XPS 8900 Rumors? News? Facts? Sightings?

It came shipped as installed with 2.1.0, when I look under my service tag it has the older 2.0.3 BIOS.

Oh the BIOS boots clean and only shows the black screen with a Dell logo, my previous machine either 1 had issues or 2 2.1.0 boots nice and clean its also quicker than my previous machine.

... and thinking I can fit a liquid cooler for the CPU since I have a lot of space up front now, reverse the rear fan to blow in and the front is exhaust and baam. ... Future upgrades: hopefully very soon a 980Ti classified just need the green light on compatibility

I'd think twice about turning the case exhaust fan into an intake. You may end up circulating hot air out the PSU exhaust back into the case in a little mini heat loop.

You might as well start shopping for a new case. If you end up pushing the system to the point that the 980ti is working hard it will put off more heat than the XPS 8x00 case can easily exhaust.  

How did your psu upgrage go? I had a heck of a time wrestling in my 910w psu.  Its not even screwed in because the holes dont match up.  Its overkill at 910w since I only have a 960 4gb ftw card but a friend gave me the psu so i cant complain.

Bolts right in and fitment is the same, except its just a little longer so the it doesn't clip in. I looked at the AX760i specs and its the same physical size as the AX860i, and rest is history.

have you seen the PSU RF600 from Corsair's bulldog? its going to be available soon.

Thanks DAN-H that's a good point with the heat loop, well 980Ti "Classified" is a no go!  its just too big, its taller and longer (watched a video of it next to a standard 980Ti its HUGE) so simply it just wont fit well in our tiny 8700/8900case, good news is the 980Ti FTW is about the same size as the reference card and has the same specs as the 980Ti "Classified".

Was you BIOS for SATA defaulted at RAID? Did you have to change to ACHI?  My default SATA in my Costco 8900 BIOS is RAID. So my existing SATA internal 1 TB HDD is configured with this RAID setting through Windows System 10, correct? I want to prepare for and soon format a SATA SSD, (Samsung 850 PRO 512GB 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD) which I understand requires ACHI, correct? If I change my BIOS now to ACHI, will my system still see my original installed HDD 1 TB Toshiba drive? Later I have a Samsung 950 Pro PCIe SSD coming to install which I want to make the start up disk by cloning my original installed Win 10 HDD. Should I just wait and do that with the Samsung migration software to clone my original Win 10 HDD to the 950 Pro SSD (PCIe)? OR do I need to change the whole system first to AHCI to accommodate future SATA SSDs? I hope I can clone my system and files to a startup SSD. I already have a lot of apps and files and local users installed. Sorry for the newbie question... Thank you...

I don't know that there is a rule with how systems come with ACHI or RAID but I have seen most OptiPlex come with RAID (and without dual drives, etc.) and most Inspiron come with ACHI. Unless you intend on using RAID, one should always switch it over to ACHI especially if you are running any SSD's, etc.

The machine will still see the HDD but Windows HAL for ACHI and RAID aren't the same, so if you are trying to boot after switching, good luck ... it's probably going to fail. If you are trying to clone the drive over, then don't waste your time using the Samsung Migration software, just go out and get Acronis True Image 2016 and use their Universal Recovery (aka Bare Metal restore).

Are you getting the full  2,500 MB/s read and 1,500 MB/s write speeds with RAID enabled?

Mine is set to AHCI with full 2500+ reads/1500+ writes, and cloned from Samsung's Cloning data migration software it worked just fine "leave the drive unallocated" while doing the cloning. Do not format the new SSD, it always missed up my OS you wont be able do complete windows updates among other things it was frustrating, I pulled the factory Dell SSD out and saved it as a backup drive, the 950 pro booted via UEFI with no BIOS changes (btw I have 2.1.0 BIOS). I have the i6700K so I did the Dell OC plus disabled CMOS it runs at 4.17 GHZ stable and cool.

Depends on the brand of SSD, On the topic of Samsung SSD's the magician software also recommends ACHI "Mode" for their SSD's to reach full optimization, As for the 950 Pro the driver will handle the protocol controller as NVMe from the Samsung driver that's needed. (Notes before cloning, install the 950Pro and install in the slot 3 or 4 PCIe on the MOBO, then boot, download the driver & install the NVMe controller firmware, then reboot and clone.... mine was done in 3 mins, even verified)

here is my Upgrade thread

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/19667807

Raid enabled,  6439 read,  5417 write

Recommend vs it makes a difference in performance, etc.  I have done it both ways with the same hw setup and did not notice anything different.  By staying with Raid, if I need to go back to a hard drive, I do not have to deal with the OS issues and bios issues to make the change.

