HP Z2 Tower G5 Workstation upgrades

Released 2020 · on sale

HP Z2 Tower G5 (Comet Lake / W480 workstation tower). CPU is socketed, so a CPU slot is listed. For add-in cards there are 4 full-height, full-length PCIe 3.0 slots (1× x16/x16, 1× x16 mechanical at x4 electrical, 2× x4 mechanical at x1). No SD/multi-card reader.

Upgrade guide → What fits, step by step, and official documents.

4× DDR4 UDIMM slots (288-pin), up to 128 GB 4 × DDR4 DIMM · up to 128 GB total · 2933 MT/s

Unbuffered DDR4 only — RDIMM/LRDIMM not supported. Both ECC and non-ECC UDIMMs work, but they cannot be mixed in one system, and ECC requires a Xeon W-1200 CPU. HP sells DDR4-3200 parts but the platform runs them at 2933 MT/s, so faster RAM gains nothing. 128 GB needs 4× 32 GB dual-rank UDIMMs.

No compatible offers right now.

2× M.2 2280 NVMe + 2.5"/3.5" SATA bays 2 × SSD / HDD M.2 2280 / 2.5" / 3.5" (NVMe / SATA) · up to 2.048 TB

2× M.2 2280 slots are PCIe Gen3 x4 (HP Z Turbo Drive); Gen4 NVMe drives work but run at Gen3 speed. There is also an M.2 2230 slot, but it is CNVi/WLAN-only and not usable for SSDs. Internal 2.5"/3.5" SATA bays plus one external 5.25" slim optical bay. HP's qualified list tops out at 2 TB per drive; larger aftermarket drives are expected to work. Exact 2.5"/3.5" bay counts were not confirmed — check the service manual.

No compatible offers right now.

LGA1200 socket — 10th Gen Core / Xeon W-1200 LGA1200 · Core 10th gen, Xeon Scalable 1st gen · max 125 W

Single LGA1200 socket, CPU is socketed and replaceable. Supports 10th Gen Comet Lake Core (i3-10100T to i9-10900K) and Xeon W-1250 to W-1290P on the W480 chipset. 11th Gen Rocket Lake is NOT supported despite the same socket. Highest supported TDP is 125 W (K/P SKUs) — verify PSU and cooling before upgrading, as base configs may be 65 W thermally. Xeon W-1200 required for ECC memory.

No compatible offers right now.