My Xeon 7760 with RTX5000 died this week, so I replaced it with a Pro Max 18 Plus Ultra 9 285HX RTX PRO 3000. So far, I'm very happy with the new workstation. I use it mostly for SolidWorks (small assemblies) and Video editing for a YouTube channel I run.
I pulled the bottom cover off, started looking at the storage, and I’m trying to figure out if anyone is actually running a Gen5 NVMe in one of these. Which led me to this site and post.
Dell only offers up to 2TB now, no 4TB option anymore (was available). My assumption is that’s thermal-related and not a platform limitation.
I moved over three 980 Pros from the 7760, and was originally planning to grab a 2TB 990 Pro for the boot drive. But Gen5, pricing looks much cheaper, so it got me thinking and doing some research.
The boot drive is isolated to the side, but there’s no dedicated heatsink setup for the drive. Looks like you’re relying on airflow and whatever thermal pads Dell is using.
So the real question:
Anyone actually running a Gen5 drive in one of these?
If so, what drive and what temps are you seeing under sustained load? I'm leaning towards the 9100 since I have all Samsung now.
Any throttling issues?
I’m less concerned about peak speeds and more about real-world behavior, especially longer writes (video/render workloads).
Curious what people are seeing before I go experiment on my own. Thanks in advance.