I've been reading a bunch of these posts as I am also considering the 950 pro for an 8900. 

Most certainly 1x or 2x PCIe must be the case.

There is nothing confusing about the 10Gbps and the slower than max drive speeds you are reporting on the M.2 interface - that is what the interface on this motherboard supports.  Higher end mbs with 1151 slot (mainly the Asus I have looked at) actually show a 32Gbps capability out of the M.2 slot, while most of the Gigabyte boards I have looked at, as well as many others only support 10Gbps.

This makes me sad (the xps 8900) as I had initially thought maybe I happened upon a gem for a ridiculously low price.  Building the same system as this with higher end components, but equal amounts of ram, cpu, hd space etc. I was looking at about 40-50% more with the 32 Gbps M.2 slot.  That said, still the cheapest you are going to get a computer with or without operating system that has the same capability.  Or at least if you bought it on sale - I don't think I have ever bought one any other way, and I have an 8100, two 8300s, and an 8700 as well as the 8900 now.

I need the other pcie slots for other things, though I can likely find an adapter or card for one of those things so I can sacrifice the other M.2 1x slot (presumably 1x at any rate) that the wireless is plugged into and run my other needed peripheral through.  Going to take a look right after this if I can run an adapter from micro pcie to M.2 for my 2nd lan card, or get an M.2 lan card as I need dual lan.  All I need to run is a parallel adapter and a Gbit lan, so it may even be possible to split another pcie port to run two devices or more.  Not sure.

This brings me to a question that has come to mind during this posting....

Anyone know if you could conceivably run four of these M.2 drives on a single pcie x16 slot in raid 10?(with a controller/adapter of course if they make one yet that will use 16 pcie lanes)

I'm noticing that with the exception of Xeons and Gen4 i7 processors we are also apparently still stuck with cpu's that only support 16 pcie lanes.  Anyone know if gen6 i-series are going to break this barrier soon?

Forum doesn't seem to like me posting links.

http://www.gigabyte.us/products/list.aspx?s=42&jid=0&p=346&v=27

I've been reading a bunch of these posts as I am also considering the 950 pro for an 8900.  Most certainly 1x or 2x PCIe must be the case. There is nothing confusing about the 10Gbps and the slower than max drive speeds you are reporting on the M.2 interface - that is what the interface on this motherboard supports.  Higher end mbs with 1151 slot (mainly the Asus I have looked at) actually show a 32Gbps capability out of the M.2 slot, while most of the Gigabyte boards I have looked at, as well as many others only support 10Gbps. This makes me sad (the xps 8900) as I had initially thought maybe I happened upon a gem for a ridiculously low price.  Building the same system as this with higher end components, but equal amounts of ram, cpu, hd space etc. I was looking at about 40-50% more with the 32 Gbps M.2 slot.  That said, still the cheapest you are going to get a computer with or without operating system that has the same capability.  Or at least if you bought it on sale - I don't think I have ever bought one any other way, and I have an 8100, two 8300s, and an 8700 as well as the 8900 now. I need the other pcie slots for other things, though I can likely find an adapter or card for one of those things so I can sacrifice the other M.2 1x slot (presumably 1x at any rate) that the wireless is plugged into and run my other needed peripheral through.  Going to take a look right after this if I can run an adapter from micro pcie to M.2 for my 2nd lan card, or get an M.2 lan card as I need dual lan.  All I need to run is a parallel adapter and a Gbit lan, so it may even be possible to split another pcie port to run two devices or more.  Not sure. This brings me to a question that has come to mind during this posting.... Anyone know if you could conceivably run four of these M.2 drives on a single pcie x16 slot in raid 10?(with a controller/adapter of course if they make one yet that will use 16 pcie lanes) I'm noticing that with the exception of Xeons and Gen4 i7 processors we are also apparently still stuck with cpu's that only support 16 pcie lanes.  Anyone know if gen6 i-series are going to break this barrier soon?