Best/cheapest AGP 4X/8X card for server?

[VirtualLarry]

Putting together my media server.

TT Armor case
Conroe865PE mobo (AGP 4x/8x)
2 x 1GB DDR PC3200

15 x 500GB HDs
3 x PNY S-Cure 5-port SATA PCI RAID cards
SuperFlower 550W PSU (10 molex leads!)

maybe a floppy drive
some kind of boot HD


Since I'm not likely to play any games on this rig, mostly it will sit headless in the corner, what is the cheapest AGP card that I can get away with running? Undecided if this box will ever need to run Vista Aero.

I prefer to purchase new, not used/ebay. Can someone make a recommendation? I was thinking maybe a cheap 6200LE/6200A.

Thinking of possibly this one. link

Then again, there is this X1650Pro, which is around the same price AR. If I gamed, I would pick this one, but the fact that it has a fan, and takes a molex plug, is probably a major minus in my case. I want something that is long-term reliable (passive cooler preferred), and I need to save 8 out of the 10 molexes from my PSU for my HDs in the array, and then I need power leads for the boot HD, and possibly a temporary optical drive, in order to install the OS.

 

[Slugbait]

I got a deal a couple of months ago from Fry's for a passive eVGA 6200...after tax, shipping and rebate, it was just under $10. Quite an improvement over the old FX5200 in my MCE machine. This deal comes around every so often, but I agree you don't need anything more power than this card for a home media server.

 

[solofly]

I'm on a search of a cheap low-power AGP video card as well. I have one last AGP rig with a 6800GT in it, idling and adding on to the power bill. So I thought changing to a low power ATI card that can at least fold rather than do nothing, will be the answer.

This is what I found that may fit my needs...

http://www.tigerdirect.ca/appl...HOPBOT&CMP=OTC-SHOPBOT

The card doesn't appear to have an external molex connector at all...

 

[johnsonbrewer]

I am parting out a P4 system that has a Visiontek HD2600Pro 8x AGP if anyone is interested. I used it less than a month and then I upgraded everything to go Q6600-ing! Most likely these parts are headed to eBay soon.

JB

 

[Peter]

Anything will do as long as it's 1.5V AGP ...

I'd like to mention that you'll be hugely disappointed by the storage bandwidth in that rig. Come on, if you're going to spend this much on disks, why not use at least a low grade server board with PCIE 4x or PCI-X slots and a RAID controller with some sort of throughput? If it's going to be not only media server but also a head unit, go with a "workstation" type board that has a PCIE 16x slot as well.

 

[QuixoticOne]

15 x 500 GB drives, wow, that's quite a lot of storage.

It'll be a very power hungry PC and quite a space heater too, and you'll probably have to replace a drive pretty often. Not that it is bad to raid that many if you need that much storage, but I've had problems fitting even half of the drives a case is rated for into even fairly nice cases because the cable management or thermal issues become problematic or similar.

As for video, yeah, one of the free or near free 6200's from Frys occasional sales is a good bet.
I assume you won't be playing HD video from its display port, though; I wouldn't try to play back HD video on anything less than an 3450 or 9600GT or similar given the appropriate HD decode drivers / software, but then I wouldn't be running that stuff on a file server either.

 

[Whitedog]

I still have my old TNT1. I'd say that's pretty low power.

Here ya go. Bottom of the barrell. $20 ATI 7000. 150mhz core.

Also, I would HIGHLY recommend AGAINST ever wanting to "game" on a machine like this.

Do yourself a HUGE favor and put a video card in it that CAN'T temp you to do so... such as the one I linked to.

 

[AndyinNYC]

I'm not sure why you picked that motherboard (unless you already own it).

I built my server around the ASUS M2NPV-VM AM2 board and an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+(65W) Windsor 2.4GHz processor. This AMD chip is far more than I actually need.

This gives me low power/cool running along with onboard everything (including video).

Trying to use that many drives in a single enclosure is likely going to allow you to turn off your furnace in the winter - and have the possibility of fried green harddrives as a snack.

Good luck.

Andrew

 

[VirtualLarry]

Well, I could go with a 790GX board with onboard video and dual PCI-E x16 slots, for two x4 RAID controller cards (found an 8-port hardware raid card for $250), but that's another $600. Seeing as how the five 500GB HDs only cost me $315, and assuming that they will get slightly cheaper in the future, then dropping an additional $600 is quite significant compared to the cost of the drives. If I find I'm bottlenecked by PCI bus speeds (for both the RAID controllers, and the GigE card), THEN I'll consider upgrading. But not before.

Also, I disagree that this will be a power hungry PC and a space heater. The EX-23 racks each have an 80mm fan blowing on each group of three HDs, it should stay fairly cool. The case is spacious and allows plenty of airflow. If the HDs take 10W each, then that's still only 150W. Add 50W for the CPU and 10W for the graphics card, and I still have plenty of power left.