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Intel 900p Optane ...WOW

PhaseNoise said:
You really need to stop with the tone of "why is it so hard to grasp" stuff, and you'll do much better.

As you know, you can increase random read performance quite a bit, and still not make significant differences in the actual end-user benchmarks. This is what is being discussed. You can make one thing faster, but it's the whole chain that matters. For many or most tasks, there are clearly things besides the raw I/O which are obviously in the critical path. We know this because end user benchmarks do not show anywhere near the same delta as the super-focused synthetic ones. They're faster, but not to a degree where folks such as yourself would stand up and take notice.

Thus, since we believe your subjective evaluation, we are trying to determine a good way of measuring this "feels faster" in a repeatable, deterministic, and objective way.
Click to expand...
Blah blah...
I don’t need to stop any tone - don’t get so butthurt about other people.
How about you go buy one for yourself?
That’s what I do.. First hand experience.

Low-QD random read has been the holy grail since 2006 when SSDs went mainstream. It is well known FACT (not my subjective opinion) that this is what gives a user a better “experience”. Intel knows this, the industry knows this.
So it does baffle me when you demand proof of something, after seeing the IOmeter graphs, after knowing why low-qd random reads are so important, hear numerous first hand accounts, yet still don’t believe it could possibly be true.
So go freakin buy one!
Or don’t and live in bliss with the other more-than-adequate offerings from Samsung and others.
 
This thread is painful to read, why do people not understand that low latency will significantly increase performance. Optane is like 5000x faster than Samsung 960 Pro when running SQLite benchmarks. You know what applications that use SQLite a lot? Your web browser!

And there are like billions of other applications and even games that uses SQLite.

The revolution with Optane can be compared with transportation. 10 Busses(Samsung 960 Pro) can move a lot of people at once, but it takes a while to transport all the people on the bus to their respective location.
100 taxis (Intel P3700) can move people to their respective location a lot quicker.
But 1000 teleportation devices(Optane) can move people to their respective location almost instantly.
 
olavgg said:
This thread is painful to read, why do people not understand that low latency will significantly increase performance. Optane is like 5000x faster than Samsung 960 Pro when running SQLite benchmarks. You know what applications that use SQLite a lot? Your web browser!

And there are like billions of other applications and even games that uses SQLite.

The revolution with Optane can be compared with transportation. 10 Busses(Samsung 960 Pro) can move a lot of people at once, but it takes a while to transport all the people on the bus to their respective location.
100 taxis (Intel P3700) can move people to their respective location a lot quicker.
But 1000 teleportation devices(Optane) can move people to their respective location almost instantly.
Click to expand...

Could you share the web browser and game benchmarks showing the significantly improved performance from Optane? I haven't run across those.

As for the transportation analogy, I'd suggest some corrections. It would be more accurate to simply compare a Ferrari and a SmartCar for a couple different use cases. Without contention, the Ferrari is at least 10x as fast.

How much faster could the Ferrari complete a lap at Nürburgring?
How much faster could the Ferrari get across downtown LA?

The first scenario is like the storage heavy benchmarks. It allows full utilization of the components, so their relative differences will translate directly into more performance.
The second is like the desktop benchmarks. They are really not storage-bound very often. Thus the amount of time where the faster component could pull away is dramatically limited. Most of the time there's just an irate cardiologist in the Ferrari screaming about traffic. ;)

This is all we're saying. Nobody at all is saying the Optane isn't the faster drive. We're just trying to ascertain how much of it's blistering speed we'd actually get for things we actually do. End user benchmarks produced so far are throughput focused, and do not show a significant difference.

However, since some owners like Brahmzy DO note a considerable difference in experience, it would be interesting to find a way to quantify that difference in experience. I'm pretty sure it's the 10s of ms deltas here and there which aren't going to tilt a benchmark result, but are quite perceptible to the user. But it would be nice to really see those numbers, to allow much simpler communication of potential value for the investment in a top-end part - without expecting everyone to just "go freakin buy one".
 
I picked up 3 of these when they were ~$160 net for the 280GB.

Should have grabbed 3 dozen.

If you are building a ZFS box, do yourself a favor and grab the tiny m.2 one for your zil/slog. The 32GB is as cheap as $55 at microcenter, if they are oos it might have been me, sorry! ;) You will not wear it out in this kind use case before that computer is totally irrelevant or fails for other reasons.

Its literally as good as having a battery-backed dedicated ramdisk just for sync writes. Obviously turn on sync writes. Intel was totally on the money about the caching drive utility of these, just demoing the wrong platforms.

These are also the obvious goto "SLC" drives for DIY/embedded stuff if write endurance is on your radar at all.
 
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I suggest reading the PCPer review, lots of good detail in there about how the IRQ driver model is a hinderance since 3DXP is so fast (there’s a Linux polling driver that offers a nice performance increase). They also talk about some of the drawbacks of NAND SSDs that 3DXP doesn’t have, like how NAND drives will lock up for a few seconds if you delete a large amount of data.

