X99 chipset and bootable m.2 NVMe in RAID 0: Is this possible?

[KJinMN]

Premise: Building a truly obscene system. I7 6950x, 128gb RAM, 2 X WD black in RAID 1 for storage, dual (To be determined) video cards in SLI, 1000w modular PS, water cooled processor and video... (Partial parts list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/FLw4Gf ) I want to put Windows and core programs on dual 1tb Samsung 960 in RAID 0 for nearly 'instant on' system post and performance.

I cannot seem to locate a MB that has dual M.2 slots and will support the I7 6950x and 128gb Ram. Am I missing something? I know I am building a fast machine,but I do actually need reliability first. Guidance appreciated.

Actual question: Is there a Motherboard on the market that will support this configuration?

 

[KJinMN]

Bump...

 

[USAFRet]

NVMe SSD + RAID 0 = Don't do that
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-950-pro-256gb-raid-report,4449.html

 

[Karadjgne]

Started out life on Windows 7 with a Sata 3 Samsung 840pro. Cold boot to Internet access was 8 seconds flat. Then added all the other crap that goes along with startups, like office, av, etc and now boot is 22-23 seconds. NVMe I'd be looking at 17-18 seconds. Raid won't increase you to 'instant on' no matter what you try, or how much money you spend. It's pointless. The cpu can only process so much info at any given time, and it's going to take what it takes.

128Gb of ram is wasted unless you have the right programs to actually use it as in semi to professional grade rendering etc, even 32Gb of ram is wasted if just using for anything else, such as gaming or web surfing, at best you'll use 8-16Gb with most being closer to 8Gb.

Dont bother figuring on a 1k psu, it's just as easy to have a need for a 850w or a 1300w, depending exactly on what you end up with for drives and gpus.

Not to be insulting, but dropping @$7k on a pc that'll run @1-2% better than a $2k pc is in a word... mental.

To answer the question, yes and no. There are dual M.2 slot native boards, but the second slot shares bandwidth with the Sata ports, shutting some of them down if the M.2 slot is used, kinda defeating the purpose. You could also use the 960 pcie instead of M.2, saving the Sata, but that also can have issues, kinda defeating the purpose. Pretty much, best bet is not to try and run the NVMe in raid, just a single boot drive, single working drive and a single backup hdd.

 

[KJinMN]

Thanks for the link on the NVMe Raid, USAFRet. Any thoughts on the tech changes over the last year and how they might change the conclusion?

Karadjgne, while your "Not to be insulting" comment is, in a word: "Insulting" ;-) ;-) ;-)

Seriously though... I appreciate the other commentary. The intended use of the system is multifaceted, including a plan for rendering, heavy video editing, and a large amount of future-proofing.

 

[USAFRet]

RAID 0 does not scale like it did with HDD's.

Even regular SATA III SSD's don't benefit from it, outside of some very small corner cases.

 

[Karadjgne]

Well that's just the thing I was thinking about. Imagine keeping your pc for the next 6 years or so, that's $1k a year. But 3 years into it, the 2011-3 follows the same pattern as 1366 or even 2011, so with the upcoming tech advances 6 years from now you'll have a expensive boat anchor. Transferable parts like the loop or hdds are no issue, might even salvage the ram, but a $2k build now, and another 2k build 2 years from now, then again in 4 years means not only did you spend the same amount of cash, but the latest pc is superior to the $7k you might have spent now. This is computer technology, there is no such thing as future proofing. 3 years ago you could have spent a ton of cash on big Sata 3 SSDs to 'future proof' but they are half what a NVMe can do now.

Would that pc last for years? Sure, it's so overblown for today's standards that sheer size alone will encompass any possible program out there. There's not much of anything that'll take advantage of 10 cores, even less that'll take advantage of 128Gb of ram and thats almost half the budget. In a professional setting where time really is money and demands are real, having those credentials could be important, but anything less like a standard lga1151 i7 plus the 64Gb of ram will do the same job in almost the same amount of time at a fraction of the cost.

 

[Zerk2012]

I would question some of that build mainly the drive setup and the SLI 1070's.
What are you going to use that PC for?

 

[KJinMN]

I would question some of that build mainly the drive setup and the SLI 1070's.
What are you going to use that PC for?

The intended use of the system is multifaceted, including a plan for rendering, heavy video editing, and a large amount of future-proofing.

What puzzles you about the drive setup?
What puzzles you about the video cards?

 

[KJinMN]

Well that's just the thing I was thinking about. Imagine keeping your pc for the next 6 years or so, that's $1k a year. But 3 years into it, the 2011-3 follows the same pattern as 1366 or even 2011, so with the upcoming tech advances 6 years from now you'll have a expensive boat anchor. Transferable parts like the loop or hdds are no issue, might even salvage the ram, but a $2k build now, and another 2k build 2 years from now, then again in 4 years means not only did you spend the same amount of cash, but the latest pc is superior to the $7k you might have spent now. This is computer technology, there is no such thing as future proofing. 3 years ago you could have spent a ton of cash on big Sata 3 SSDs to 'future proof' but they are half what a NVMe can do now.

Would that pc last for years? Sure, it's so overblown for today's standards that sheer size alone will encompass any possible program out there. There's not much of anything that'll take advantage of 10 cores, even less that'll take advantage of 128Gb of ram and thats almost half the budget. In a professional setting where time really is money and demands are real, having those credentials could be important, but anything less like a standard lga1151 i7 plus the 64Gb of ram will do the same job in almost the same amount of time at a fraction of the cost.

