I am planning on putting together a home lab out of an old 970 Pro gaming.
I was looking at PCI-E 3 x16 graphics card and saw they have old Quadro’s for cheap.
I was wondering what would be the best card I could run on the motherboard. Linux, I want to practice things like Truenas, so ZFS and such, but it will be my first test server.
Thank you
So the card is an old PCIe Gen 2.0 Bulldozer era, you are looking at an idle power draw of at least 100W, which translates to ~70-75 kWh per month. You do not want this powered on unless you are actively using this system.
It does have an m.2 slot, so my advice is to just buy a cheap $30 bucks 500GB m.2 PCIe 3.0 drive for it and run Linux from that.
The only possible add-on card that makes sense would be a RAID controller; since this is for homelabbing you will not do any kind of serious compute, and if you want to dabble in mining with a Quadro card, let’s just conclude the power bill won’t make you any money from that.
For AI, systems were good enough 10 years ago to build a fairly reliable neural network for image verification on a $200 card, so as long as it has some compute, it works. You could do the basic labs on software alone or APU accelerated and still learn a ton.
Lastly, AM4 sellouts are getting dirt cheap, so here is a quick sketch of a system upgrade that runs circles around an AM3+ system while idling at 20W and pulls less than 100W at full load, just add a Quadro. Not saying you should necessarily buy this instead, just pointing out where the current market is at now.
| Type | Item | Price |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | AMD Ryzen 5 5600G | $127.56 |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte A520M DS3H | $93.92 |
| Memory | TEAMGROUP T-Create Expert 2x16 GB DDR4-3200 CL16 | $49.99 |
| Storage | Samsung 980 500 GB M.2-2280 PCIe 3.0 | $32.90 |
| Total | $304.37 |
Nice value upgrade. My current gaming rig is AM4, it needs upgrades, but I am waiting for the second gen of am5 components, so I can upgrade to AM5. When I do that I will use my current gaming as another test system.
I just need to get a video card so I can run Linux, Practice TrueNAS/ZFS but did not want to not have anything that would come in useful in my learning process. I have some old rust and a couple SSDs, a total motley crew of drives, but I figure good enough to start.
I will go for a 10 dollar card with 2gb if it is what I would need to get my learning on, I just hoped there was a smart purchase someone could assist me in making.
You know that not every CPU on AM3+ draws 100W, right? Regardless, the ones that do can be tuned down quite easily. Put an 8320E in there, lock it at 3.0GHz/1.075v and it’ll draw 60W. A 6300/6350 at 3.2GHz 1.15v would be about the same. Basically try to emulate an Opteron 3280 and you can easily squeeze Vishera down under 65W. Undervolt the NB to 1.15/1.17v and you chop another 2W off the system power.
Love the knowledge, thank you
everything with a power rating is mean : to be the max at full load will be this number. turning on will not eat much. 200 w is what i get from a fully load server and 3 routers on the same plug.
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