Question about Intel Optane SSDs

[NDRE28]

Hello!

I plan to buy a 400GB Intel Optane SSD.

There are 2 variants of the 400GB drive on eBay:

1. Intel Optane DC P5800X / SSDPF21Q400GB L0310100 (400GB).

2. Dell 53M3R Intel Optane DC P5800X / SSDPF21Q400GBT (400GB).

The Dell drive is cheaper.

QUESTION:
Is the Dell drive just as good as the regular Intel one, or should I avoid it?

 

[NDRE28]

Just FYI, If you need more capacity than speed for cheaper looks like one of older 905P models 960GB is back on Amazon for $325.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07JD9GZN7


If your going to go this route using a PCIe add-in card and using a GPU that is more than 1 slot thick I would look for a motherboard where the bottom PCIe slot isn't so close to the bottom connectors on the AM5 motherboard potentially causing cable collision issues. Even at one slot thick cards you might have cable issues. This is one reason I picked the ASRock Live Mixer. I could have my Optane dual PCIe card in the top x16 (in x4/x4/x4/x4 mode) slot and my GPU in the second x16 (x4) slot with room for 2 slot GPU or 3 slot GPU if I didn't want to use the bottom x16 (x4) slot. (edit) Looks like the X670E Taichi has some good room for a GPU on the bottom slot if you need to have the drive in the top slot.

I'm using this glotrends dual PCIe 4.0 adaptor with my 905P PCIe 3.0 drives which also works in the second x16(x4/x4) slot of my X570 motherboard.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CNG9VYTD


Intel Memory and Storage Tool didn't recognize the device?

Hi!

Unfortunately, my case is very low and the motherboard's bottom is exactly above PSU slot.
Also, my video card (Gigabyte RTX 3080 Vision OC) is thick and can't be inserted in the lower PCIe slot.

So, I'll test to see if I'll be able to use the Optane with an adapter card, in the bottom PCIe slot.
If that's not possible, I'll choose an adapter cable.

 

[Wirko]

but w/o it I 'only' get about 5GB/s absolute peak bandwidth.

That's very strange. Gen 4 either works reliably, or not at all, in which case the connection runs at Gen 3, right? Something in between, like a "reduced Gen 4" speed, should not be possible.

 

[LabRat 891]

That's very strange. Gen 4 either works reliably, or not at all, in which case the connection runs at Gen 3, right? Something in between, like a "reduced Gen 4" speed, should not be possible.

Ahh. Not quite true.

Probably can find something more than anecdotal, investigating the impact of risers/adapters on NVME and GPU performance.
But, Latency and re-transmits/error correction can and do impact bandwidth.
(Easy Ex. Gen4x4 NVMe on CPU lanes vs. Gen4x4 NVME through the Gen4x4-> switch in X570, PROM21, etc.)

 

[A Computer Guy]

Hi!

Unfortunately, my case is very low and the motherboard's bottom is exactly above PSU slot.
Also, my video card (Gigabyte RTX 3080 Vision OC) is thick and can't be inserted in the lower PCIe slot.

So, I'll test to see if I'll be able to use the Optane with an adapter card, in the bottom PCIe slot.
If that's not possible, I'll choose an adapter cable.

Ok. So GPU on the top slot it is then. You previously indicated the board will do x8/x4/x4 so that should work. Even if you only get one drive I would say get a double drive adapter card anyway like the one I recommended because you might find later you want more storage and that will give you access to the 2nd x4 lane for another Optane or other U.2 enterprise drive in the future.

If you are not using these as OS drives and cost is a concern consider this as well as a means of getting more capacity and comparable speed at about the same cost. If your already paying upwards of $600 for 400GB you could also get 2 960GB 905P's (around $325 if still available) for higher total capacity and soft raid 0 them for better performance. Below is one of my configurations so you can see the almost double speed and halving random 4K. This may or may not fall within your requirements so take that in consideration as well.

Having only 2 drives (and not anticipating the need for more) and a beefy CPU I opted to go this route, opposed to AMD firmware raid, so the OS could access each drive at it's native speed despite the OS overhead. (obviously with a raid 0 config have a good backup plan for your data)

( one vs. dual soft raid 0 from windows disk management )
In my case testing both 5950x(x570 Taichi Razor, 2nd PCIe slot x4/x4) and 7950x(B650 LiveMixer, 1st PCIe slot x4/x4) systems the performance is nearly identical to the screenshots below.

(right side another forum users P5800X vs. left side my dual 905p)

 

[R-T-B]

Its fine. It just means Dell bought a bunch and branded them for there systems. This happens absolutely everywhere in the enterprise space with all sorts of components and even in consumer hardware.

Also fun fact the dell drives support Opal 2.0 and the intel ones do not.

They are conservative from Dell they are the exact same drive

Same drive, but different custom firmware, so there could be differences there I guess. Tuning or whatever. But it wouldn't be dramatic.

IIRC, Dell's datasheet is more verbose in mentioning Self-encryption, too.

This is because the intel firmware provides no management interface for the encryption, rendering it mostly useless.

 

[A Computer Guy]

This is because the intel firmware provides no management interface for the encryption, rendering it mostly useless.

