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Best low profile gpu for server?
I have a server who supports low form-factor gpus. I do not have the option to give it PCI-e power at the moment.
What is the best alternatives here? Im looking for something to use for transcoding mainly, but also a decent screen resolution for when i work on the machine directly with monitor connected to it.
I have no idea what i am really looking for here, since it is not for gaming at all. I will run windows 11 on it. (iknow, windows, blabla) but it is the best fit for my usecase, and updates etc are ofcourse hard-disabled.
Ebay links is fine.
Comments
For pure transcoding the cheapest would be Intel's Arc A380 or A310 which come with low profile variants. A310 doesn't seem to be any cheaper than A380 at the moment.
There is also low profile RTX 3050, 4060, A2000, A2000 Ada.
I would also just consider a platform upgrade, the iGPUs in Alder/Raptor Lake CPUs can handle quite a few streams.
Thanks. About the platfrom upgrade, i already run Epyc cpus. Moving to Intel is not a option.
Gtx 1650 oc all the way.
If you can’t supply PCIe power you’re pretty limited in what will fit. Tesla P4 is decent but no display out (if needed), otherwise Quadro units. It’ll be around 65-70W and below if it doesn’t require additional power connector. I think the RTX A2 and A2000 are probably in that bucket but a lot newer.
Output can be mcyver'ed for most scenarios by offloading (Prime/Optimus). Obviously a second dummy card is needed then though. The machine i'm writing this on has a Tesla K20X combined with a Radeon 2400 Pro (i think this even is a low profile card - if it isn't there's a ton of options for this on Ebay at ~10€ anyways) and i can see LET pretty clearly as well run applications that would just mean instant death to the humble 2400
After a little more research, it seems like a good option would be a external GPU cabinet with Thunderbolt-3 connection. This means i would have to add a thunderbolt card to my server aswell. Does anyone have experience with such a setup?
Seems a little weird but if you have the space to put it and can get an additional power connection, why not? I figure you are doing this to run higher powered cards? If all your really after is NVenc (or whatever AMD's alternative is) and occasional desktop use it seems a bit overkill though.
If there's another spare PCIe slot (i'll assume your server has no onboard graphics otherwise chances are you could use this port for output) i'd personally go for the P4 @crunchbits suggested. Those seem to be pretty cheap these days (~$110 from China or ~$150 from the US) and i've checked there's actually low profile Radeon 2400s (9.99€ with free shipping on Ebay), so if your fine with the DVI output those provide it would make a nice pairing (not like you couldn't also use practically any other low profile card from the last ~17 years as an output sink - i just prefer those because they are cheap, nicely minimalist and there's passively cooled models).
I think it's called hybrid graphics on Windows. I'm a Linux user though, so i can't help you much but there's howtos around the web and people seem to successfully run such setups (it's a bit driver dependent but i guess the Windows drivers are at least as capable as the Linux ones).
Try to get power from molex/sata power via adapter, which can give you up to 150W compared to 75CPU. Regarding profile, if you go with gaming (not server) GPU, select only reference formfactor cards, they always lower than any gaming design, and if server has good cooling, you can even remove active cooling from card to reduce dimensions.
Yeah, i was thinking of something like this too. It's not that pretty but a couple years back i actually had my GPU powered by such an adapter and it worked out OK.
That's pretty clever!
A310 or A380 are really powerful and don't need extra power. They even handle AV1.
Any brand preference?