Add GPU card in PowerEdge Server

[martyouel]

Hi all,

I am running, most of my home needs, on a Dell poweredge 2950. I have an hypervisor on it (esxi) and I do run 6 VMs.

I know that I do not have an optimal setup, my old XEON CPUs can't do hardware accelerated video decoding.

My BI VM is a Windows 10 Pro and BI is using very high CPU.
I do not want, for the moment, to add a standalone desktop for BI, so I am looking to the idea of adding a GPU card on my PE 2950.

Not all GPU work on a server because it is not designated for that, so after some research, I found success stories with ASUS GT720-2GD3-CSM GT720 "2GB" DDR3 64Bit PCI-E X8.
It looks like not a recent card, but I can find good deal for it.

My main question, will I get some benefits and will be able to use "NVIDIA NVDEC hardware decoding" with this card or it is a piece of garbage ?
Anyone did the same thing ?
Thanks in advance for your comment.

 

[sebastiantombs]

First, consider using sub streams with Blue Iris. That will significantly reduce CPU utilization by a factor of around three to five.

I am using Nvidia for video processing and in terms of actual video processing it seems less problematic than Intel. I have yet to experience a problem with drivers which does seem to give Intel hardware acceleration fits sometimes. The down side is the additional power requirements. A GTX1060 uses around 100 watts under heavy loading conditions, so that can be problematic as well. I have no experience with VMs so I can't speak to how difficult it may be to pass the hardware acceleration to the VM running BI.

You would probably be better served by getting a used business class Dell or HP off of eBay or the Dell or HP sites. A 5th generation, or newer, i5 or i7 is more than sufficient using sub streams. They cost anything from $200 and up depending on processor generation, memory and drives included. Just look for one with Win10 Pro so you can control if/when updates to Win10 are applied.