Overall, this is great mid-range setup. Be patient and let Windows do the updating.
Coming from an AMD FX-8350 with a 1060GPU, this is a huge step up. First time not building my own PC.
I don't game, mostly mild photo editing, MS Office automation, PowerShell and Databases, MySQL/MSSQL.
No issues applying BIOS and Window updates. Installed MSOfficePro-2021 and transferred the license with no issues. No issues letting the PC run for a week without powering off.
One disappointment is the primary SSD drive for the OS, it's a WesternDigital (WD) Gen3 M2 SSD. The Read Speed was only 2500MBs.
As is, this unit just works, great performance out of the box.
Memory and Storage are inexpensive right now.
After owning for 3 weeks, replaced the WesternDigital SSD with a 2TB NVMe Samsung 980 Pro with heatsink SSD Drive. Did a Windows 11 clean Install using the Microsoft Media Creation Tool. No issues, needed to download the Intel RST SSD Driver. Got mine from the HP website. CrystalDiskMark shows 7000MBs Read and 5200MBs Write, confirming it's a PCIe X4 slot.
Added a second NVMe SSD for general storage, a Crucial P3 Plus 4TB PCIe Gen4, with an added heatsink. Read speeds are the advertised 5000MBs. As mentioned, the second PCIe X4 slot is under the Graphics Card.
This PC came with 16gigs (2x8) of HyperX Fury RGB XMP memory. The colors are nice, but meaningless when the cover is on. There is no XMP setting in the BIOS. The JEDEC table from the CPU-ID application implied this memory was running at 1.2 volts, 1596MHz Clock speed, with a CL Latency of 22. Had an issue trying to add 64gig, 1.2v, of Crucial DDR4 3200 memory, for 80gigs total. The Clock speed dropped to 1466MHz. Ended up using only the 64gigs of Crucial memory at 1.2 volts, getting the same Clock speed of 1596MHz, and CL Latency of 22. As mentioned in other forums, you may have issues when you mix and match XMP and non-XMP memory.
MEMORY lesson 101: DDR4-3200 operates at a 1600Mhz "Clock speed". The "double data rate" becomes 3200Mhz. Both the HyperX and Crucial Memory were operating at their advertised 3200Mhz speeds, which is Clock speed (1596) Times 2.
There is still one open SATA drive bay for either an SSD or Dinosaur HDD.
Yes, I would purchase this PC again.
EDIT: One Year Review:
All good, all stable. No issues, no broken parts, no overheating, no regrets.
That open SATA drive now has a 4TB Crucial SSD. Total PC storage is 10TB across three SSD drives.
I also use M.2/NVMe to USB SSD Enclosure Readers for more 'near storage' space.
My only complaint is that all of the SuperSpeed USB Type-C 10Gbps ports are located on the back of the PC, not on the top front panel. The USB ports on top are 5Gbs. Minor complaint, but worth noting for others.
| Processor | 2.4 GHz core_i9 |
|---|---|
| RAM | 16 GB DDR4 |
| Hard Drive | 1 TB SSD |
| Graphics Coprocessor | Nvidia Ge Force Rtx 3070 |
| Chipset Brand | Intel |
| Card Description | Dedicated |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 8 GB |
| Wireless Type | 802.11a/b/g/n |
| Number of USB 2.0 Ports | 11 |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 2 |
