Xs 1,1-3,1 Xserve (2009) PCI Slot Info

[l008com]

I have an xserve that lives in a data center doing some hosting for me. It's collocation so i don't get charged any extra for the power consumption. So I was thinking of getting one or two cheap AMD RX 550's and sticking them in there to run some BOINC/Gridcoin science crypto mining.

But I was googling around because I needed to see what the PCI slots actually look like and I found a web page that said the PCI slots only provide 25watts of power each. That can't be right can it? That seems way too low. The Mac Pros provide 75w through the connector and then another 75w or maybe more through the external PCI power connector.

It would really surprise me if the Xserve was limited to 25 watts per slot. Anyone know what the deal is with that?
The 550's are a very low power card, only about 50 watts.

I may not even do this but I'm curious if I can.

Also note that 550's are physically very small so they should fit in the xserve no problem.

 

[OneRebertt]

The amount of power that a PCI slot can deliver can vary depending on the specific model and manufacturer of the motherboard. However, it is not uncommon for PCIe slots to provide 25 watts of power.

While it's true that the Mac Pro provides up to 75 watts of power through the PCIe connector, this is not necessarily the case for all systems.

That being said, the AMD RX 550 is a low-power graphics card, and it's unlikely to draw more than 25 watts of power from the PCIe slot. However, if you plan on running multiple cards, you may need to consider external power sources or a PCIe power supply adapter.

 

[l008com]

The 550 is a "50 watt" card. And I wouldn't be using it to power a monitor, I'd be running BOINC projects on it. Meaning it would be running at or near it's peak. So 25 watts definitely wouldn't cut it.

So the question is, is there any way to know for sure how much power these PCI slots provide on the 09 xserve? I do see posts about people putting video cards in their Xserves. That suggests to me that there is more than 25 watts available. But my server is active at the data center, so I need to figure out every last detail first, I can't just experiment.

 

[OneRebertt]

According to this article (https://support.apple.com/kb/sp511?locale=en_US) the Xserve can run a GT120 for Mac card. Those cards require 50 watts of power, meaning your RX 550 can run in the Xserve.

 

[l008com]

Yeah but doesn't the GT120 that xservers come with, go into a separate MXM slot that has it's own specs? So that doesn't actually tell us anything certain about the PCI slot?

 

[Hrududu]

I've got a GT 630 in my 2009 Xserve which is a 50W card, and it works just fine.