The tech giant, Intel has recently unleashed the Optane 800p SSD which is the fastest SSD available in the market. It is the latest installment in the Optane series and packs the same 3D XPoint technology jointly developed with Micron.
The Intel Optane 800p is an M.2 NVMe SSD and is based on the same Memory M.2 drive used in its predecessor. This drive not only acts as a speed booster but also offers more storage and a dual drive configuration option or multiple SSD RAID configuration. It is blazingly fast in a smaller form factor; it looks more like a memory stick than an SSD.
While these drives are extremely durable and the fastest in the enterprise they still has so far been tough to sell as they offer limited bandwidth and capacity at such a hefty price.
- Specifications:
The Intel Optane P was manufactured as a high-end storage solution to use it as a stand alone boot drive. It comes in two storage options – 58GB and 118GB which we find tough to use it even as main drive; especially considering the 58 Gigs variant even if you install Windows 10 along with just a primary few apps you will constantly have to monitor available drive space left.
As mentioned earlier, these come in the M.2 form-factor and uses Intel’s 3D XPoint memory technology from the other optane products. The headline feature of this drive is that it delivers 1,000 times the performance, 1,000 times the speed, and 10 times the capacity of the traditional NAND.
Considering all the features it is loaded with, it still does not offer a good price to capacity ratio. The Optane 800P SSD with 58GB capacity will be available for $129 while the larger 118GB drive is priced at $199.
- Performance:
When it comes to performance the Intel Optane 800p is unbeatable in petty much anything you throw at it. The only down point in performance is that speed wise the drives are limited because of its PCIe 3.0 x2 interface that can only achieve up to 1,450MB/s and 640MB/s sequential read and write speeds, respectively. That is half as slow as the speeds we see from other mainstream NVMe drives, such as the Intel’s own 760p Series SSD and the Samsung 960 Evo.
However, it significantly speeds up boot and application launch times, as well as improve multi-tasking. Compared to a normal SSD the Intel Optane 800P gets the job done a lot faster in most cases. And those seconds will quickly add up over time.
- Final Verdict:
The Intel Optane 800p is really hard to recommend to someone as it lacks the bandwidth and capacity. The performance is great in some aspects and it does offer a boost but in the end, we cannot find any truly compelling reason consider the Intel Optane SSD 800P for your PC.
This tiny storage capacity at such a high price tag is completely unjustified. You can get other SSD offerings, for example, the highly popular 250GB Samsung 960 EVO in much less price. But if you have some grants making a hole in your pocket and fast speed is all you want then the Intel Optane 800P is for you.