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XPS 8930, Fan, RAM, upgrade questions (Noob)
Hi all,
Purchased a new XPS 8930 for work (without knowing about all the fan issues). Under heavy rendering the tower sounds like a jet engine and I'm afraid it can't handle the heavy computing. Can anyone help me find (with direct links) the Noctua fans to purchase AND the respective Aurora brackets? Seems like all the brackets are unavailable on eBay. And I know this has been talked about repeatedly, but still a little confused, there are THREE fans in total to replace in the XPS 8930?
Also, my machine came with 32GB of RAM - but I want to upgrade to 64GB. Can anyone recommend the best upgrade to go with? Should I just purchase another 16*2 cards from Dell? Or change altogether to 16*4 or 32*2 (via Samsung etc)? I had read buying more RAM from Dell was expensive.. any thoughts here would be appreciated (and direct links on where to purchase). THANK YOU.
Machine Specs:
Intel i9 9900
NVIDIA® GeForce RTX™ 2070 SUPER 8GB GDDR6
32GB DDR4 at 2666MHz
512GB M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD (Boot) + 2TB 7200RPM 3.5" SATA HDD (Storage)
nxlp1414
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May 19th, 2020 15:00
@Anonymous Thanks for looking into this. Did you notice a huge performance gain by switching out your fans? I'm weighing whether it's worth it for me. Especially given that I don't have the K processor (in retrospect I should have done more due diligence before purchasing and maybe should have gone for an Alienware tower instead). Thanks all for the advice.
Anonymous
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April 23rd, 2020 09:00
@nxlp1414
Post some photos of the inside of your pc showing top exhaust fan and CPU cooler.
You can get 2 x 16GB RAM modules at Crucial.com.
Anonymous
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April 23rd, 2020 10:00
@Vic384 For the RAM upgrade @GKDesigns
Would you recommend 'dual ranked' or 'single ranked' . . . does it matter? what is the difference?
Anonymous
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April 23rd, 2020 10:00
@nxlp1414 I'll take some photos soon and will revert back.
OK, great. Photos are worth 1,000 words (each) and can save a lot of back and forth questions.
Vic384
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April 23rd, 2020 10:00
@nxlp1414 I would not consider the higher speed (DDR4-3000, DDR4-3200, etc.) kits because your computer will only run the RAM at 2666 MHz. The Dell BIOS does not offer an option to change the memory speed. You would be wasting your money buying the higher speed memory.
Vic384
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April 23rd, 2020 10:00
For the RAM upgrade, I would recommend going to crucial.com and looking at their one of their 2x16GB kits.
GKDesigns
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April 23rd, 2020 10:00
@nxlp1414
I upgraded two case fans as explained here:
https://www.dell.com/community/XPS-Desktops/XPS-8930-how-is-the-cooling-in-the-i9-9900/m-p/7508730/highlight/true#M46666
GK
nxlp1414
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April 23rd, 2020 10:00
@Anonymous Thank you much. I know you have shown a ton of work on this topic so I appreciate the reply. I'll take some photos soon and will revert back.
Does it matter if I mix brands on the RAM modules? So it'll be 2x16 DELL, and 2x16 Crucial.
@GKDesigns Thank you very much. This is helpful and I'm going to read your thread a few times to understand it better.
@Vic384 Thank you! What's the difference between all of their kits? DDR-3200, 3000, 3600 etc...
nxlp1414
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April 23rd, 2020 10:00
@Vic384 Ok makes sense - thanks for helping me out!
Vic384
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April 23rd, 2020 11:00
@Anonymous I don't think it matters but I would recommend that memory modules on the same channel have the same ranks (single or dual). Here are some articles on the subject of single vs dual ranks:
https://www.oempcworld.com/support/singlevsdualram.html
https://www.crucial.com/support/articles-faq-memory/what-is-a-memory-rank
nxlp1414
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May 18th, 2020 21:00
Thanks all for the help. I was able to upgrade the ram easily to 64GB with Crucial.
Here's the inside of the PC. I'm pretty surprised - the top exhaust fan actually looks like it's 120mm from the factory (maybe Dell has changed this recently?). But I'm still getting loud fan noises under heavy rendering. Let me know what you think, thanks!
Anonymous
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May 19th, 2020 06:00
@nxlp1414 I'm pretty surprised - the top exhaust fan actually looks like it's 120mm from the factory
No such luck . . . that is a 92mm top exhaust fan . . . and the non-'K' CPU cooler. Below is a 120mm exhaust fan and the blower style CPU fan/heatsink. (click photo to embiggen)
speedstep
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May 19th, 2020 11:00
Single Ranked usually has chips on one side
Dual Ranked usually has chips on both sides
Quad Ranked is High Density and is not supported.
Mixing Ranks in banks is not recommended.
Mixing vendors is not recommended.
Ram is installed in pairs where the white ears are bank 0 and the black ears are bank 1.
Its 1 then 3 2 then 4 NOT 1 2 3 4
Anonymous
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May 19th, 2020 18:00
@nxlp1414 Did you notice a huge performance gain by switching out your fans?
Not a 'performance' gain, but much more quiet and cool running. I would suggest you at least change out the top exhaust fan to a 120mm Noctua. It should be easy because you have clear access with without having to remove the CPU fan and heatsink.
nxlp1414
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May 22nd, 2020 11:00
@Anonymous @Thx. What’s the difference between 3pin and 4pin for the Noctua fans? And do you recommend adding two Noctua 92mm case fans onto the removable door? Is that a difficult mod?