XPS 8950, adding two PCIe cards, run two M.2 NVMe SSD

Question

I am thinking it might be time to put the XPS 8910 out to pasture and buy a new XPS 8950. I have been reviewing many 8950 posts and saw one from mid-summer 2022 where someone wanted to do the same thing as my Subject. It appeared he was worried about the GPU, directly adjacent to one slot putting out too much heat and causing one of the NVME's to throttle. Unfortunately, the OP did not come back to explain if he did it and if it worked or maybe he went in a different direction.

After reading the OP and replies a few times, I was still confused about the two PCIe x4 slots on the sytem board. Something from that OP seemed to imply that the GPU was in the way of one of the PCIe x4 slots so he could not install two NVME's in this manner? Then there was his concern about heat from the GPU.

So, is it physically possible with a big GPU installed, adding two PCIe x4 cards containing an NVME card? And then is heat a concern?

If I go with the 8950, I'm including the water -cooled CPU option for the Intel I9. My 8910 always ran hot and still does. Hoping the 8950 is better with the new cooling design and the water cooler for the CPU.

Not sure which GPU yet but likely an NVDIA 3070 or 3080 10-12 GB. I am not a gamer so I imagine this is a bit overkill on the GPU. I do a lot of Zoom stuff and have a 32" UHD monitor for some of my work, reading old hand-written documents. Could you suggest a less expensive GPU, min 8gb, better 10-12 gb?

I am thinking of trying to get away from any mechanical drives and have 3 NVME's. It is expensive but is this approach sound?

One OS NVME on the system board and one in each PCI NVME add on cards. One for Data and the other dedicated backups. I am backing up a few other PC's in the home presently over Ethernet.

Thx DD

Vic384 · Answer

@DD660 The XPS 8950 has two M.2 NVMe slots on the motherboard.

Chino de Oro · Answer

Hello @DD660 , if you like a solid build machine with flexible and open options for future upgrade, I suggest you to check out the Dell Precision line, a 5820 with flex bay will allow up to 2 NVMe and 2 SATA drives, removeable for hot swap.  Internally, you can add up to 6 more NVMe SSD via 2 PCIe slots.  Another 4 SATA hard drive or SSD (2.5') can be added to the 5.25' drive bay.  It comes with standard 950w PSU for most of high power GPU you ' been thinking of.  Cooling system is way better than the XPS due to its spacious case with several fans.  You can get scalable Xeon or core X CPU and massive amount of memory, depending on your needs.  You can review the specs here to get some idea.

jovan · Answer

Yes, the board has very bad design, pcieX4 slot, near to thick graphic card is useless, I tried multiple cards for m.2, did not work. I tried the card in other dlot, bios did not take it automatically to boot, somebody said in this forum that you have to go to bios and change boot order.  So far I have very panic and not happy experience with those 2 pciex4 slots.

Tesla1856 · Answer

@DD660 wrote:

I am thinking ... buy a new XPS 8950.

1. After reading the OP and replies a few times, I was still confused about the two PCIe x4 slots on the system board. Something from that OP seemed to imply that the GPU was in the way of one of the PCIe x4 slots so he could not install two NVME's in this manner? Then there was his concern about heat from the GPU.

2. If I go with the 8950, I'm including the water -cooled CPU option for the Intel I9.

3. Not sure which GPU yet but likely an NVDIA 3070 or 3080 10-12 GB. I am not a gamer so I imagine this is a bit overkill on the GPU.

4. I am thinking of trying to get away from any mechanical drives and have 3 NVME's. It is expensive but is this approach sound?

5. One OS NVME on the system board and one in each PCI NVME add on cards. One for Data and the other dedicated backups.

1. If machine has two on-board NVMe-SSD slots, sometimes the second one ends up under a GPU. As long as the SSD doesn't have a heat-sink attached (making it too tall or thick), everything should still fit. Hard to say without exact parts mentioned.

2. Yes, if going Intel-i9 (or even Intel-i7) I would go with Liquid-Cooling. Also, get the more-powerful power-supply.

3. Nvidia RTX-3070 will work. Good processing power and will run multiple monitors. Shouldn't get too hot.

4. Definitely ... no spinning-platter HDD. SSDs only please. You can also install 2.5in SATA-3/600 SSDs. Those work nice for storage.

5. I installed one of these PCIe x4 NVMe-SSD cards in my Aurora-R6 and it works fine.

DD660 · Answer

I agree, under the GPU does not seem like a good spot.  Of course, not an issue if someone is happy with the on-board video, but that is not for me.  You may have to go to bios and change boot order indeed.  Also, in my XPS 8910, the on-board M.2 is apparently part of the RAID controller.  I am not using RAID and actually did not know the controller was RAID or SCSI.That changes how you can boot it, clone it, etc.  I have a post from a few days ago in the XPS 8950 forum about the issues I had cloning my NVME M.e card and upgrading 500 GB to 1 TB, using Acronis to clone.  There is a specific order to that process so the boot drive gets the correct drivers.

DD660 · Answer

Thx for the notes.  I was looking at that PCIe card on Amazon.  Now that I saw the two internal M.2 slots, that would likely handle what I would like to do.  No mechanical drives, all SSD.  I guess the M.2 under the GPU could get too warm?  I guess the reason I did not see the 2nd M.2 slot was that the system board pic had the GPU installed LOL

DD660 · Answer

Vic, thx.  I looked over the system board pic about 5 times and didn't see it.  Today, I saw it!!

DD660 · Answer

Also, as a followup, I tried to put a PCIe x4 NVMe M.2 card in my XPS 8910 and two of them so far, have not worked.  I even changed the XPS 8910 from RAID to AHCI in hopes the add on card would work but it did not.  I have another card coming tomorrow, form a different manufacturer.  I know Dell knows about it not working in the XPS8950 and hope they have figured it out.  I am about to buy the XPS8950 and need 3 NVme M.2 cards

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XPS 8950, adding two PCIe cards, run two M.2 NVMe SSD

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