Xserve Graphics card upgrade success!

[GameHunter]

Hey there folks. Just wanted to post about my success with upgrading the GPU in my Xserve 2,1(2008). Just picked up the machine for $80 with all three drive carriers being the SAS raid ones and the integrated raid controller. Has the two 3.0GHz 4 core xeons for 8 cores. even has 26GB of ddr2 FB at 800mhz. I'm planning to use this machine for storage and networked drive access since it also has the fibre channel card. I'm going back to the guy to get a drive enclosure that supports the fibre channel. even got two 4gbps fibre channel cables for free! A

Anyway, I wanted to have better remote access performance when dinking around remotely since I'd like to deploy this headless. So I picked up a KEPLER based gt 730 Low profile card. I actually removed the AMD X1300 from its Mezzanine slot just for the clearance. After what seemed like an eternity, I did get a picture on the screen. I'm obviously not running the server OS or lion. I used Dosdude1's patcher for this machine so I could play around with newer software and the like. The card runs fantastic. Detected properly by mac OS, both the DVI-D and HDMI work flawlessly. It really does take about 2-3 min before you see a picture on the screen so I can see why some people thought this upgrade failed.

This fixed all my remote login lag and I'd highly recommend it. Super easy!

 

[Project Alice]

Hey there folks. Just wanted to post about my success with upgrading the GPU in my Xserve 2,1(2008). Just picked up the machine for $80 with all three drive carriers being the SAS raid ones and the integrated raid controller. Has the two 3.0GHz 4 core xeons for 8 cores. even has 26GB of ddr2 FB at 800mhz. I'm planning to use this machine for storage and networked drive access since it also has the fibre channel card. I'm going back to the guy to get a drive enclosure that supports the fibre channel. even got two 4gbps fibre channel cables for free! A

Anyway, I wanted to have better remote access performance when dinking around remotely since I'd like to deploy this headless. So I picked up a KEPLER based gt 730 Low profile card. I actually removed the AMD X1300 from its Mezzanine slot just for the clearance. After what seemed like an eternity, I did get a picture on the screen. I'm obviously not running the server OS or lion. I used Dosdude1's patcher for this machine so I could play around with newer software and the like. The card runs fantastic. Detected properly by mac OS, both the DVI-D and HDMI work flawlessly. It really does take about 2-3 min before you see a picture on the screen so I can see why some people thought this upgrade failed.

This fixed all my remote login lag and I'd highly recommend it. Super easy!

I've used a GT 740 in my xserve 1,1. It will work on Lion, if you wanted it to.

 

[trialer2018]

hello...never got around to upgrading the GPU but I do recall a reasonable option is the nVidia GT120. I see in this thread you are discussing two additional options: GT730/GT740.
Since I have some time on my hands which do you think I should got for? (and why)
Also any chance of getting direct link to the cards so I can be 100% I am buying the "right" card.

 

[Project Alice]

hello...never got around to upgrading the GPU but I do recall a reasonable option is the nVidia GT120. I see in this thread you are discussing two additional options: GT730/GT740.
Since I have some time on my hands which do you think I should got for? (and why)
Also any chance of getting direct link to the cards so I can be 100% I am buying the "right" card.

Depends on what you're doing. Xserves aren't made for gaming obviously. The benefit to using a GT 730 or 740 is that they are metal capable cards, so mojave/catalina would work on them nicely. assuming you aren't using a 1,1 of course.

Any GT 730 or 740 will work, as long as they're single slot which I'm sure they all are.

 

[Tchum]

Hello I use in xserve 2.1 Nvidia Quadro K2000 directly from any pc it is cheep and easy to get and it run perfectly with Catalina...exception you don't have pre-boot screen