Intel today officially released its Optane SSD 800P series targeted at mainstream consumers. The drives make use of 3D Xpoint memory and are available in capacities of 58GB and 118GB. They use the PCIe 3.0 x2 interface and come in the M2 2280 form-factor.
With the 800P series, 3D Xpoint should become available for a wider audience. The 800P completes Intel's 3D Xpoint product line, which further consists of the 900P SSDs targeted at enterprise usage, and the Optane Memory caching modules.
The 800P series appear to be a compromise between price and performance. Sequential reads and write are decent with 1450 MB/s and 640 MB/s respectively. However, 3D Xpoint memory really shines when it comes to latencies. That also explains the excellent random reads and writes of 250,000 IOPS and 145,000 IOPS respectively. Reliability wise, the drives are rated at 200GB writes per day for 5 years.
Intel envisions usage of the relatively low capacity drives in a dual-drive setup, where the Optane 800P modules are backed by an HDD or traditional SSD. This way users can benefit from the low latency of Optane technology while having sufficient capacity at whole.
Intel already announced the 800P series at CES this year. However, the company didn't provide any pricing information back then.
Today the chip giant also revealed prices of both SSDs. The 58GB version has a MSRP of $129 ($2.22 per GB), the 118GB will hit the stores for $199 ($1.68 per GB). Newegg has the drives available from the 19th of March, and they can already be pre-ordered.
Compared to the Intel Optane 900P SSD series, the 800P series is relative expensive. The 900P 480GB drive is currently sold by Newegg for $599.99 ($1.25 per GB) and the 900P 280GB drive for $369.99 ($1.32 per GB).
