New Nvidia 3080 & 3090 cards on HP Z840 WS (1125w @ 220v)

[4zain4]

As mentioned in the title, will the HP Z840 (with 1125w psu @ 220v) handle 2x 3080 OR 2x 3090? What about the NVlink for the 3090s, would it be supported?

[Brian1965]

Hi 4zain4,

There are 2 potential problem areas with the newer high-end 3000 series RTX cards, based on various youtube videos I've seen. The first issue is power, since the 3080 is a 320W card, and the 3090 can draw upto 350W!!! The second issue is the physical size of these newer RTX cards, especially the 3-slot width 3090 card standing at 5.4" (138mm) tall which I doubt would fit in the Z840 chassis. So I would definitely avoid the 3090 card with regards to the Z840, mainly due to its physical size and power requirements. Since you're GPU rendering, (see our previous post), NVLink/SLI support is not needed. This leaves the 3080 card as a possible option, (which doesn't appear to have NVLink/SLI anyway). Also, don't forget that you have a 1450W PSU since you are on a 220v supply.

Please bear in mind that this is unchartered territory, so I'll just stick with my electrical knowledge for guidance.

1.   For 1x RTX 3080 card, I would connect power from the G1 and G2 connectors, (using good quality 6-pin to 8-pin adapters).

2.   For 2x RTX 3080 cards, I would connect G1 to GPU 1 and G3 to GPU 2, (using good quality 6-pin to 8-pin adapters), connect G2 to both GPU's using a 6-pin to dual 8-pin splitter as discussed in our last post. 

As I said, this is simply my best guess, so I can't guarantee success. Good Luck! Let me know how it goes.

P.S. The good news is, if it doesn't work, you can easy re-sell the cards at zero financial loss.

[4zain4]

Hello Brian! 😉, 

Yes, the 3090 is one big/thick card, the 3090 NVIDIA founders edition cards (which we have seen so far) might be the smallest compared to other brands like MSI or ASUS. What makes this card so special is its 24GB memory which can go to 48GB when using NVlink and this can be very beneficial when rendering  high-poly complex scenes, The bad news is that NVIDIA decided to keep that feature for that card exclusively! and left us with 10GB only for the 3080s (I dont know the logic behind this!), some rumors mentioning future versions of the 3080s with 16&20GB memory, if that happens then 2x 3080s would be my choice with the power setup you have suggested. My second option will be getting two eGPUs that has 3090 cards on them with PCIe connections (or TB2 connections) and avoiding the power/size issues, only thing.. performance might not be the same as having those cards physically inside the box. Thanks again for all the valuable & detailed inputs🙏