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

[Waldorf]

@LiKenun
except most that do spend money above whats needed/works good, are usually not interested in keeping it for longer,
or we wouldnt see 3090/4090 sold used (outside of miners dumping stuff), and most make the desicion to get what can to the best for them,
not just because they can/want to waste money.

no one buys a +200K "4 door" car because they tend to have more value when sold used, they tend to buy stuff because they want/like it,
same with hw.
if you only do work/family and nothing else besides a couple of hours of gaming on an almost competitive (quality) level, would you buy a 7950X3D and a 4090
(plus eco system to support it) and run it on a 32in UHD@240Hz if your funds allow, or stick with a 7700X and a 4070S?
right...

 

[chrcoluk]

Optane, assuming reasonable enough capacity.

Dont know what went wrong here, there has been previous format wars where the best one doesnt always win, and usually when the worst one wins its because of economics.

I suppose the question we will never have the answer to is would it have been possible for Intel to make these at a more mainstream price. I cant help but feel the manufacturing margin was probably beefy, and Intel just had no interest at more mainstream margins, bear in mind Intel also pushed on their SSD division to another company, not just Optane.

 

[SPDIF]

You really do not need optane for playing games... Save your money for something else.

A samsung 980 or 990Pro or an WD850 (X) is more then suitable enough... Does it really matter if the load time is one or two seconds more?
And with a estimated TBW of around 1200, well... I tested with different ones and even a Crucial P3 Plus is fast enough to play comfortable at home.
Okay load time was longer, but so what? As long you don't have to wait minutes long, it doesn't hurt anything.

 

[Waldorf]

Not sure why everyone seems to limit pc use to loading times of games.
having +1GB/s transfer speed even on ext ssd vs the usual 500MB/s, makes a decent difference when i copy data for backup..

 

[SPDIF]

Most people nowadays have sleepless nights of a SSD that does not score good in Benchmarks or even gaming... What does it matter, just use it where it was made for...
We already are much better then before with the old platters, and still they all complain everywhere in various forums.

 

[dgianstefani]

Old platters actually had greater write endurance than modern NAND drives.

 

[RootinTootinPootin]

Not sure why everyone seems to limit pc use to loading times of games.
having +1GB/s transfer speed even on ext ssd vs the usual 500MB/s, makes a decent difference when i copy data for backup..

This is what I also usually do, it would be an ease to see more than that speed when I am doing my backups to external storages/SSD's

Old platters actually had greater write endurance than modern NAND drives

not until you accidentally drop them.. ouch!!

Most people nowadays have sleepless nights of a SSD that does not score good in Benchmarks or even gaming

its the same Sh!+ why we always upgrade and want the best and the latest, personally I wouldn't want my storage drives to be the slowest hardware on my PC and what's causing me issues.

 

[SPDIF]

The names i posted are not exactly the slowest ones...

 

[LiKenun]

@LiKenun
except most that do spend money above whats needed/works good, are usually not interested in keeping it for longer,
or we wouldnt see 3090/4090 sold used (outside of miners dumping stuff), and most make the desicion to get what can to the best for them,
not just because they can/want to waste money.

It’s not about discouraging people from choosing an overkill option. Far from it.

I’m an advocate of having Optane for the day-to-day desktop workloads, because that’s where you can actually feel the difference.

Games, on the other hand, are hindered by Optane. (This was the original question that started this thread, no?) Their files:

1. Are large;
2. Load sequentially; and
3. Don’t get overwritten all that often

#1 is a weakness for Optane, which trades capacity away for high endurance, low latency, and random I/O performance. Unless you’re only ever playing a handful of games (and still call yourself a gamer), your Optane media will be very full of large static files.
#2 is a weakness for Optane (anything that isn’t the P5800X 3.2 TB). Their sequential read throughput falls well below the PCIe interface they use.
#3 is a misapplication of Optane’s endurance.

In other words, by putting games on an Optane, you’re not using it for anything it’s actually good for.

Optane is awesome, but it’s not the winner in every case. That’s why it’s not simply a matter of being able to afford it so that it can solve all your storage problems. Because it does not.

Buy it for your OS, Chrome profile, and other applications. It also is a waste of money given how much more you are paying per GB. But at least it’s putting it to good use!

Spoiler: Do you still want it all?

