As I can remember, on old systems (Pentium II or III) it was not possible to boot and run the PC if the graphics card was missing (AGP cards were used in those days).

Many years from then, I'm using motherboards with integrated graphics and I have no experience related to this subject, the "graphics card" always was present.

Currently I intend to build a home/private "server" for my purposes and most of the motherboards I want to buy have no integrated graphics (AMD 870 or 970). I can take a normal graphics card from my firends for a few hours/days and use it when installing the necessary software.

The question is: can I boot and run the PC without problems after I install everything I need and the graphics card is removed? if a general answer cannot be given, at least some examples of manufacturers/MB series/MB models will be helpfull

I think it's obvious, but for completeness: I mean cheap desktop components, not real servers.