{"id":41344,"date":"2025-10-28T12:48:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T19:48:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pugetsystems.com\/?p=41344"},"modified":"2025-10-28T12:48:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T19:48:23","slug":"our-approach-to-dual-geforce-rtx-5090-workstations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pugetsystems.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/28\/our-approach-to-dual-geforce-rtx-5090-workstations\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Approach to Dual GeForce RTX 5090 Workstations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Does Puget Systems build and sell computers with dual NVIDIA GeForce RTX\u2122 5090 and RTX PRO\u2122 6000 Blackwell Workstation video cards? The short answer is: yes, yes we do<\/a>! The longer answer is, well, longer.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A frequent request we get from customers of our high-performance workstations is the inclusion of dual video cards. This has been a popular feature for a long time, since back when NVIDIA first introduced SLI – though at that time, it was hailed as an extreme gaming feature. Since then, the video card (or GPU) has transformed from a component for accelerating 3D graphics in games into a general-purpose computing device, capable of benefitting a whole host of workflows. Modern video cards have media engines for encoding and decoding compressed video, ray tracing for ultra-realistic 3D rendering, specialized cores for dramatically speeding up AI inference, and much more!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not every application can utilize more than one video card, and in fact its origin in gaming is now just a legacy: SLI has disappeared from desktops, and a single high-end video card is enough for even the highest resolution screens now. For those working with tools that can <\/em>scale well across more than one GPU, though, adding a second can potentially double performance for far less than a whole second computer would cost<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, ever-increasing power draw in recent generations of GPUs has made running multiple video cards more difficult. That higher power usage leads directly to additional heat output. Here is a chart of the initial top-end NVIDIA GeForce cards across the last several launches, showing the steady increase in thermal design power (TDP):<\/p>\n\n\n

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Some of those generations had higher-wattage models introduced later on in their production runs, but these were the flagships at launch – and they more than tripled <\/em>in power draw (and thus heat output) over the course of a decade<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To deal with this increase in heat, without making the cards unbearably noisy, the design of GPU coolers also changed dramatically over those years. For a long time, video cards had a single fan that simply circulated air around the heatsink. Back then, for higher-end cards especially, the heatsink shrouds were designed to channel the waste heat out the back of the card (and thus out of the computer). Blower-style fans work well for that directional airflow, but also get noisy at higher speeds. As TDP continued to rise, we started to see dual- and triple-fan coolers that could keep the card itself from overheating\u2026 but at the cost of venting almost all of the waste heat back into the computer, making it a problem for the rest of the system to deal with<\/strong>. That isn\u2019t usually a big deal with one video card, but when you have two (or sometimes more) cards, it really adds up!<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Graphic showing the airflow patterns of single-fan blowers versus multi-fan GPU coolers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Video cards aren\u2019t the only components that have been increasing in power draw, either. Processors have been on a similar trend, and many users with workflows that can utilize multiple GPUs would also benefit from a powerful CPU. A high-end, dual-GPU system from ten years ago might have drawn a total of 600W of power, while today such a system can easily require 1500W for just the CPU and two video cards, without even factoring in the rest of the hardware!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you do factor in the rest of the components – the motherboard, RAM, drives, fans, and more – the total power draw often exceeds what our largest 1600W 120V power supplies are capable of providing\u2026 and indeed, what a standard 15 amp circuit is rated for, at least in terms of continuous load.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only is there a need to safely provide enough power, but it is also critical to get the waste heat that electricity consumption generates out of the computer to keep it from overheating. A system with this level of hardware is effectively a high-wattage space heater<\/a>, and with modern video card design, little of that heat is being vented by the cards themselves. In order to keep things cool, then, chassis fans have to be upgraded to high-flow designs – akin to those used in servers, which have had to deal with higher wattage levels for a long time. Unfortunately, such fans run at very high RPMs, and thus generate a lot of noise, which is not what most people want sitting next to their desk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of this, the approach we’ve taken at Puget Systems has been to focus our high-end, dual-GPU efforts on our rackmount workstation lineup. These systems are designed to be installed in server rooms, where the power requirements and noise output are less of a problem, and then be accessed remotely for users elsewhere in a building (or potentially even off-site).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Right now, we offer workstations with dual GeForce RTX\u2122 5090 video cards – or even the professional RTX PRO\u2122 6000 Blackwell Workstation models! – in a 5U rackmount system, accompanied by an AMD Threadripper\u2122 PRO processor<\/a><\/strong>. We will be rolling out a version with the normal Threadripper (non-PRO) soon as well. Both of these utilize 2800W power supplies, which require 200-240V power circuits. They can also convert to a standing tower form factor, but between the specialized power needs and noisy fans, we don\u2019t recommend trying to use them at your desk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This image shows the interior of a recent dual RTX 5090 build in our 5U chassis, and you can see the thicker-than-normal, server-grade chassis fans that provide the airflow needed to keep it all cool.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Dual RTX 5090s – Click to Enlarge<\/div>\n\n\n