Here is a shopping list:

1. 1 × HighPoint Rocket 7628A ― a PCIe 5.0 NVMe RAID adapter with 8 quad-lane ports
2. 4 × MCIO 8i-to-quad-lane U.2 cables (PCIe Gen 4)
3. 8 × Intel Optane P5800X 3.2 TB ― the ultimate Optane

When combined, you get the capacity, the low latency, the random read performance, the sequential performance, and all the things! This is truly a no-compromise package. Any I/O you request of it will always be fast in every regard, at all times, and sustained, whether you need it to be or not.

I estimate this to cost a princely sum of $36,000 minimum.

---

As for copying files (the other part of the original question), there are several follow-up questions that need to be answered:

1. What kind of files?
2. How big are the files?
3. What’s the access pattern?
4. What file system?

There’s no one size that fits all.

 

[RootinTootinPootin]

8 × Intel Optane P5800X 3.2 TB ― the ultimate Optane

Win..

I'm selling the house today..

 

[Waldorf]

@LiKenun
the OP asked for the difference, if used as BOOT drive, and moving files around would require at least 2 drives, so i assume at least the games will be on a different drive.
and me mentioning transfer speeds, was to show that drives faster tahn 500MB/s can be used properly.
ignoring that those that know how to answer those questions, usually arent the ones asking for advice between optane and gen5 on forums...

to quote you

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

this has nothing to do with the hw/perf, but is a personal observation/view, that really doesnt count, as its not your/our money being spent.

i now have six M.2's in use, 5 can do +3000MB/s R/W. do i need all of them that fast? no, but i didnt waste 3K on my setup, to save ~100 $/Euros on buying slower (than i can have) drives,
or drives using QLC nand.
still doesnt mean i wasted money (because i can), nor that i have less sense than money.

we can always give recommendations regarding cost, but its still up to the person that pays for it, on what and how much they are willing to "waste" their money on..

 

[R0H1T]

Like I said Optane is obsolete & has been for quiet a few years now, if you really want something close/better than it you can always have Primocache + any decent drive. The combo not only beats Optane on any performance metric but probably also endurance if you have deferred write enabled.

 

[dgianstefani]

Like I said Optane is obsolete & has been for quiet a few years now, if you really want something close/better than it you can always have Primocache + any decent drive. The combo not only beats Optane on any performance metric but probably also endurance if you have deferred write enabled.

You can say it. Doesn't make it true.

Optane failed commercially, not technically. It was and still is superior to NAND. Hence the high resale value and listings of new drives that are still bought every day.

 

[R0H1T]

What doesn't make it true? The performance of Primocache with R+W cache enabled is well documented, it is better than Optane. You saying it's not doesn't make it true

Optane failed commercially, not technically.

It failed in both ways.

 

[dgianstefani]

A P5800X blows literally any other drive out of the water in just about any metric. Besides short term sequential high queue depth numbers where actively cooled PCIE gen 5 drives are faster, for about 15 seconds, then it's back to 1/3 of the speed. Just like gen 4 NAND, and gen 3 NAND drives...

What doesn't make it true? The performance of Primocache with R+W cache enabled is well documented, it is better than Optane. You saying it's not doesn't make it true .

And, pray tell, what stops you from using a RAM drive/primocache with Optane?

It failed in both ways.

 

[R0H1T]

A P5800X blows literally any other drive out of the water in just about any metric.

Except power? The other obvious issue is that you can't get these in most places outside the US with a warranty, even in the US it's probably pretty rare.

And, pray tell, what stops you from using a RAM drive/primocache with optane?

Well low capacity & high price for one.

If you're buying new I'd always recommend something with a warranty.

 

[dgianstefani]

Regardless of your opinion, something with 100x (or greater) the endurance and 3x (or more) the speed is not a technical failure. The power draw is irrelevant when you consider the performance and the target market (datacentre). Idle power is irrelevant these aren't going in laptops.

Except power? The other obvious issue is that you can't get these in most places outside the US with a warranty, even in the US it's probably pretty rare.


Well low capacity & high price for one.

If you're buying new I'd always recommend something with a warranty.

That's a budget issue. Warranty. Nice. I'm glad of my NAND warranty that will fail after 600 cell writes. Makes my data so much more secure knowing I can replace the drive for free with a blank drive after a week or so of waiting.

Besides many of these are still in warranty.

 

[R0H1T]

The fact that Intel couldn't improve it to lower costs beyond a gen or two is a technical failure, regardless of your opinion on it. There was a paper(opinion?) on Toms I read sometime back where they said 3d NAND couldn't realistically scale beyond 190 odd layers, we're well past that & that's why NAND is where it is today.

