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[pcworld] Intel's silence on Optane SSDs raises questions about launch and focus

2K views 13 replies 14 participants last post by  looniam 
#1 ·
gosh have to wait till 2018
ooo Micron's QuantX
how much?

http://www.pcworld.com/article/3147015/storage/intels-silence-on-optane-ssds-raises-questions-about-launch-and-focus.html
Quote:
Intel remains mum about the release date of Optane SSDs but is testing the drives in data centers, not gaming PCs

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich said sample Optane products will ship to more testers next year, and that "it's really a 2018 ramp for that product," according to a transcript of an October earnings call, posted on Seeking Alpha.

The primary competition to Optane will be Micron's QuantX, which is also based on 3D Xpoint. Storage companies will make drives based on QuantX, which will be available next year. Intel and Micron jointly developed 3D Xpoint technology.
 
#2 ·
Oh man I remember when they said a 2016 release. I was so hopeful that one of these supposedly revolutionary products was actually going to come out quickly. I thought because it was intel saying it that there was some truth there. Can't believe I believed it lol
 
#6 ·
Not Vega, Navi at least.

SSDs quite stalled, got stuck at SATA3 for too long and all the faster options took forever to standardize and are super expensive. There is about 10 connectors for fast SSDs, changes every damn year with every new mobo release, yet affordable fast SSDs nowhere to be found, rather a plethora of TLCs to cut down cost.
 
#7 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by JackCY View Post

Not Vega, Navi at least.

SSDs quite stalled, got stuck at SATA3 for too long and all the faster options took forever to standardize and are super expensive. There is about 10 connectors for fast SSDs, changes every damn year with every new mobo release, yet affordable fast SSDs nowhere to be found, rather a plethora of TLCs to cut down cost.
Over-blowing the issue a bit there.

At the height, there were 5 interfaces for SSDs, SATA III, PCIE, M.2, and U.2. Sata express, but that was DOA and was a half hearted effort to stop M.2. SATA III is not a priority for SSDs, so PCIE, M.2, and U.2 were the only true markets for superfast SSDs.

PCIE SSD drives are typically used in servers, which leaves m.2 and u.2. It took, what, maybe 3 months for it to become very evident that U.2 is a dead format? Have you even seen a U.2 port on a motherboard? I think I've seen one. maybe. And M.2 and PCIE use the same signals, the only difference is the form factor.

Most z170 boards support a M.2 slot, and all of them are capable of booting off of one. Getting a M.2 to PCIE adapter is dirt cheap and easy.

the real issue is that diminishing returns kicked in hard. For the vast majority of users, M.2's extra speed makes no difference. Only professionals really notice it. But it's physical size gives it an advantage in mobile and in ITX rigs.
 
#8 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by JackCY View Post

Not Vega, Navi at least.

SSDs quite stalled, got stuck at SATA3 for too long and all the faster options took forever to standardize and are super expensive. There is about 10 connectors for fast SSDs, changes every damn year with every new mobo release, yet affordable fast SSDs nowhere to be found, rather a plethora of TLCs to cut down cost.
You can't find affordable SSDs? The fastest 1TB SSDs are available for $200-250, how is that not affordable?
 
#9 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by GamerusMaximus View Post

Over-blowing the issue a bit there.

At the height, there were 5 interfaces for SSDs, SATA III, PCIE, M.2, and U.2. Sata express, but that was DOA and was a half hearted effort to stop M.2. SATA III is not a priority for SSDs, so PCIE, M.2, and U.2 were the only true markets for superfast SSDs.

PCIE SSD drives are typically used in servers, which leaves m.2 and u.2. It took, what, maybe 3 months for it to become very evident that U.2 is a dead format? Have you even seen a U.2 port on a motherboard? I think I've seen one. maybe. And M.2 and PCIE use the same signals, the only difference is the form factor.

Most z170 boards support a M.2 slot, and all of them are capable of booting off of one. Getting a M.2 to PCIE adapter is dirt cheap and easy.

the real issue is that diminishing returns kicked in hard. For the vast majority of users, M.2's extra speed makes no difference. Only professionals really notice it. But it's physical size gives it an advantage in mobile and in ITX rigs.
I have a U.2 on my Rampage V Edition 10. It's useless.
 
#10 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by GamerusMaximus View Post

Over-blowing the issue a bit there.