Then there’s this very limited test that shows the Optane drive outperforming the 960Pro by about 9% - not a lot for the price difference, but not insignificant http://www.legitreviews.com/game-load-time-benchmarking-shootout-six-ssds-one-hdd_204468

I can understand the opinion that it’s not worth the cost for some people, but it is noticibly faster. Installing Windows was comically quick.
 
This thing is freakin amazing. Bouncing back and forth between 3 W10 boxes, all @ 4.8-5GHz, the 900p box is ridiculous fast.

I see no other choice but to get 900ps for the other 2. Everything else with 960 Pros feel noticeably slower, lol.
 
You got me thinking now and I am contemplating an 900p since I found out about them

Is there a downside if I get the 280GB U.2 version?
 
Brahmzy said:
This thing is freakin amazing. Bouncing back and forth between 3 W10 boxes, all @ 4.8-5GHz, the 900p box is ridiculous fast.

I see no other choice but to get 900ps for the other 2. Everything else with 960 Pros feel noticeably slower, lol.
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I kinda want to pick one up for my project drive. I have a couple huge compiles that hammer the drive pretty hard for extended periods of time, and I have a feeling the random read perf of the 900P would tear it to shreds.
 
JargonGR said:
Is there a downside if I get the 280GB U.2 version?
Click to expand...

IMO no downside - it’s the format I’m using.
I can’t afford to burn PCIE slots for the other format, either from room, cooling or whatever.
The U2 size is thicker than a std SSD, but it’s mounting holes line up the same. So if, for instance, you own a Corsair case with the plastics clips for SSDs, the U2 is too thick for those. So just mount it another way. The M2 > U2 cable is plenty long and flexible so no concern there.
Just wish I’da grabbed 2 more when NewEgg was having its $329 sale. Microcenter has em for $339 I think, but then tax.
 
Wake me when we have a few reviews testing real world scenarios, especially game load times. I can see why one would want the smaller ones for zfs or certain work loads, maybe the 58gb for windows install* but for most this is a waste of money. When the u.2 drive 480gb is the same price as a 1-2tb ssd I'll pay attention.

* I really would hate to have windows these days on anything less than 120gb, really 256gb to be safe.
 
Brahmzy said:
IMO no downside - it’s the format I’m using.
I can’t afford to burn PCIE slots for the other format, either from room, cooling or whatever.
The U2 size is thicker than a std SSD, but it’s mounting holes line up the same. So if, for instance, you own a Corsair case with the plastics clips for SSDs, the U2 is too thick for those. So just mount it another way. The M2 > U2 cable is plenty long and flexible so no concern there.
Just wish I’da grabbed 2 more when NewEgg was having its $329 sale. Microcenter has em for $339 I think, but then tax.
Click to expand...

I don't like the idea of the PCI-E card version and I can place the U.2 drive at a good position behind an 120mm fan in my modded Coolermaster Cosmos II case. I was wondering if there is a performance difference (shouldn't) besides thermal throttling that I can take care of.
 
JargonGR said:
I don't like the idea of the PCI-E card version and I can place the U.2 drive at a good position behind an 120mm fan in my modded Coolermaster Cosmos II case. I was wondering if there is a performance difference (shouldn't) besides thermal throttling that I can take care of.
Click to expand...
I have one of my two 480GB 900P’s connected via a U.2 to PCI-E adapter to maximize PCI-E lane usage and it works well
 
Tyns said:
I have one of my two 480GB 900P’s connected via a U.2 to PCI-E adapter to maximize PCI-E lane usage and it works well
Click to expand...

Great I am planning to get the U.2 280GB version to use it as an OS drive and also take advantage of the U.2 slot in my M/B.
 
readeh said:
$160 ? That sounds crazy.. What site are we talking about?
Click to expand...
People were buying them and selling the Star citizen code when it came out for $150-200.

On a side note, took the plunge recently and if you are really sensitive to the os drive, you can feel it compare to the 960 pro
 
LOL at the Samsung 970 Pro/Evo release today. 900p still owns the 4k RR.
burst-rr.png

sustained-rr.png
 
I've been benchmarking couple 900p Optanes recently. The performance is incredible. ~500k 4k random writes with 32 depth. It is really great and I will use one of those in my system :)
 
Some real life test would be more useful. Seconds saved and such
 
Do checksum calculation on a set of large and a set of small files.
 
The benchmark I would like, and suspect will never materialize because of its eccentricity (and specificity to my needs), is a Chromium compile on an Optane vs. a solid traditional SSD. That's not actually what I work on, but it is reasonably comparable in size and scope.

I compile huge projects all day, and if there's a real needle movement on that time spent, I will open the wallet. I may still open the wallet even if the delta is tiny because I have more money than time at this point, and dammit, 15 free minutes a day with my partner still sounds pretty good if I can just effectively buy it. I pine for the days where I could just have a glass of wine and relax in the evenings. Damn new wireless standards - y'all better like 5G. Please. Make it worth blood/sweat/tears. I simultaneously love the progression of tech, and hate it because each generation brings a "crunch time" which seems to last until the next "crunch time".
 
