Cheap Graphic Card for Poweredge r300?

Question

I want to use Poweredge R300 as Workstation, and I want the ability to use two monitors.

I don't know much about server hardware, so I am afraid I may buy the wrong one which doesn't fit. What should I be looking for in a graphics card?

Answer 1

The specs say that the R300 only has two x8 PCIe slots, so you are not going to be able to use nearly every graphics card available, as they need a x16 slot. It's not a suitable server for graphics cards.

Matrox do make a graphics card which only needs a x1 slot, but as it only has one port, you would have to make sure that the onboard graphics do not get disabled when a graphics card is fitted, so that you can use both at the same time. I think it is unlikely that this would be possible.

Therefore, I would recommend you get a more suitable server. Most pedestal servers I have seen have at least one x16 slot, but this is not usually the case for low-end rackmount servers.

If you really do want a second monitor on that server, I think the only option available to you is the Matrox DualHead2Go.

Answer 2

An R300 only has either:

• One PCI-e slot and one PCI-X slot, or
• Two PCI-e slots.

In both cases the PCI-e slots are of the x8 type. I checked the R300's next to me and the connectors in those are not open ended. That means a PCI x16 card will not fit unless you modify^*1 either the connector or the card.

Bigger questions are the power supply and heat dissipation. 1U servers like the R300 are carefully build. Add a heat producer in the wrong place (and graphics cards tend to produce more heat then the usually added NICs or RAID cards) and your fans are likely to go into high mode.

For a R300 this is still sort of acceptable. I was pleasantly surprised when I got my first one and it did not sound like an airplane taking off, but you are best limited to low power graphics cards.

Lastly, an R300 has an option for a DRAC. As far as I know that snoopes the internal graphics. If you use an add-in graphics board you might loose the ability to remotely view the console of your workstation.

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^*1 You can take out the rise board and file out the end of the slot, allowing x16 cards to physically fit. And electrically it is not problem at all since any x16 card should work in any x16, x8, x4 or x1 slot.

Alternatively you could also adjust the graphics card by removing part of its connector. That seems more risky though.