XFX made a passive RX460. I have one. It’s fine.
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I bet it is, I am not saying AMD options are bad in general, but for his use case since he is not gaming, I think a 460 is a bit of an overkill, especially that a passively cooled one would be bulky and significantly more expensive.
I don’t see low profile or passive cooling in the requirements. And a RX550 would be cheaper than a 1030. (Just looked at one store very briefly, please correct me if I’m wrong there.)
Yes it is not in the requirements, I still think it’s a very nice feature, to have it as quiet as possible, but maybe that’s just me.
P.S. I am not shilling for nvidia, if there was a silent amd option I would prefer it for sure, they have the better linux opensource drivers.
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Well, given that the system demikaze wants to build will have a 3900X or higher performance CPU, I don’t think any decent AIB cooler on a AMD GPU would be audible in the almost idle state it will live in for most of the time.
It’s a bit subjective, I think it comes down to personal preference 
no right or wrong there.
This is my experience also.
My vega 64 reference (after os boot; POST is loud) is basically inaudible doing normal desktop stuff inside a define r6 case.
I do not think noise will be a concern irrespective of which card he goes for, due to the workload in question being basically almost non-existent in terms of load for any modern GPU.
Ryzen will do this in its sleep, even on a 2700x. Like 10-15% across the board if that playing 4k YouTube. HEVC hardware support is important for laptops where battery is a concern. On my desktop? I’d rather have 100% open drivers, thanks.
I have an Asock rx550 in my work pc, as above it is inaudible at all times. It has a fan, but you can’t ever hear it. I really don’t think the card is capable of drawing enough power to run it that hard, being bus powered only.
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Can’t argue with that
I wish amd included a low end igpu with all of their cpu lineup, like intel does, even something like a single vega CU built into the io die and running at like 500Mhz would be more than enough for most people who are not gaming or doing video editing … maybe they will do it with zen3.
I’m in two minds on that.
- A low end discrete GPU is cheap and the slots are there for anyone who wants one.
- anyone buying a discrete GPU would be paying for junk they’d never use.
- the market for low end graphics plus many cores beyond say 4-8 is small. if you’re going for >4 cores, chances are the cost of a low end GPU is a drop in the ocean anyway.
- that said, it would be nice to have something to at least check POST without a card in the box. but its not often you need to do that really.
Except for every software developer. (give me moar cores!)
Or any kind of server.
My vote is for AMD RX 570. I recently picked up a 4GB version for $100. Works without fuss or fiddling on even not-so-modern kernels. The one I got has 3 displayports, 1 hdmi and 1 dvi. Should be useful for years and is not exactly a slouch if I wanted to run some 3D somethingerother through it.
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I said it was a drop in the ocean for a low end discrete GPU, I believe that “if all you need is some graphics output” on a machine with more than 4-8 cores was implied from context.
You can get one for as low as $30.
How does that compare to your total BOM for a thread ripper box or a server (or even a non-HEDT “workstation” consumer chip based build with a heap of RAM and SSD)?
like… 1% of the total bill of materials? Less? It’s a freaking rounding error.
I stand by my assertion.
Would you prefer to have less cores so AMD can fit a GPU in the socket, or spend $30 on something like a GT710?
Can we stick to the topic?
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Afaik IPMI always has some kind of video out parallel to it’s network interface, most likely through VGA. If a server needs more than that, it needs LOTS more than that. So …
For dev maybe have a big boi somewhere and log into that from a laptop or so? I think that’s how most people do it, I’m not a dev.
570 is what I have in my HTPC as well, I’d say it is the sweatspot in price / performance. And yes, polaris support is super mature and just works. 
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Radeon VII still seems to me like a king for performance per dollar for productivity workloads if you can find one.
Uhhhhhh 970
Why?
Like others here have already stated; right now nothing beats the RX 560 - RX 590 series. Stable, low-spec and great value for Linux.
Additionally, if you want something that will age well and have software support the next 5 years, the RX 5500 XT is a contender. A bit too price-y right now, and you may have to fiddle a bit with it the first 6 months or so, but from then on it should be rock solid and stable with no extra work.
Nvidias are o.k, not as good but not bad either. If you run mostly LTS releases they are great, nothing wrong with the Nvidia cards except the proprietary nature of the drivers smells funny. However, if you like to compile new kernels, or update your kernel to a newer version, or if you want to experiment with non-mainstream software such as wayland, then expect breakages every now and then. And no, you cannot do anything about that.
Me, I would probably go with a 5500XT or 5600XT to drive a couple 4k monitors for awesome i3 action in Wayland, but honestly happy with my 3400G. YMMV!
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Capable of 4x 2160x1440, not that high of power useage with underclocking (plus runs cooler), and best of all, 100 bucks. Or less.
I have one as a render card / second processor in my computer rn. When vfio works, then it’ll do that too.
If it still works, a 970 will run for near forever and perform just fine.