

Games, programs or workloads that it will be used for: Gaming with a side of CAD

 

I recently purchased a second hand, sealed in box HP Z2 G9 Tower that I got a for great price (£550 with 33 months warranty remaining) . It is a relatively basic configuration with an i7 13700, 16GB ram and a 512GB M.2 SSD. Importantly it has the 700w power supply that gives me enough headroom for a GPU upgrade up to a RTX 3080 according to the supported options in the HP quickspecs for this model.

 

The upgrades I'd like to do is fit a supported WLAN card into the associated M.2 slot but have done the research on the topic and found that it would be a 50/50 chance that an intel AX211 would work out of the box but an almost guarantee that a AX210 would work. I've found a couple of options on eBay that I am considering, the first being an internal antenna kit which was removed from a Z2 G8 tower but I believe would work with the newer G9? The WLAN card would need changed to either of the previously mentioned models (AX211 or AX210) but otherwise I imagine the antennas would be a direct fit with the included hardware. The second option is an external antenna kit from a Dell branded machine.

 

As for the RAM I'd like to up the capacity to 32GB either with another matching 16GB stick from HP which doesn't seem like a cheap option or by buying two new sticks of DDR5-4800 MHz from a supplier such as MrMemory in the UK. This supplier also sells SSDs that I would be keen to fit as the motherboard supports a total of 3 M.2's with only one currently occupied that could be reserved for the OS and other background apps.

 

Lastly for the GPU as mentioned the tower could be fitted with up to a RTX 3080 which I will keep an eye out for on eBay as either a founders edition card or a HP OEM card to ensure compatibility. HP recommends the additional front fans being installed when the PCI-E slot is used and the part number that I have found for that is 4N007AA. Likewise I would also like to fit the larger CPU cooler HP sold for 125w processors however availability is very limited and the only part number I can find is N10072-001.

 

Please let me know if any of my plans won't work or if there is a better alternative available, thanks!

 

[filpo]

2 minutes ago, 98Martin said:

RTX 3080

if we consider transient spikes it might be a bit problematic

 

3 minutes ago, 98Martin said:

Lastly for the GPU as mentioned the tower could be fitted with up to a RTX 3080 which I will keep an eye out for on eBay as either a founders edition card or a HP OEM card to ensure compatibility. HP recommends the additional front fans being installed when the PCI-E slot is used and the part number that I have found for that is 4N007AA. Likewise I would also like to fit the larger CPU cooler HP sold for 125w processors however availability is very limited and the only part number I can find is N10072-001.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  (£40.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: MSI B760 GAMING PLUS WIFI ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  (£139.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  (£113.38 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Crucial P5 Plus 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  (£90.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Video Card: Zotac Twin Edge GeForce RTX 4070 12 GB Video Card  (£526.79 @ Newegg UK) 
Case: Fractal Design Focus 2 RGB ATX Mid Tower Case  (£77.98 @ Ebuyer) 
Power Supply: Corsair RM1000e (2023) 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  (£119.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Total: £1110.10
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-11-18 19:15 GMT+0000

[98Martin]

15 minutes ago, filpo said:

if we consider transient spikes it might be a bit problematic

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU Cooler: Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 SE ARGB 66.17 CFM CPU Cooler  (£40.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: MSI B760 GAMING PLUS WIFI ATX LGA1700 Motherboard  (£139.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL30 Memory  (£113.38 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Crucial P5 Plus 2 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive  (£90.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Video Card: Zotac Twin Edge GeForce RTX 4070 12 GB Video Card  (£526.79 @ Newegg UK) 
Case: Fractal Design Focus 2 RGB ATX Mid Tower Case  (£77.98 @ Ebuyer) 
Power Supply: Corsair RM1000e (2023) 1000 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  (£119.99 @ Amazon UK) 
Total: £1110.10
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-11-18 19:15 GMT+0000

By transient spikes I assume you mean that the RTX 3080 would be too much for the standard 700w PSU but as TechPowerUp suggests at least a 700w PSU and HP themselves offered it in this system I'm not sure I hold the same worry.

 

Thanks for the build list but I'm not sure reselling this new to me system and starting from scratch is something I'd like to do also including a CPU onto that £1100 takes it up to £1500 which is more than I'd like to spend as that extra could see me also upgrading my monitor. Another point that I apologise for not making is that I would rather a more subtle PC (hence using a workstation) without all the modern RGB rubbish that is currently littering the whole 'gaming' market the last few years.