At the height, there were 5 interfaces for SSDs, SATA III, PCIE, M.2, and U.2. Sata express, but that was DOA and was a half hearted effort to stop M.2. SATA III is not a priority for SSDs, so PCIE, M.2, and U.2 were the only true markets for superfast SSDs.

PCIE SSD drives are typically used in servers, which leaves m.2 and u.2. It took, what, maybe 3 months for it to become very evident that U.2 is a dead format? Have you even seen a U.2 port on a motherboard? I think I've seen one. maybe. And M.2 and PCIE use the same signals, the only difference is the form factor.

Most z170 boards support a M.2 slot, and all of them are capable of booting off of one. Getting a M.2 to PCIE adapter is dirt cheap and easy.

the real issue is that diminishing returns kicked in hard. For the vast majority of users, M.2's extra speed makes no difference. Only professionals really notice it. But it's physical size gives it an advantage in mobile and in ITX rigs.
wat. M.2 is a connector not an interface.
 
#11 ·
At this rate, we might as well be using RAMDisks to cache in the place of Optane. You would need an Uninterruptible Power Supply (as RAM of course is volatile), but you'd get better performance and besides RAM will last even longer than 3D XPoint.

I wonder what the final price will be per GB of 3D XPoint. If it is about the same as DRAM, then there is not much point.

Quote:
Originally Posted by paskowitz View Post

I always wonder who is buying all this new PC hardware when "old" stuff gets you by really well. At this point, it looks like Cannonlake/Volta/Vega is the next significant inflection point. DCHaswell/Maxwell is going to last me a nice long time.
Data centers buy the "new" hardware.

In a data center, by far one of the biggest costs is the power consumption. A more efficient CPU or GPU is a huge competitive advantage. It's all about Total Cost of Ownership with HPC platforms.

Data center and mobile are why power efficiency has become so strongly emphasized.

I don't like citing Charlie, but it seems Intel may have sold their Purley platform to Facebook and Google early. That may cause backlash if true:
https://semiaccurate.com/2016/11/17/intel-preferentially-offers-two-customers-skylake-xeon-cpus/

That's down from the historical big 7 that used to get parts early.

For us enthusiasts, single threaded performance has stalled, while Intel seems unable to improve it by more than 5-10% per new architecture which is now every 3 years or so.

Quote:
Originally Posted by GamerusMaximus View Post

Over-blowing the issue a bit there.

At the height, there were 5 interfaces for SSDs, SATA III, PCIE, M.2, and U.2. Sata express, but that was DOA and was a half hearted effort to stop M.2. SATA III is not a priority for SSDs, so PCIE, M.2, and U.2 were the only true markets for superfast SSDs.

PCIE SSD drives are typically used in servers, which leaves m.2 and u.2. It took, what, maybe 3 months for it to become very evident that U.2 is a dead format? Have you even seen a U.2 port on a motherboard? I think I've seen one. maybe. And M.2 and PCIE use the same signals, the only difference is the form factor.

Most z170 boards support a M.2 slot, and all of them are capable of booting off of one. Getting a M.2 to PCIE adapter is dirt cheap and easy.

the real issue is that diminishing returns kicked in hard. For the vast majority of users, M.2's extra speed makes no difference. Only professionals really notice it. But it's physical size gives it an advantage in mobile and in ITX rigs.
Most of the newer X99 Broadwell boards have U.2 ports.

The problem with M.2 IMO is that the main advantage of NVMe, for massive sequential performance, is not realized because the M.2 form factor doesn't allow for much cooling. It will throttle under load.

U.2 SSDs, assuming they are in a rack with a 120mm fan blowing on them don't have this problem. PCIe SSDs can also have air blowing on them.

Agree though on diminishing returns. Even with RAM Disk like speeds, I don't think that you'll see that many returns compared to SSDs, perhaps not even as big as the jump from HDD to SSD, which saw an increase in responsiveness.
 
#12 ·
Quote:
Originally Posted by paskowitz View Post

I always wonder who is buying all this new PC hardware when "old" stuff gets you by really well. At this point, it looks like Cannonlake/Volta/Vega is the next significant inflection point. DCHaswell/Maxwell is going to last me a nice long time.
Are we on the same website?
 
#14 ·
well, i guess i am not bummed out as much since i can't afford to upgrade as i planned (medical stuff).

but still, it would have been nice to play with all the shiny new stuff. it looks though kaby lake and 200 chipset is absolutely nothing to get excited about, even after digging deep.
redface.gif
 
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