Decent GPU in Dell PowerEdge R910/R710

Question

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.

Answer 1

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

Answer 2

No idea about the Dell sorry, don't think they're really designed for that kind of thing.

Might be worth you knowing that the HP SL390 can take an NVidia Tesla M2070 6GB, which is a hell of a VUDE/OpenCL card.

Answer 3

Take a look at this:

http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/enterprise/b/tech-center/archive/2010/07/12/optimizing-the-virtual-desktop-experience.aspx

For rack servers, the PowerEdge R710 and R610 have been certified with the NVIDIA Quadroplex S4 external IO chassis to host up to four GPUs.

Answer 4

If you are going to use a GPU for CUDA computation, you can attach and external GPU to your system over Ethernet. rCUDA does the magic! 1) Setup a additional system with any GPU. 2) Connects new system to your Dell through Ethernet or any media. 3) Install rCUDA on your new system and old Dell. 4) rCUDA forwards CUDA calls from Dell to new system.