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Comment by freeqaz | Hacker News Reader

Is anybody aware of any SBCs capable of accepting a full-size PCI-E GPU? I've been wanting to throw together a server for some simple AI home assistant stuff (like running Stable Diffusion), but I haven't dug in to understand if ARM is capable of this yet or if I should just go buy some used parts on eBay.

(I have an old 1080 TI which is sufficient for everything I need, but I only have a dual Xeon server from 2011 that sucks watts.)

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Why not build a cheap 4 core ryzen setup and not deal with all the pain... I know socket am4 is on the way out... But you could do it and have a system that works......

Used ebay parts. Intel generally have lower idle usage. Also remember that total TDP doesn't really indicate idle usage so you can often get away with getting stronger part and not pay that much in power.

Also on side note it's insane how much less newer servers use when idle. Few of our never Xeon servers use below 50W (single CPU + 6 NVMe drives), while comparable dual SSD server from 6-7 years used good 100W.

AMD on the other side uses like double.

A card like a 1080 TI needs a PCIe x16 slot. There's no SBC with an x16 slot. Though there's plenty of Mini-ITX motherboards, which is pretty small at 6.7-in x 6.7-in (17.0 cm x 17.0 cm).

Logically you can use even a 1x slot for loads that don't have a lot of traffic on the bus without much impact. There are adapters for the physical aspect of it.

I suppose, but a mini-itx board with a Celeron included would be less than $100 and come with the full speed x16 slot. And have cheap enclosures available that would hold it and the GPU without hackery.

Sometimes it is about the hackery.

Jetson TX/TK/Nano/Xavier. The older ones should be quite affordable now

The TX and TK are garbage at this point. The Nano is (IIRC) going to be similar to a 1050Ti. Unfortunately, prices for the Nano are the same kind of crazy as GPU prices last year: All the examples I could find on eBay were 2-4x original retail price. It’s an okay board, but frustrating to the point that I gave up and built a cheap AMD box using mostly spare parts.

> but frustrating to the point that I gave up

Same experience here, with a 2G Nano sitting in my drawer because developing on it is like pulling teeth compared to a Pi 4, despite all the extra horsepower. Nothing is standard on that thing. They couldn't even keep the GPIO header as-is, they had to reshuffle the pin locations while keeping it misleadingly in the same form factor.

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