One thing I do consistently is convert bluray .ISOs to MKVs. These are real-world things I sit there and have to wait on before I can continue on what I want to do. I often pick a single movie's .ISO so the file sizes are identical and try it on various drives.

MakeMKV is multi-threaded, so I'm never CPU-bound. It can give drastically different results, along with showing / exposing caches on certain drives.
 
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Keljian said:
Wouldn’t faster processors, and more memory make a much bigger difference in comparison to faster storage?
Click to expand...

I would speculate that yes, those would improve things the most. That said, I've basically done that. I am building x-platform libraries, and have a beefy Xeon for my windows builder, and a beefy TR for my linux builder (seemed sensible at the time). I am just curious if there's a delta beyond that. Some days, I need to build / retest a lot.

Realistically, I'll probably get a 905 for the win builder, and measure deltas. If it makes me a *happy camper* I will get one for the TR. too. Otherwise I will leave the solid SSDs as is and let the Optane's go to those who are *in between*.

(Sorry, I read an article on Star control 2 again, and now feel compelled to speak as an Orz, all the time. I do not want to be *noticed*.)
 
For those that own one, OP included, i was wondering what kind of drivers did you need to install?
And because this is a bit too general, lol, to specify: Was there an .inf you could just add, or does it force you to install a suite? Was it multiple ones or a single and of what kind? And does it require other software/drivers such as the despiccable ME for example?
 
You don’t have to install anything.
However, to fully utilize features and performance, firmware upgrades etc, you want to install the Intel SSD Toolbox and the Intel Optane drive for 900p.
 
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Keljian said:
Rubbish - you're always CPU bound. MakeMKV will fill a portion of memory as a buffer, then slowly feed that as the processor chugs through the conversion/compression process. Your speed bottleneck isn't storage. Memory latency will make a little difference though.
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BS - I get drastically different speeds depending on which SSD I use to perform the operation, and no one single core is anywhere close to being fully utilized.
 
905p just got announced. Damn I'm sold on optane too but these prices are too high for my liking.
 
ElBerryKM13 said:
905p just got announced. Damn I'm sold on optane too but these prices are too high for my liking.
Click to expand...

I just saw the news about the 905p, I really wish the prices were sane. I would love to pick up a 1.5 or 1TB as an OS/boot drive, but not at these prices.
 
I don’t understand why folks need such huge boot drives? Keep your OS drive lean n mean and buy a 512GB-1TB Sam 970 for games / programs etc.
 
I think many want the speed of Optane for game load times.
 
Brahmzy said:
This thing is no joke. Cloned a 512GB NVMe 960 Pro to this 900p (280GB U2).
Low-QD Random Read is where it’s at folks. The hype is real. This drive is disgusting fast for an OS drive.

Got it on sale at NewEgg too. Really wished I would’ve grabbed another for another box.

Highly recommended!

This review says it all:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-optane-ssd-900p-3d-xpoint,5292.html
Click to expand...

Help me fully understand, you copied a 512gb drive onto a 280gb drive? How much actual data?

Dont you need a 1 to 1 to do a clone? Or at least a partition of the same size? How long did the clone take?

Just trying to understand how this shows this is a fast drive.
 
Elf_Boy said:
Help me fully understand, you copied a 512gb drive onto a 280gb drive? How much actual data?

Dont you need a 1 to 1 to do a clone? Or at least a partition of the same size? How long did the clone take?

Just trying to understand how this shows this is a fast drive.
Click to expand...

I only use 80-100GB for OS volumes. Specifically for the portability/size. and over-provisioning benefits for NAND. I will say the clone job from the 960 Pro to 900p was ridiculous fast!
 
Space_Ranger said:
And if you're an AMD user, this drive is irrelevant. Just throwing that out there.
Click to expand...

I understand using it as a system cache is limited to specific Intel chipsets, does not the drive function as a reg NVME storage device on it's own?
 
does not the drive function as a reg NVME storage device on it's own?
Click to expand...
I understand using it as a system cache is limited to specific Intel chipsets,
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It does and you can use it as cache with primocache under windows. However primocache is not free software.

Also AMD has a free option with the new chipset / and also TR.

https://www.amd.com/en/technologies/store-mi
 
That's why i asked.. thanks.
I like new toys, but new Intel toys always come with asterisks; and it seems it's the case here as well. No problem here sticking with Samsung. And yes, no problem to Intel either :)

just personally had enough with all this; at some point i had this yuuuuge(tm) eureka moment, when i realised that single digit differences were truly irrelevant and all the fun was in setting, building and using. My priorities since then have shifted.
I want fewer dependencies, fewer software suites, simpler and more direct access or tools; even at the cost of "performance", no probs.

(the above without discounting that yes, for casual/everyday usage, the Optane appears to be significantly better)
 
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