Decent GPU in Dell PowerEdge R910/R710

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Does anyone know of getting a way of getting a powerful GPU (Graphics Process Unit) in Dell R910 or R710 Server?

The R710 and R910 both has the capacity for a x16 Slot (R710 with an expansion module) , but x16 slot is only restricted to 25w power and specs specifically state the 150W ATX specification is not supported – This means only tiny video cards with low power draw can be used…

HP DL380's can support the bigger 150W cards out of the box, but we're a dell shop and buy different vendor kit isn't really an option, it has to be dell servers.
I was also looking at the NVidia Quadro 2200 D2 which uses PCIEx8 expansion cards to offload the GPU to processing to the dedicated 1U Applicance, but thats a bit over kill for our needs (and likely out of budget)

Ideally I'm looking for a way to stuff a fairly decent GPU into a R710 or R910 for proper 3D acceleration, that draws 150W.

Any suggestions appreciated.

Best Answer

I think the best solution should be to ask Dell directly :)

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Dell Poweredge R710 memory mode

This is nothing to do with Dell specifically but to do with the optimal triple-channel memory configuration of those Xeon 55/56xx-series chips - and no, you need all three memory channels in play for what Dell call their 'optimised' mode, it's not a BIOS thing, it's a 'using all available memory bandwidth' thing.

Unless you need the extra memory go for 12GB (3 x 4GB) over 16GB (4 x 4GB), or stump up for 24GB (6 x 4GB or 3 x 8GB) if you have the moolah :)

GeForce GTX 1060 card in Dell R710 or R730xd for machine learning

You'll need the Nvidia proprietary drivers to use CUDA/OpenCL.

The card will need to be configured with X as the Nvidia drivers are X drivers, though it can still be configured to be "headless" and you can have multiple graphics cards.

Some details on running GPUs in headless servers from: https://sites.google.com/site/akohlmey/random-hacks/nvidia-gpu-coolness

Faking a "Head" for a Headless X Server The biggest remaining challenge is now to make the X server launch properly without having a display attached. Nowadays, display settings are negotiated between the X server and the display via EDID, and this is how we can simulate a display. The X server allows to override EDID settings and to define which display to configure through settings in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf file. All that is missing is a valid EDID file and this can be obtained from nvidia-settings through the "Acquire EDID" button, when examining the properties of a currently attached display (doesn't matter which one). In the xorg.conf file, something along the lines of the following has to be set.

Section "Screen"
    Identifier     "Screen0"
    Option         "UseDisplayDevice" "DFP-0"
    Option         "ConnectedMonitor" "DFP-0"
    Option         "CustomEDID" "DFP-0:/etc/X11/dfp-edid.bin"
    Option         "Coolbits" "5"
    .... End Section

I found the drivers prepackaged in ELRepo

https://elrepo.org/tiki/tiki-index.php

They can also be downloaded from Nvidia's site, but that means no auto updating.

I can't say how the server will respond to having an additional GPU in it, but you may need to mess with the bios. According to the site mentioned above about configuring it as headless, you may need to boot the server with it configured as the primary graphics adapter or at least plugin a monitor temporarily to set it up with the nvidia utilities (to generate dfp-edid.bin).

Best Answer

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Dell Poweredge R710 memory mode

GeForce GTX 1060 card in Dell R710 or R730xd for machine learning

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