What are some good, basic, dumb GPUs?

[bwahaha]

Last round of "Homelab Upgrade Musical Chairs" has led me accepting the fact I have no basic graphics cards. Up until now, most everything has had a gaming gpu, or onboard graphics were sufficient. I've started moving to workstations, with a precision t5710 and an r7910.

Neither workstation was delivered with a graphics card, so they got my geforce 5770 to get around (currently in the 7910, the 5710 is on the healing bench, awaiting a gpu). This card sucks; it takes up two slots rather than (potentially) a single low profile slot, takes external power, and I'm pretty sure I fried it with a liquid cooler leak. It works, but it's slow and glitchy under a little stress. Eventually, the r7910 will get a tesla p40, but I'll still need a reliable gpu.

Given my requirements, do you all have recommendations?

• Under $50 (ebay, but other sites considered)
• slot powered
• single slit width
• ability to fit low profile or standard
• HDMI preferred, but I can get cables/adapters.
• includes fan/keeps cool in a case with almost no air movement
• Reliable (future OS support, drivers, hardware, whatever).

Looking on ebay, the Quadro p620 is almost right; being Pascal, it should be plenty new enough, but it's right past the edge of my budget at about $70 each. On the opposite side is the k420 at about $15 each. I'd like to not get such an old card, but maybe I am overthinking it?

Then there's ATI/not-quadro/other, and I am pretty lost on what's what right now. Not to mention, experiencing a case of choice overload...

 

[Markess]

I think you'll find that anything "workstationy" will have DisplayPort (newer) or DVI (older) or a combination, but less likely to have HDMI. So cables may be in order?

If all you need is a reliable display, P400 (Pascal), or if you want AMD, Radeon Pro WX2100 (GCN4). Neither one will set any speed records, but will give decent performance for non-gaming type tasks. Both are low profile and in that 30-35W Max TDP range, so won't generate a ton of heat.

Both are 2017 releases, so while they aren't super new, they aren't super old either

Currently, I'm seeing P400 @ $39.95 shipped & WX2100 @ $34.95 shipped on Ebay, leaving you a couple bucks for a DP/Mini DP to HDMI adapter if necessary. (Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with any sellers on Ebay)

For consumer stuff, I think there's a lot of choice on the low end, but not sure you'll get newer generation for less?

 

[Wasmachineman_NL]

GT1030?

 

[bwahaha]

@ Wasmachineman_NL, All of the ones I am seeing on ebay are full size, and outside my budget. Thanks, though.

@ Markless Went ahead and snagged a wx2100. Price is good enough, and I have a few full size dp to hdmi cables handy.

In Proxmox, should I worry about which chip I get, considering the Tesla P40 in the future? would I be better off with another nvidia card? An ATI card, so drivers are completely different? Admin choice?

 

[Markess]

In Proxmox, should I worry about which chip I get, considering the Tesla P40 in the future? would I be better off with another nvidia card? An ATI card, so drivers are completely different? Admin choice?

Not sure your exact use case, but if you want to have the WX2100 for "everything but" what you pass through to the P40, then its actually easier for knowing which is which...because as you note, the drivers are completely different.

The open source drivers Linux for AMD are really quite good. So, if you're needing to drive it bare metal on Linux its very good for that.

GT1030?

That would have been one of my top choices on the Nvidia consumer side too. But right now on Ebay in the US, P600/620 is cheaper. OP doesn't seem to need gaming ready drivers, and the P600/620 give the same Pascal generation features along with 30-50% performance boost over GT1030. If the OP needed Quick Sync or consumer application compatibility though, I think this would have been the Nvidia choice (in the rare half height form factor).

 

[Markess]

Markless Went ahead and snagged a wx2100. Price is good enough, and I have a few full size dp to hdmi cables handy.

I've got two WX2100 that have been running in various servers in the Home Lab of Doom for years. Been bulletproof for me. Even though not as powerful as the P620 (which I also have), I've never noticed any difference in day to day tasks. Plus the AMD has completely usable out of the box open source Linux drivers if you need that sort of thing.

 

[bwahaha]

That sounds perfect. Most of my use case will be as servers, rather than workstations, but I will want the various Windows x/1x compatibility. I do like the idea of having a stack of the same cards, but having different drivers can be beneficial, so I will probably grab a p6x0 later on, as well as another of the wx2100s.

In proxmox, I plan on vgpu rather than passthrough. I have a couple of projects that would do well with divvying up the horsepower.

 

[acquacow]

My goto dumb low-profile pci-e card is a zotac GT 710, I think the newer 730 is out.

Fastest slot-power board is going to be a 1650, I think there are some single-slot options, but $$

 

[matthelm]

Will this work?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01E9Z2D60/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

 

[Markess]

Will this work?
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01E9Z2D60/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

These cards are GREAT! I keep one in with my tech tools. Because its a PCIe x1 card, super low power, and relatively short, it fits pretty much everywhere when you need video for testing. Its popular enough that that almost any operating system will give you some kind of video without additional drivers.

The only issue I see with this card (and GT 730) for servers is that they are a pretty old generation. GT 710 is "Kepler", which was introduced in 2012. GT 730 are also mostly Kepler, with a few being from the older Fermi generation. Nvidia stopped regular driver support for all these cards a year or two ago. They're still issuing security updates, but those will end eventually as well.

The card the OP got is from 2017. A used AMD WX2100 or Nvidia P400 will cost about the same as a used GT 710/730 but are from a 5 year newer generation, so probably a broader feature set and be supported longer.