Boot into BIOS without a GPU?

[1four1seven]

I have a question about video output. I'm planning on building a NAS soon and I already have an AMD Ryzen 5 2600. And I'm planning on buying either ASRock A320M-ITX AM4 AMD Promontory or ASRock Fatal1ty B450 GAMING-ITX/AC. I already have an ITX case from an old build I'd like to use so I'm going to stick with ITX. My question is since the Ryzen 5 2600 doesn't have a Radeon graphics core would I still be able to hookup a monitor to the motherboard and boot into the BIOS? Or would I need a graphics card? Thanks!

[Radium_Angel]

3 minutes ago, 1four1seven said:

Or would I need a graphics card?

You need a graphics card

[Windows7ge]

If you want to see anything on the display you'll need a GPU.

 

If you want to run the server headless and access it from a WebUI or CLI over SSH then assuming the motherboard doesn't force you to have a GPU in order to POST then you may be able to run the system without one. Though you will need one during the setup of the OS.

[LogicWeasel]

Yeah so since that CPU has no ability to output graphics, how is the motherboard going to be able to use the video out port?  It cannot, quite simply without an APU on the board, that port is useless.  Thus the need for a dedicated GPU if you're running a non-APU Ryzen, to be able to even load VGA for the BIOS video out.

[1four1seven]

7 minutes ago, Windows7ge said:

If you want to see anything on the display you'll need a GPU.

 

If you want to run the server headless and access it from a WebUI or CLI over SSH then assuming the motherboard doesn't force you to have a GPU in order to POST then you may be able to run the system without one. Though you will need one during the setup of the OS.

Thanks for the input! I'm going to access it through a WebUI and really only need it to have a display out so I can do the initial FreeNAS setup. It'd be nice if the system would POST without a GPU, that way I could just put my main rigs graphics card in it for a few minutes. But I haven't seen anything online saying it can POST without a GPU

[Windows7ge]

24 minutes ago, 1four1seven said:

Thanks for the input! I'm going to access it through a WebUI and really only need it to have a display out so I can do the initial FreeNAS setup. It'd be nice if the system would POST without a GPU, that way I could just put my main rigs graphics card in it for a few minutes. But I haven't seen anything online saying it can POST without a GPU

That's something you'll just have to test. My old old X79 rig required a GPU while my old X99 rig did not. Even if it does require one assuming you don't need the slot for NICs or HBAs then any super cheap GPU should do.

[1four1seven]

1 minute ago, Windows7ge said:

That's something you'll just have to test. My old old X79 rig required a GPU while my old X99 rig did not. Even if it does require one assuming you don't need the slot for NICs or HBAs then any super cheap GPU should do.

You're right. I was just looking and found some for $30 - $40. It'd be nice to have a PCI NIC and not just the onboard one, but I'll test and see what happens.