High-Optane thrills for 3D XPoint wanna-haves: Intel fattens gaming SSDs

Intel has tuned its Optane gaming drives with the 905P upgrade on the 900P, broadly doubling capacity and slightly boosting topline performance. The Optane 900P came in a 2.5-inch (U2) format with 280GB capacity and a half-height, half-length add-in card (AIC) format with 280 and 480GB capacities. Chipzilla has given the 905P …

[Steve Aubrey]

Only 4?

". . . when the queue depth gets up to 4"

We want it to go up to 11!!!one!

[David 132]

Re: Only 4?

How much more black could it be?

None. None more black.

...So we've added blue LEDs instead.

[Boothy]

It has also slapped twin blue LED edging lights on the AIC card – weird considering it's installed inside a case.

Why? If this is aimed at gamers, which is what you seem to indicate, gaming cases all have viewing windows these days, with everything glowing inside. High end Memory modules, Motherboards, fans, the cases themselves etc. have all had lights on them for years now. Most of the new kit is all full RGB as well, not a single static colour, with lighting controllers to coordinate all the device lights together.

Note: My PC case does not have a side window, is tucked in the corner out of sight, and nothing glows other than a few status LEDs on the MB.

[Korev]

Mine too, the only blinking light is for the hard disc... I even play the odd game on it and everything.

[pauhit]

Actually, aesthetics is a big thing in the pc building world, and price can vary immensely based on the style you are going for.

[Anonymous Coward]

i dont think a gamer can tell the difference in performance from 960 or 970 pro. both are half the price.

[Jim84]

Future latency

What latency will Optane be able to get down to in the medium term?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the use case for gamers?

That they need hundreds of thousands of random IOPS, or where the difference between <10us and 12-20us will matter?

Gamers don't need this anymore than a database needs a GPU.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: What's the use case for gamers?

Wait until Non-Player-Character (Bitcoin-enhanced, Big Data-processing, Hedge-funding) Tensorflowing AI hits the market.

Intel builds the hardware. Someone will slurp it up with the appropriate software.

[Michael Habel]

Re: What's the use case for gamers?

Surly Intel have slightly bigger problems at the moment with having to redesigin all of their CPUs from the ground up then to worry about this as well? Or do they just plan to stick a Plaster on it till they get 'round to actually fixxing those issues in 5~10 years time?

[Roj Blake]

Re: What's the use case for gamers?

Believe it or not, but the people who design their SSDs are not the people who design their CPUs.

[southen bastard]

Got one

I have the earlier model in a gaming chassis and even with a considerable amount of windows and Microsoft bloat ware boot from cold till clickable icons is timed at 6.5 seconds A little longer when the m2 memory cace also optane fails to start which is more often than not.

In game proformance is great with respawn in 1-2 seconds

Microsoft product are instatainious and windows lag is unknoticable after 8months.

Pcie is great m2 not os

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SSDs will usurp RAM...

A this rate, how long before PC architecture no longer requires RAM?