Conclusion

the Optane drives really come into their own when moving lots of files around...

The introduction of Optane SSDs is Intel's attempt to bridge the gulf in speed that exists between NAND-based SSDs and system RAM. Using in-house-developed technology featuring 3D XPoint memory, whose hallmark is super-low latency that plays well with producing excellent IOPS in all scenarios, the latest SSD 905P series offers excellent performance irrespective of workload and, largely, queue depth.

Presented in either a U.2 15mm or HHHL form factors for the 480GB and 960GB models, respectively, the Optane drives really come into their own when moving lots of files around. Their performance potential is more muted in a regular enthusiast desktop environment, but having used the 480GB review sample as a boot drive over the last few days, the extra touch of speed is noticeable when going heavy on disk access.

The Optane SSD 905P Series lays serious claim to being the fastest SSD around. Other than the expected price premium, which shouldn't really bother those of you contemplating luxury builds, there's not much we can say against it, other than it would be good to have this capacity available as a standard M.2 2280 drive, saving cable clutter.

Great, consistent performance, impressive endurance claims, and bulletproof build put the 480GB top of our SSD wishlist.

The Good		The Bad
Supreme performance Five-year warranty Excellent endurance Great consistency		Price Prefer this capacity in normal M.2

Intel Optane SSD 905P Series (480GB)

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The Intel Optane SSD 905P Series 480GB is available from Scan Computers*

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Its 5 times more expensive per GB than a Samsung 860!

You could get a Core i5 8400,motherboard,16GB of decent RAM and a 500GB SSD for the price of the 480GB model.

I am not sure how many normal consumers would be buying this outside a few high end enthusiasts. Only people using their systems for generating income could justify this as a business expense,and I assume for commercial use there are different lines made by Intel?

CAT-THE-FIFTH
Its 5 times more expensive per GB than a Samsung 860!

You could get a Core i5 8400,motherboard,16GB of decent RAM and a 500GB SSD for the price of the 480GB model.

I am not sure how many normal consumers would be buying this outside a few high end enthusiasts. Only people using their systems for generating income could justify this as a business expense,and I assume for commercial use there are different lines made by Intel?

The same demographic that buy Geforce Titans despite the minimal gaming improvements over the next (much cheaper,) tier down.

There's always someone who MUST have the fastest, no matter what the cost ot whether they actually need it.

I think it's a statement of technology more than a mass-selling product.

Sure, it's very expensive, but one would hope that over time and economies of scale would reduce the cost-per-GB significantly.

It's always good to see new, better tech coming to market, in my opinion.

spacein_vader
The same demographic that buy Geforce Titans despite the minimal gaming improvements over the next (much cheaper,) tier down.

There's always someone who MUST have the fastest, no matter what the cost ot whether they actually need it.

But that is a niche even amongst high end enthusiasts - on tech forums you see far more GTX1080 and GTX1080TI owners. Even then 480GB is not massive looking at the increasing sizes of modern games. I would rather have a “slow” 2TB SSD for the same price TBH.

Tarinder
I think it's a statement of technology more than a mass-selling product.

Sure, it's very expensive, but one would hope that over time and economies of scale would reduce the cost-per-GB significantly.

It's always good to see new, better tech coming to market, in my opinion.

Technologically its impressive,but since Intel and Micron developed the technology together,I hardly see them pushing each other too much,unless more companies decided to produce it in larger quantities.

With NAND,the multitude of companies helped drop prices,but even then,prices are still barely reaching what they were in late 2015 and 2016. I could have got a 750GB Crucial SSD for £110 in 2016. For the average person,capacity is more an issue,especially with games getting bigger and bigger. Its probably why so many systems still ship with spinny disks and only have relatively smallish boot drives.

I wouldn't put games on it, but as an OS and cache drive it'd be lovely.