back to article Chipzilla drops dinkier Optane SSD, but don't expect it in data centres

As spotted a couple of days ago, Intel has announced a smaller Optane drive – the 900P. Optane is Intel's brandname for its 3D XPoint solid state technology which, with its <10µs latency, is faster than flash but slower than main memory. Intel is positioning it as a persistent memory cache between DRAM and NAND. It follows on …

  1. zbmwzm3

    So quick to put down

    The answer is yes it is faster, see Anandtech.

    https://www.anandtech.com/show/11953/the-intel-optane-ssd-900p-review

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    > In effect it is being used as graphics memory and its forte is gaming.

    pub o'clock seems to have come early at Register Towers.

  3. Dave Ross

    Thats if Star Citizen ever gets released...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      If it doesnt' we're stuck with remakes and recycled garbage (plus loot crates) for the next 10 years. Might as well throw our PCs in the bin and grab consoles if that's the case.

  4. BinkyTheMagicPaperclip Silver badge

    SSDs aren't useful for gaming

    There's been a number of articles on this - initial load times are shorter but in-game performance tends to be perfectly acceptable on a hard drive.

    The Optane is extremely fast, so it's odd to highlight an area where it doesn't have a commanding lead over other technologies.

    1. Halfmad

      Re: SSDs aren't useful for gaming

      As an avid gamer I'd say it's dependent on the game. Games which stream in content to RAM as you play such as Star Citizen will benefit from this as it generates smoother gameplay. Those which typically front load like Fallout 4, GTA V etc won't.

      It's more complicated than yes/no though as much of this is dependent on how much RAM the computer has, less RAM, you'll likely benefit more from an SSD than otherwise.

  5. Alan Brown Silver badge

    Small optanes could be useful for...

    ZFS SLOG drives - given the cost of 8GB Zeusram drives.

    Could be. If the endurance wasn't so awful.

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