PSA: Do NOT use daisy chain power cables for 3000 series (One cable per 8 pin GPU power connection)

[Lapwing68]

I bought an RTX 3080Ti and with a daisy chain it wasn't working at all. I have a Corsair HX1200i. I tried different pcie slots and different hdmi and DP cables. Nothing worked so I returned it.

I received a call from the seller telling me that the GPU was working just fine for them. It turns out for an Aorus 3080ti Master 12Gb that daisy chains don't supply enough power.

Thankfully the card is on its way back to me.

I won't make that mistake again.

[NeThZOR]

Been running my new 3080 Ti FTW3 Ultra Gaming (3x8pin) on 1 daisy-chain and 1 dedicated 8 pin for almost a week now with no problems. This is with a SF Leadex II Gold 750W PSU and a stock Ryzen 7 5800X CPU. Card is on normal BIOS (400W TDP) and it has hit around 412W in some games but mostly hovers around 360W when I use framerate limiting. I've checked the power draw on each PCI-e pin and it seems that the daisy-chained cable draws around 210W at its highest.

I haven't used the OC BIOS (450W) or done 3DMark benchmarks, so I understand that I haven't really put my PC through its paces just yet. But multiple runs of demanding games like Metro Exodus, Red Dead Redemption 2, etc. at max settings haven't caused any issues.

 

I have been worrying about a potential issue in the future though, and I would like to run the higher TDP BIOSes. For peace of mind I have purchased a ROG Strix 1000G 1000W PSU so that I can use 3 dedicated cables and have a lot of headroom for power draw.

My question is this: how do I check for transient power spikes without access to something like a wattmeter? Because in GPU-Z the highest reading is always close to the TDP rating of the card but I understand that the sensor readings do not update on a millisecond to millisecond basis, so I might be missing something?

[Astyanax]

-delete-

[ewitte]

What matters is how thick the cables are.  Any PSU manufacturer that knows what they are doing will design dual PCIe cables to handle the load.  I ran my 3080 off 1 dedicated and 1 dual pcie cable for almost two years.  Recently I upgraded to 1000W and changed it just because it was available.

 

BTW ATX 3.0 is shoving up to 600W down a 12 pin connector (its 16 but 4 are for data). - Technically only 6 are providing power.