I picked up a pair of Acer Veriton N4640G systems with the Intel i5-6500T CPU, and with the two optional expansion modules. My plan with the two systems was to add a low end graphics card for use as a basic Minecraft / Roblox / eSport gaming PC. The expansion module allows the installation of a low profile graphics card, and the systems came with the upgraded 135 watt power brick, so my plan sounded good in theory.
I was wrong!
The basic answer is “NO“, you can not use a Acer Veriton N4640G with even a low end graphics card.
I tried using multiple low profile graphics cards, including a NVidia GeForce GT 1030, AMD Radeon RX 550, AMD Radeon RX 640, and AMD Radeon Pro WX 3100. The system crashed with all three AMD cards as soon as I started running a GPU Benchmark. The GT 1030 ran the Benchmark, but the performance was very poor, almost no better than the built in iGPU.
The PCIe slot seems to not be delivering enough power to the GT 1030. When I run Heaven Benchmark the GPU maxes out at 16.6 watts of power. The NVidea GeForce GT 1030 has a 30 watt TDP. If power delivery is the issue, that would also explain the system crashing with the RX 550, RX 640, and WX 3100. Those cards have 50 watt and 65 watt TDPs.
Running Heaven Benchmark on the GT 1030 on another system i5 6th Gen CPU scored 19.6 FPS, with a score of 494, where as in the Acer Veriton N4640G it scored 9.2 FPS and a score of only 232. On the second PC that I tested the graphics card in used 30.2 watts, so almost twice as much power as on the Acer Veriton N4640G.
In further research seem to not be the only one with this problem, as many people report having the same issues over on the Acer Forums.
So, now I have a pair of Acer Veriton N4640G systems to sell, or repurpose as something else. Might be time to play around with a home lab setup …