Video card for Dell PowerEdge R420

[imrazor]

This particular server has a full-height half-length PCIe x16 slot available for a GPU. The problem is that the slot can only deliver up to 25w to the video card. The only GPU that even comes close to this requirement is an old AMD Radeon 8490 that draws up to 35w. How risky would it be to put in a card that can draw 10w over the slot's specced power delivery?

(Posted in motherboards because question is more about PCIe power delivery than a GPUs.)

 

[mb194dc]

Wx2100 ? It won't pull 35w if you only do 2d things I think. Could probably mod the bios or power play tables and put a 25w limit on it if you really wanted to.

 

[Caring1]

Any half height GPU that doesn't require an external power connector should work, depending on the PSU capacity.
400W is recommended.

 

[imrazor]

@Caring1 I do wish that were true. This is a non-GPU PCIe x16 slot that supports a maximum power draw of 25w, not the 75w of most mainstream motherboards.

@mb194dc Playing around with the Radeon BIOS Editor, and I'm seeing some voltages, RAM speed and GPU speed, but nothing about wattage. Do I need a different BIOS editor?

 

[repman244]

Before you buy any GPU check that the server supports a second GPU and that you can select it to use it.
I'm not really familiar with Dell BIOS but on HP you need to select which GPU will be primary (embedded or optional add in cards). Some older servers did not have that option and you could not use a non-embedded GPU.

 

[imrazor]

@repman244 I intend to use this secondary GPU as exactly that, and use the primary GPU (Matrox G200eR) at boot as a console (for VMWare ESXi, or possibly Linux.) The one going into the machine will be used for GPU passthrough with a virtual machine.

 

[mb194dc]

@mb194dc Playing around with the Radeon BIOS Editor, and I'm seeing some voltages, RAM speed and GPU speed, but nothing about wattage. Do I need a different BIOS editor?

Presuming you can't just do it via the AMD driver software anyway.

It's Probably possible to export BIOS in gpuz, use mpt to modify power limits, save modifications from mpt and add them back to the original BIOS and reflash it.

I've done that on my 5600xt, not 100% sure if it'll work on wx2100 or not. It's polaris based so it might do.

There is a 25w wx2100 bios in the dbase on here by the look of if too.

Need igor labs tools.

RED BIOS EDITOR and MorePowerTool for Polaris, Navi and Big Navi | igor´sLAB

New curve options have been added. Of course we would be very happy about a feedback in the forum about the use of this new function! The More PowerTool (MPT) has been also revised once again for the…

www.igorslab.de

 

[imrazor]

@mb194dc Hmm, that tool says its for Polaris and up. Will it work with a pre-GCN GPU like the Terascale-based Caicos XTX? Anyway, I looked up the clocks for the 8450 which is only supposed to use 18w. I then programmed the much lower clock speeds, and a somewhat lower voltage (1.075v vs 1.175v) into the BIOS. The clock speeds are drastically lower, so should not (fingers crossed) tax the power delivery in my server's PCIe slot.

 

[repman244]

Something like a GT 730 should work, or a GT 1030.
Just be aware that drivers for consumer cards do not work on certain server OS (like Windows Server) and you need to look at Quadro cards.

 

[imrazor]

I realized I never posted my results to this thread. With the drastically lowered power draw, the card worked fine in the slot without frying the mobo or PSU. I've had mixed luck with GPU passthrough. I got passthrough working on a Windows 10 VM in ESXi 7.0 in literally 20 minutes. Then I spent several hours beating my head against a brick wall trying to get passthru working with Linux. No joy at all, not even a tease...

 

[Watermelon5]

Quadro k620, Radeon Pro WX 2100. 2100 is more powerful, but k620 can be found for like $30 on ebay. Both are pretty low power cards. Also if you just want video output at all there are things like HD 6350, R5 240, FirePro 2260/2270 that consume incredibly low amounts of power