While I agree with your statement, the PC will have 5 users. 2 will be doing the video editing, 1 will be doing cad work, and one will be doing office work and photo presentations, and one will be doing some office, some gaming. The family was presented with a very nice mid range build and chose every upgrade available. Their main aim was a machine that would meet all their needs now, with room to grow in the middle future, and stave off having to buy a new PC for as long as possible. The last machine I built them was a similar plan and lasted them 8 1/2 years and succumbed to a failure brought on by fan failure and subsequent overheating. With the basic premise, that a computer will always perform the tasks it was able to do when it was purchased, and judging by the growth of the CAD demands of a system over the last decade, I am estimating this system will perform everything they need it to now, and be able to withstand CAD program upgrade/needs for the next 5 years, as well as the other needs for much longer. The old maxed out system still met the system requirements for Autocad even today... While I am a constant tinkerer, and re-do my own system frequently, they wanted something that wouldn't need to be replaced every couple of years.

 

[USAFRet]

5 users?
Hopefully these are not concurrent users.

In which case, 2 or 3 systems, for the same total $$ outlay, would serve far better.

That system is overkill for some of those uses, waaaaay overkill for others.

A $5,000 PC 6 years ago is laughable today.
A $7,000 PC today, will be just as laughable in 2023.

 

[Karadjgne]

I have 3x pc's and a laptop in my home. My pc is upstairs in the sanctity of My bedroom, so is untouched by others. My wife's pc is a free for use that's sits in a nook downstairs and then my daughter has her laptop and my son has his joke.
Gotta say, do t think I've ever seen all 4 in use at the same time, although technically it's possible they might have been. The wife's sees common use by youngest, where it's quite visible to anyone downstairs (prevents a lot of misunderstanding and unwanted web traffic) so while she's active on fifa17, I'm free to game as I please, while my oldest can still do her college homework. I've done it this way for 1 simple reason. I refuse to allow my pc to become a timeshare.
And I can see that happening with 5 users all wanting a piece of that pc. Even 2 ppl wanting use can cause tension. A $3500 main pc and a $2000 additional would not only be cheaper, but allows that family an option without really sacrificing pc quality or abilities. On the upside, having 2x means if 1 ever does break then the family still has the other, even on a temporary basis, until the broken one is fixed. Consider it like a raid array. This way one could be built with the CAD work in mind, not needing huge amounts of gpu power, just storage, and the other as a more general purpose /gaming build or whatever. Simple matter to network a single printer via WiFi.

Just a thought.

 

[KJinMN]

I have 3x pc's and a laptop in my home. My pc is upstairs in the sanctity of My bedroom, so is untouched by others. My wife's pc is a free for use that's sits in a nook downstairs and then my daughter has her laptop and my son has his joke.
Gotta say, do t think I've ever seen all 4 in use at the same time, although technically it's possible they might have been. The wife's sees common use by youngest, where it's quite visible to anyone downstairs (prevents a lot of misunderstanding and unwanted web traffic) so while she's active on fifa17, I'm free to game as I please, while my oldest can still do her college homework. I've done it this way for 1 simple reason. I refuse to allow my pc to become a timeshare.
And I can see that happening with 5 users all wanting a piece of that pc. Even 2 ppl wanting use can cause tension. A $3500 main pc and a $2000 additional would not only be cheaper, but allows that family an option without really sacrificing pc quality or abilities. On the upside, having 2x means if 1 ever does break then the family still has the other, even on a temporary basis, until the broken one is fixed. Consider it like a raid array. This way one could be built with the CAD work in mind, not needing huge amounts of gpu power, just storage, and the other as a more general purpose /gaming build or whatever. Simple matter to network a single printer via WiFi.

Just a thought.

There are multiple laptop and tablet machines in their home for general use. I did offer the same advice, but their home plan involves one stationary workstation. They want that one to be the big powerhouse. I did offer a mid-range build and this is what they wanted to upgrade to... Your perspective has solid wisdom, but isn't what they asked for or want, so I am providing what they did want.
I suppose it is a bit like buying a car that will do 0-100 in 6 seconds, and top out at 210. In reality we don't drive like that, and even selling cars that do defies some logic. There are people who buy them and spend their whole lives driving at or near the speed limit anyway.

 

[Karadjgne]

I own a Dodge Charger R/T that'll do 0-60 in 4.9 seconds and'll top out somewhere around 200mph. My wife named the car Scarlet (for obvious reasons) and it's her daily driver. So yeah, I totally get it. Lol. If that's what the customer wants, is prepared to pay for it, knows the info about it, build it. Just talk them out of the SSD raid, it won't help them and will just add money to the bill.

Congrats. You get to build a dream machine (you should see some of the posts of hypothetical. builds others come up with) and you have solid reasons for doing so.

Cheers.

 

[hobo6102]

Win10 and maybe earlier supports mirroring the boot drive. It's slower on the write side but insane on the read side. On my Asus X99-E WS 10G mobo I have two Patriot Hellfire drives on carrier cards with heatsinks. And no, the chipset does not support a raid on the PCIex storage as confirmed by Asus support.

CrystalDiskMark is not a good real life benchmark but I'm comparing between numbers with my other drives and none of them come close to half of this read speed. Yes, 4k speeds are higher on single drives but you need to cry to Bill Gates for the poor design of Win10 with regards to SSDs which is utter shite.