HP Z820 3x GPU issue

[Nozee]

Hello out there,

I need help regarding following problem:

I have a HP Z820 (Dual CPU E5-2680v2 with PSU 1125W, 128 GB RAM and 2x GTX 1060 6GB GPUs).

I would like to put a third GPU into my Z820 for 3D GPU rendering and bought a MSI RTX 2070 with 6-pin and 8-pin power connector. Unfortunately I forgot to check if I need to use both connectors of the RTX 2070.

The problem on my machine is that I only have 1x 6-pin (3 in total) power connector left from my PSU. So the question is:

Is it possible to connect the RTX 2070 without having to get rid of any GTX 1060? Are the 6-pin connectors powerful enough to drive the RTX 2070? I searched the internet and also found a RTX 2070 which only needs one 8-pin connector so that I only need one adapter from 6-pin to 8-pin. What do you think? Is it possible? I really would appreciate an answer to this topic!

Thank you guys!

Best regards
Nozee

[BambiBoomZ]

Nozee,

The first thing to do is consider the total amount in Watts that the RTX 2070 requires. The reference specification is 175W whie the Founder's Edition needs 185W

The z820 power supply output to the PCIe GPU connectors is such that a 6-pin to 8-pin adapter should be sufficient.  However, that adapter needs to be high quality- heavy gauage wire.  If possible try and find an HP one.

If there is a power shortage, then the 4-pin Molex with an adapter can add another 132W into the mix.

If the world of 3X GPU's becomes very difficult to manage, perhaps the 2X GTX 1060 can go a good ways to fund a single GTX 1080  or 1080 TI as those have plenty of CUDA cores, wider memory bandwidth, and more video memory.

Does the RTX run a different driver to the GTX?  RTX is so new I believe I haven't yet heard of a system running both GTX and RTX.

The choice of 2X E5-2680 v2's + 128GB RAM + 2X GPU's  is a smart one, as that system should be very good at both CPU and GPU rendering.  I use VRay which is CPU-based, ray tracing, but in the last iteration added GPU acceleration. 

What rendering program(s) are you using?

BambiBoomZ