 

[dgianstefani]

The fact that Intel couldn't improve it to lower costs beyond a gen or two is a technical failue, regardless of your opinion on it.

You're welcome to think what you like. Telling people who may not know better that something that is faster and lasts longer is obsolete is another thing.

 

[R0H1T]

Sure you can reminisce all you want but the market has spoken.

 

[dgianstefani]

Sure you can reminisce all you want but the market has spoken.

Yeah. Every day. When people who are technically savvy buy these drives on the open market for a premium since they can comprehend the value of them.

Intel selling their SSD business and closing up shop isn't the argument you think it is.

 

[R0H1T]

Intel's SSD business was different from 3d xpoint, it was sold to SK Hynix & is still going strong under the new owner. Even Micron couldn't do much about Optane, whether that was just short term thinking or something else fundamentally wrong with the tech we'll never know.

 

[Waldorf]

@R0H1T
except applying your own "metric", has nothing to do with the item.
enthusiast dont buy based on idle power use or cost, as well as that instantly changes with your funds.
the value lies in the eye of the person opening their wallet, so just because you think its not "worth it", doesnt mean the whole planet sees it that way.

and i know more than a few items im willing to buy used, as long as there is some kind of ability to check in person/or covered by some form of money back
(in case its not as promised).
e.g.
Reserator V1 or a 1m passive rad tower, if less than 200 (i can wish)
logitech Z2300, for fun, google what they cost new, and how much ppl want used.

all those i would gladly buy with any (future) warranty coverage, cause there is nothing else able to perf identically, unless it costs even more than those, when they were new...

 

[LiKenun]

I'm selling the house today..

Where are you living among $36,000 houses? I want in.

@LiKenun
the OP asked for the difference, if used as BOOT drive, and moving files around would require at least 2 drives, so i assume at least the games will be on a different drive.

I mean, it could be interpreted either way. But it wouldn’t make sense to make a difference if the games weren’t going to be on the boot drive anyway, no?

we can always give recommendations regarding cost, but its still up to the person that pays for it, on what and how much they are willing to "waste" their money on..

That wasn’t my point (hence, the fact that I even said what you quoted). I was saying that the Optanes for hosting games would be put to a use such that the solution provided negative value. The difference from what you are arguing is that one would be paying more to get less. That’s not simply spending much more on a proportionally lesser upgrade, but spending much more on a downgrade. That isn’t to say you couldn’t throw even more money at the problem to make it work, but the cost would be so high, who is it even relevant to?

I’m not in the business of telling people to not spend money on diminishing returns, unless they are planning to unknowingly spend against their own interests (other than fiscal responsibility).

you can always have Primocache + any decent drive. The combo not only beats Optane on any performance metric but probably also endurance if you have deferred write enabled.

Unless lost writes are a concern, or you are reading/writing far more than the size of the cache that the slower media takes over.

If not, using RAM cache gives great performance for random I/O.

 

[Frozoken]

^THIS^

^^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

Lol who tf cares? It makes literally 0 difference and you still get updates via the Microsoft nvme driver so there's no compatibility issues.

Optane easily and I have basically experienced both. I had the wd sn850x as my boot drive which is near the best gen 4 drive and I bought a optane p1600x for my OS. It literally measurably booted about 30-50% faster. Random is king especially for startup times. You can see in the latest SSD review from TPU the 990 pro is still the fastest booter they tested despite being gen 4 because it still has the best low queue depth random reads for a nand SSD.

Games, on the other hand, are hindered by Optane. (This was the original question that started this thread, no?) Their files:

1. Are large;
2. Load sequentially; and
3. Don’t get overwritten all that often

No they aren't this is a myth at least in the sequentially people know. 1. it's not mostly loaded sequentially Samsung even tested it on modern warfare and reported that 90% of the files were loaded randomly and 2. When they are sequential, they're never at big 1mb block sizes where the marketing number's have them at multiple GB/s, they're at 4-16kb 99% of the time.

As a result, you guessed it, optanes response time means it beats gen 4 and gen 5 nvme ssds there too, despite being sequential. You can check atto for this btw.

Finally I have measured game load times on a premium gen 4 SSD vs an optane p1600x and in the half a dozen games I tested, it won everytime even with multiple trials, different order etc.

Is it worth it for games? Unless they're small, no. Is it WORSE for games though? Absolutely not.