For general use - moving files around and playing games, would you have an Optane boot drive or PCie gen 5?

[Desktopstu]

I accept that most people wont see much advantage if any between PCie Gen 4 (or maybe even gen 3) compared to Gen 5 or Optane in real use terms. But lets say I had a motherboard with a PCie 5 compatable M.2 slot, what would be the better choice? an Optane Windows boot drive or a Gen 5 boot drive (such as Crucial T700).

 

[dgianstefani]

Optane.

No question about it.

3x faster low queue depth read than the fastest NAND drives. Endurance an order of magnitude better. Latency better. No variation in performance as drive fills or if write operations go on for longer than 15 or so seconds. Can rewrite a single bit not the whole block. Etc. List goes on.

For normal use there's practically no noticeable difference between a gen 3 NVMe or a gen 5.

See those flat lines? That's Optane.

 

[Desktopstu]

Optane.

No question about it.

3x faster low queue depth read than the fastest NAND drives. Endurance an order of magnitude better. Latency better. No variation in performance as drive fills or if write operations go on for longer than 15 or so seconds. Can rewrite a single bit not the whole block. Etc. List goes on.

For normal use there's practically no noticeable difference between a gen 3 NVMe or a gen 5.

See those flat lines? That's Optane.

View attachment 347403

View attachment 347400

Optane tends to come in quite small capacities - which is fine as i would most likley use it as a boot drive. I notice that some drives appear to be hybrid Optane/mass drives, like the Optane H10 / M10, I take it these are not as effective as something like an Optane P1600X?

Also, Does Optane need a fast PCie slot such as Gen 4 or 5? Please excuse my ignorance here.

 

[Waldorf]

one major advantage is the optanes dont really need big HS like some on the gen5..

 

[Assimilator]

Optane is better, but it's also dead, so not much point in asking.

Also, Does Optane need a fast PCie slot such as Gen 4 or 5? Please excuse my ignorance here.

Try reading the screenshot that @dgianstefani posted.

 

[Vya Domus]

Optane tends to come in quite small capacities - which is fine as i would most likley use it as a boot drive.

This isn't going to improve anything, your OS isn't the bottleneck.

 

[Desktopstu]

Optane is better, but it's also dead, so not much point in asking.


Try reading the screenshot that @dgianstefani posted.

Why is optane dead if it’s still faster/better than gen 5?

 

[kapone32]

Why is optane dead if it’s still faster/better than gen 5?

No more production

 

[overclockedamd]

Why is optane dead if it’s still faster/better than gen 5?

Intel stopped production as they did not see a market for it as NAND was progressing so fast and at higher capacities it was a very niche market.

 

[Hardcore Games]

AFAIK Micron make some optane logic but 2TB is about the capacity limit at present
No sure if the patent has expired yet which would reduce the bill of materials fast'

 

[Desktopstu]

The hybrid drives available- those with l6gb+large capacity, will these still work with newer hardware?

 

[dgianstefani]

The hybrid drives available- those with l6gb+large capacity, will these still work with newer hardware?

You don't want those.

 

[bonehead123]

Optane is better, but it's also dead

^THIS^

No more production

^^And this ^^

Dead, done, dead, more dead x2 ....

IF you like spending your money on dead stuff, then by all means go for it....otherwise just grab some 4TB SN850X's or Crucial T700's & be happy

 

[R0H1T]

Optane is dead not just because of capacity issues, it was a real gas guzzler & inefficient as compared to the best SSD's of its time. Those reminiscing about how great "Optane" was in QD1 probably forget that, the latest gen SSD's are only getting more efficient.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

Optane is dead not just because of capacity issues, it was a real gas guzzler & inefficient as compared to the best SSD's of its time. Those reminiscing about how great "Optane" was in QD1 probably forget that, the latest gen SSD's are only getting more efficient.

This is optane ssd not optane memory. Same name, different devices.

 

[R0H1T]

What's Optane memory?

Intel® Optane™ SSD DC P5800X Series (800GB, 2.5in PCIe x4, 3D XPoint™) - Product Specifications | Intel

Intel® Optane™ SSD DC P5800X Series (800GB, 2.5in PCIe x4, 3D XPoint™) quick reference with specifications, features, and technologies.

ark.intel.com

Intel® Optane™ DC SSD Series Product Specifications

Intel® Optane™ DC SSD Series product listing with links to detailed product features and specifications.

ark.intel.com

It's a DC variant & is sold as SSD.

You're probably talking about this ~

Intel® Optane™ Persistent Memory (PMem)

Intel® Optane™ persistent memory delivers the unprecedented combination of high-capacity, affordability, and persistence.

www.intel.com

 

[TumbleGeorge]

What's Optane memory?

Generally speaking, what my colleagues and I have in mind is a board with a controller and non-volatile memory chips, which, unlike the one in SSD, is not nand flash, despite the exterior similarity.

 

[R0H1T]

Ok but that's just semantics, Intel sold Optane because of its "memory" capabilities i.e. data retention, endurance etc.

