Low power GPU for 24/7 fileserver

[jonathan_phang]

Hello all,

Odd question, as usually I ask about GPUs at the other end of the scale, but anyway... I have my old retired gaming rig spare after I built my system, and want to use it to replace my existing media fileserver livign under the stairs, as its and old dell P4 system, and I'm sure that thing eats power.

Basically, I want to get a GPU for it that will have low power consumption, to save money. I will only need to remote desktop to it, so power isnt a major concern, but on the off chance that I do use it for some video or something, just want it to be capable. Gaming is not a concern

Now, I currently have a 8600gt, but I might give that away as it seems a bit overkill for a fileserver, so basically what really are my choices. I havent a clue about this end of the scale really...

Would something like the HD 3450 be okay? Its about £30 (Which is prob the most I want to pay) so thats fine - just wondering alternatives there are, and also the equivalents on the nvidia side.

Thanks for the help

JP

[matty-hodgson]

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/140315

lower power, small design, passive therefore silent and in budget

[jonathan_phang]

Cheers for that Matty. My only concern I guess is that because its going to be stuck away in a not so well ventilated utility cupboard, that its going to overheat due to bad airflow. Or is that not really a concern as its probably not going to doing that much?

[Biscuit]

probably not going to be an issue to be honest.

Your other option could be replacing the motherboard with cheap one that has an integrated graphics chip such as the NF630i or G33 but this is gunna be a little more expensive.

[jonathan_phang]

Yeah - I thought about changing the whole architecture to a cheap-ish pentium dual core etc, as they are good on power and performance fronts, but gave myself a slap and told myself to stop trying to spend too much (Again )

The old rig is: X2 4400 939, Asrock Dual SATA mobo and 2gb RAM. That should run fairly ok, with cool and quiet on? So just need to get an efficient PSU (Expect a thread in the hardware section soon! Would chuck it in this thread, but I guess its not 'relevant'...), and see if that mobo can actually use SATA disks ok...

[Biscuit]

Oh its an athlon system. What kind of overclocking features does the motherboard have? you could maybes run an underclock and undervolt the system to save you abit of power. This would also bring the cooling requirements down maybes so much so that you could run passively.

Power supply can be tricky when your talking low power equipment as PSUs are often the most efficiency when they are at a certain load. There is a couple of cheap ones in scan that you could get away with but if its going to hold important files then to be perfectly honest though i would just get a seasonic 380w for peace of mind. If you can find a lower wattage high efficiancy PSU i would be interested to know as the one in my server inst particularly so :s.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Yeah - I thought about changing the whole architecture to a cheap-ish pentium dual core etc, as they are good on power and performance fronts, but gave myself a slap and told myself to stop trying to spend too much (Again )

The old rig is: X2 4400 939, Asrock Dual SATA mobo and 2gb RAM. That should run fairly ok, with cool and quiet on? So just need to get an efficient PSU (Expect a thread in the hardware section soon! Would chuck it in this thread, but I guess its not 'relevant'...), and see if that mobo can actually use SATA disks ok...

Sell the socket 939 processor you have!!! You get a decent amount of money for it on Ebay. I believe you can get £70+ for the processor alone in addition to the rest of the bits!!

You could get a dual core Atom motherboard:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/d...om%20%20330&d=

[jonathan_phang]

Sell the socket 939 processor you have!!! You get a decent amount of money for it on Ebay. I believe you can get £70+ for the processor alone in addition to the rest of the bits!!

You could get a dual core Atom motherboard:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/d...om%20%20330&d=

Really? I had no idea that it would still be worth any money... Will have to check it out later on then... But even is I can sell it all, wondering if the total cost of upgrade will begin to creep up...

[Biscuit]

with a dual core atom you could maybes use a DC power brick like this with this adapter. Its what im considering doing with my HTPC although yeah not helping the costs :/

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Really? I had no idea that it would still be worth any money... Will have to check it out later on then... But even is I can sell it all, wondering if the total cost of upgrade will begin to creep up...

Well a dual core Atom with 2gb of RAM would cost under £100 to buy. If you went with a new mATX motherboard(around £35 to £50),2gb of RAM(around £20 to £25) and a second hand Pentium dual core it will still cost around the same. You could even go for a Celeron dual core although they will have higher idle and lower load power consumption than the equivalent Pentium dual core. Of course you could also go the AMD route for a similar cost.

[Badbonji]

If just a file server, then a PCI card should be fine, will use barely any.

[vincent.m]

you can buy dell computers for £80 frm ebay etc. GX620 is a pretty good computer.

[IgorHW]

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/140315

lower power, small design, passive therefore silent and in budget

Cheers for that Matty. My only concern I guess is that because its going to be stuck away in a not so well ventilated utility cupboard, that its going to overheat due to bad airflow. Or is that not really a concern as its probably not going to doing that much?

I used to own passive 8400GS from gigabyte (http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/...ProductID=2696), that thing was idling at 80C (while room temperature was about 20C) so i got rid of it after only two days. I do see that gpu from inno3D has a bit larger heatsink but still that will probably be pretty hot even at idle.
Although, i did try to run vista with aero turned on, maybe that caused such high temperature.

[scaryjim]

I have to side with CAT - sell your socket 939 setup and buy the following:

ASUS GeForce 7025 Mobo ~ £42
Sempron LE-1250 ~ £24
2x512MB Kingston DDR2-800 ~ £13

total subsystem cost ~ £79

I know some people will argue the toss over 1GB or 2GB or RAM, but if this is *just* a fileserver there's really no need to go for more than 1GB, and it'll save you ~ £7 - a healthy percentage of the total cost. Besides which, Microsoft reckon this'll run Windows 7 acceptably...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I have to side with CAT - sell your socket 939 setup and buy the following:

ASUS GeForce 7025 Mobo ~ £42
Sempron LE-1250 ~ £24
2x512MB Kingston DDR2-800 ~ £13

total subsystem cost ~ £79

I know some people will argue the toss over 1GB or 2GB or RAM, but if this is *just* a fileserver there's really no need to go for more than 1GB, and it'll save you ~ £7 - a healthy percentage of the total cost. Besides which, Microsoft reckon this'll run Windows 7 acceptably...

Yep! I agree! The P4 system will consume a lot of power too. The Sempron has Cool'n'Quiet which means lower power consumption when the system is idling.

We use an XP2800 based file server at home in a Shuttle SN41G2 SFF barebones with Nvidia MX400 series integrated graphics and 1gb of RAM. It is more than powerful enough for our purposes BTW. The server runs Ubuntu BTW which is free and also quite efficient.

If you are a student MS were giving away free copies of Windows Home Server BTW:

http://www.stumbleupon.com/toolbar/#...software-%252F

Still worth a check if you are a student!

[scaryjim]

We use an XP2800 based file server at home in a Shuttle SN41G2 SFF barebones with Nvidia MX400 series integrated graphics and 1gb of RAM. It is more than powerful enough for our purposes BTW.

I'm not surprised - that's basically the same spec as my HTPC! I use an XP2600+, 512MB RAM in an NForce2 board which has integrated GeForce 4 MX graphics (I've added a discreet FX5500, but otherwise...), and it has very little trouble dealing with DVD playback, IPlayer / 4OD etc. so definitely powerful enough for a fileserver.

My TV isn't going to know what hit it when I upgrade my HTPC to 780G innards, is it...