Hi -

 

My unRAID server is a re-purposed desktop machine and has an older, moderate gaming class graphics card, I think it's one of these http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133321 (need to pull it apart to be sure).  Since it's running 7x24 I'm trying to be conscious about power consumption.

 

Have any of you tried dropping down to something like this

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003FP95Q2/ref=s9_bbs_gw_d5_g147_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-8&pf_rd_r=08V61KVE4NMNAA9GAV6A&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1741301142&pf_rd_i=507846

and determined whether it reduces idle power consumption?  Seems like it might, and even a drop of 10w would pay for the card within a year.

 

I wish I'd kept one of those old Matrox video cards...

could be a good idea alright!

 

Note your current graphics card is largely just idling, so power savings may not be quite as high as you might hope, but I'd say theres gotta be _some_ savings. The gt240 is actually quite power efficient at idle (~12W according to http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GeForce_GT_240/28.html) - so again, Im not sure you'll see the 10W saving - perhaps though! Couldnt find any figures on the ATI card

 

Big point, imo, is the lack of a noisy old graphics card fan, and potentially less heat in your enclosure

Thanks for the link, I was having trouble getting a good idea how much power my current card was using.  ~12w may be hard to beat by a significant amount...  I may give it a try anyway - like you said, that ATI card seems like a low cost/risk way to try for less heat, noise, and power.

Try your local recycle center. My local one has a box full of old matrox and ATI pci graphics cards from old office machines.

I wasn't able to find a used card so I tried the Generic ATI Rage XL from Amazon.  It's working well and Kill-A-Watt tells me I'm saving about 15 watts.  That's a little surprising given that the GT240 wasn't supposed to be drawing 15 watts at idle, but there you go - idle power consumption reduced from 86 to 71 watts... On a machine I run headless 99% of the time that's nice energy savings.

 

On the cost savings alone the card should pay for itself in less than a year, not to mention less heat and noise.  Since it also accomplishes my goal of freeing up my PCI Express x16 slot for a future SATA card, it's looking like a good investment.

 

Thanks all.

Yup all your reasons are why i went with this exact card (to include waiting an unbearable 4 days for delivery vice another that was Prime eligible) when I upgraded my MB to get better virtualization and ECC support.  Also as best I can tell the card will pass-thru and work being an amd/ati card.  But I have not validated that.

 

As for the "why" it uses so little compared to the 240 [shrug] it is a very low end card that was almost specifically designed for servers where power and heat are important.  Even just 10 watts is a lot of heat and power if you having 100 servers all using one.  The fact that it has no heatsink should have been the hint that it had lower power consumption ;-)

On the cost savings alone the card should pay for itself in less than a year, not to mention less heat and noise.  Since it also accomplishes my goal of freeing up my PCI Express x16 slot for a future SATA card, it's looking like a good investment.

 

Thanks all.

 

Try before you buy as not all PCI-x16 slots accept cards that are non-graphic cards, especially if its the only PCI-x16 slot and its an older motherboard.

 

Simple test is to insert a PCI-x1 NIC to see if it works ok.