Hi,
I'm trying to determine the best CUDA-based GPU I can use in my Dell Poweredge 6850. Has anyone ventured into this with a Poweredge 6850?
The primary reason for this is to add CUDA processing to my BOINC projects and really tap the potential of this system. It's been upgraded to max CPU stats (4x Dual-Core XEON 3.5Ghz) so I'd like to squeeze a bit more out of it during idle times. I'm currently using VMWare ESXi to put all 8 cores to work in Win7 as 2 processors with 8 cores each and can theoretically force the VM to use a GPU natively via hardware ID mapping.
Here's a list of information that may help:
- Uses PCI-E 8x (can modify the 16x cards to work)
- 3kw of power available and additional power connectors can be wired to the power supply backplane
- (Rumored) Dell limits PCI-E power consumption to 25W per slot. Since some GPUs pull 75W from the board, this can be an issue.
Thanks in advance to all that reply!
Update: After some research and experimentation, I've found that the primary issue is that the BIOS does not have the option to disable the onboard video and initialize the Video BIOS of an addon card. The only way to disable the onboard video that I'm aware of is to use the Dell DRAC card in slot 7 but no idea if this will enable the use of addon GPUs since I don't have one. Instead of modifying the video cards, I opted to use a soldering iron to melt out the back of the PCIE x8 slot (which worked really well and required only 5 mins) and I'm supplying power to the card via external power supply. If I happen to figure out how to disable onboard video, I'll be sure to update the thread.
I'm trying to determine the best CUDA-based GPU I can use in my Dell Poweredge 6850. Has anyone ventured into this with a Poweredge 6850?
The primary reason for this is to add CUDA processing to my BOINC projects and really tap the potential of this system. It's been upgraded to max CPU stats (4x Dual-Core XEON 3.5Ghz) so I'd like to squeeze a bit more out of it during idle times. I'm currently using VMWare ESXi to put all 8 cores to work in Win7 as 2 processors with 8 cores each and can theoretically force the VM to use a GPU natively via hardware ID mapping.
Here's a list of information that may help:
- Uses PCI-E 8x (can modify the 16x cards to work)
- 3kw of power available and additional power connectors can be wired to the power supply backplane
- (Rumored) Dell limits PCI-E power consumption to 25W per slot. Since some GPUs pull 75W from the board, this can be an issue.
Thanks in advance to all that reply!
Update: After some research and experimentation, I've found that the primary issue is that the BIOS does not have the option to disable the onboard video and initialize the Video BIOS of an addon card. The only way to disable the onboard video that I'm aware of is to use the Dell DRAC card in slot 7 but no idea if this will enable the use of addon GPUs since I don't have one. Instead of modifying the video cards, I opted to use a soldering iron to melt out the back of the PCIE x8 slot (which worked really well and required only 5 mins) and I'm supplying power to the card via external power supply. If I happen to figure out how to disable onboard video, I'll be sure to update the thread.