Intel® Optane™ Memory Series (32GB, M.2 80mm PCIe 3.0, 20nm, 3D Xpoint™) - Product Specifications | Intel

Intel® Optane™ Memory Series (32GB, M.2 80mm PCIe 3.0, 20nm, 3D Xpoint™) quick reference with specifications, features, and technologies.

ark.intel.com

They marketed a lot of their products as Optane memory.

Intel® Optane™ Memory Product Specifications

Intel® Optane™ Memory product listing with links to detailed product features and specifications.

ark.intel.com

I initially thought you'd said the numbers from the Toms review in my post were for PMem module.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

I initially thought you'd said the numbers from the Toms review in my post were for PMem module

No. I said that Tom's review is for ordinary SSD with name Optane. Which use nand flash chips and have same problems like any other SSD when moving really big files and fullfil it's "SLC" buffer.

 

[R0H1T]

Yes I misunderstood what your initial post was about, the optane "memory" part is still relevant because that's how Intel marketed it's superior capabilities at the time. Too bad they didn't have the stomach to keep investing/improving it over time!

Which use nand flash chips and have same problems like any other SSD when moving really big files and fullfil it's "SLC" buffer.

Samsung tried to overcome it with their ZNAND once ~

The Samsung 983 ZET (Z-NAND) SSD Review: How Fast Can Flash Memory Get?

www.anandtech.com

It's only really a problem if you're writing constantly to the SSD.

 

[SPDIF]

No need for industrial or expensive solutions, just a good PCIE SSD will do the job perfectly... The modern SSD now on the market are powerfully enough to do what you want to do.

And also never fill up an SSD completely for a longer life.

 

[Waldorf]

@R0H1T
with most gpu setups wasting 10-100x the amount of power, having 1 or 10w on a drive is almost irrelevant,
ppl are better off finding a psu that runs at ~50% under "game" load.
ignoring i can easily make for certain "waste", e.g. im on power savings profile with max cpu clocks limited to 60%,
saving a lot more than just 10w, or in my case having four "fast" gen 4 drives.

@SPDIF
depends: find me one brand that still overs "pure" SLC drives for consumers.
i would be willing to spend a bit more for higher quality nand, and only use 3 drives for data backup (int/ext + seperate location)..

 

[LiKenun]

2TB is about the capacity limit at present

Intel Optane P5800X 3.2 TB is the fastest and highest capacity; I own one.

It came really late. Strangely, it wasn’t even the last to market. Intel release some lower capacity P5801Xs in E1.S 15 mm form factor, which only recently became available to buy. Still waiting for the Optane corpse to stop twitching…

The hybrid drives available- those with l6gb+large capacity, will these still work with newer hardware?

Those are a nightmare. Do not buy. I spent a hefty chunk of change (on PCIe switches, cables, adapters, enclosures, etc.) in the name of science to try to make those work… Consider them proprietary and abandoned. They’re designed in a way that would never work in a normal system—even a modern Intel one after the thirteenth generation.

Intel stopped production as they did not see a market for it as NAND was progressing so fast and at higher capacities it was a very niche market.

Another postmortem take: the walled garden Intel built around its Optane tech contributed in part to keeping the market out. (That’s in addition to many of the other reasons including confusing marketing around what Optane was.)

Optane is dead not just because of capacity issues, it was a real gas guzzler & inefficient as compared to the best SSD's of its time. Those reminiscing about how great "Optane" was in QD1 probably forget that, the latest gen SSD's are only getting more efficient.

Isn’t simple file copying just sequential I/O, which isn’t the primary strength of Optane? For those whose workload counts on low latency (which no NAND comes close to), why does this efficiency even matter?

 

[RootinTootinPootin]

I am also contemplating on grabbing the Optane 900P, yes it is fast but what workload that I do would benefit it, I just game on this PC, though a nice fast huge storage like the P5800X would be enticing if it was cheap.

 

[LiKenun]

I just game on this PC, though a nice fast huge storage like the P5800X would be enticing if it was cheap.

At the prices they sell it for now, for the gamer market there are only a small minority of potential customers:

1. Those who will buy it just because they can
2. Those with more money than sense

Both refer to the same group of people.

Used solely for gaming, the market value of the drives would depreciate faster than what the gamer could enjoy over the tech’s lifespan. What games demand of their storage host is also not a match for what Optanes provide. From the limited number of games I’ve checked out, the files being loaded are just big compressed chunks loaded sequentially—hardly an exercise of Optane’s primary strength. It’s also unlikely that the installed games will stress its godly endurance either. Long before the Optane’s reached its serviceable lifespan, an even better tech at lower cost would have come into existence.

tl;dr: a gamer would have paid a premium far greater than the tech’s benefits over NAND and never be able to enjoy it before its obsolescence.

I am also contemplating on grabbing the Optane 900P, yes it is fast but what workload that I do would benefit it

Really, just day-to-day desktop-typical workloads. It’s where low-queue-depth performance shines. It’s just unfortunate that there is such a big mismatch between the pocket depth of the consumers who will benefit the most versus the cost of the tech.

You also ought to define what “fast” means to you.

From the perspective of a software engineer? These babies definitely speed up development/debug cycles.