I was curious about this. Do U.2 adaptors provide the necessary interface for utilizing the encryption for these drives for example (https://www.highpoint-tech.com/nvme-individual/ssd7580c) or the Intel drives still just can't do it because of the firmware as you described?

 

[R-T-B]

I was curious about this. Do U.2 adaptors provide the necessary interface for utilizing the encryption for these drives for example (https://www.highpoint-tech.com/nvme-individual/ssd7580c)?

If they are just operating in passthrough mode sure. But raid setups I have no idea, and you need a management software regardless (sedutil is a free commandline one).

 

[NDRE28]

Ok. So GPU on the top slot it is then. You previously indicated the board will do x8/x4/x4 so that should work. Even if you only get one drive I would say get a double drive adapter card anyway like the one I recommended because you might find later you want more storage and that will give you access to the 2nd x4 lane for another Optane or other U.2 enterprise drive in the future.

If you are not using these as OS drives and cost is a concern consider this as well as a means of getting more capacity and comparable speed at about the same cost. If your already paying upwards of $600 for 400GB you could also get 2 960GB 905P's (around $325 if still available) for higher total capacity and soft raid 0 them for better performance. Below is one of my configurations so you can see the almost double speed and halving random 4K. This may or may not fall within your requirements so take that in consideration as well.

Having only 2 drives (and not anticipating the need for more) and a beefy CPU I opted to go this route, opposed to AMD firmware raid, so the OS could access each drive at it's native speed despite the OS overhead. (obviously with a raid 0 config have a good backup plan for your data)

( one vs. dual soft raid 0 from windows disk management )
In my case testing both 5950x(x570 Taichi Razor, 2nd PCIe slot x4/x4) and 7950x(B650 LiveMixer, 1st PCIe slot x4/x4) systems the performance is nearly identical to the screenshots below.

View attachment 390854View attachment 390855

(right side another forum users P5800X vs. left side my dual 905p)

View attachment 390857View attachment 390856

Hi!

•That's a good advice:
To get an adapter card with slots for 2 drives.
(I might get the Solidigm D7-P5810 800GB 1-bit SLC U.2 SSD in the future, as a secondary drive).

•I am using 3x Samsung 970 Pro 1TB SSDs in RAID_0 right now.
However, I'd like to move away from RAID, as the greatest advantage of Optane drives is the low latency, and RAID increases latency.

 

[A Computer Guy]

Hi!

•That's a good advice:
To get an adapter card with slots for 2 drives.
(I might get the Solidigm D7-P5810 800GB 1-bit SLC U.2 SSD in the future, as a secondary drive).

Also getting an adaptor card that has cutouts so the heat sinks on the bottom side can dissipate.

•I am using 3x Samsung 970 Pro 1TB SSDs in RAID_0 right now.
However, I'd like to move away from RAID, as the greatest advantage of Optane drives is the low latency, and RAID increases latency.

Depends on the RAID solution I guess. The wrong solution and you might gimp the performance of your drives.
In my setup random 4K access time was reduced by about 1/2.

 

[R-T-B]

Keep in mind too that all nvme controllers I am aware of are really just softraid with a codec.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Keep in mind too that all nvme controllers I am aware of are really just softraid with a codec.

That about sums it up. They can't get the amazing performance from them without striping all the NAND and this is what's effectively a NAND RAID0 or RAID5.

 

[R-T-B]

That about sums it up. They can't get the amazing performance from them without striping all the NAND is what is effectively a NAND RAID0 or RAID5.

I meant the so-called "hardware RAID" nvme cards but you are pretty much right about nvme in general too. The single chip nand options aren't that great.

 

[Solaris17]

Same drive, but different custom firmware, so there could be differences there I guess. Tuning or whatever. But it wouldn't be dramatic.

yup. its also used to tag FW to black list device installs in certain systems that OEMs deem not supported. but im not trying to overload OP or get in some pissing contest, for someone that probably just wants to install steam.

 

[NDRE28]

yup. its also used to tag FW to black list device installs in certain systems that OEMs deem not supported. but im not trying to overload OP or get in some pissing contest, for someone that probably just wants to install steam.

Steam?
Nah.
In my case, it's all about music production software and other "serious" stuff.

 

[NDRE28]

I just picked up a 53M3R so I haven't had a chance to bench it yet, but it is powered up and formatted successfully mounted using a cheap $20 AIC from Amazon.
Note that per these specs it has a lower DWPD of 60 vs Intel's 100. Has some slightly different I/O specs as well. Not sure if it is using a custom controller or just conservative specs for Dell systems? Dell Express Flash P5800X (PCIe Gen4) and P4800X (PCIe Gen3) Technical Specifications and Information

Also, you can get the latest Dell drivers from here (the Intel Memory and Storage Tool doesn't work with the 53M3R): Dell Express Flash NVMe P5800x PCIe SSD Firmware Release

Hi!

Did you have the oportunity to bench your Optane drive?
I'm curious of the CrystalDiskMark numbers, and also how does it "feel" to have the OS installed on such drive.

Also, what is the usable size of the drive (in GB)?

 

[StoneUK]

I just bought a dell p5800x a few week ago for my z590 motherboard.
Runs sweet as a nut, will add some benchmarks and full spec in a sec.

Benchmarks MB/s (note this is my c: drive / boot drive which is also running the OS)

IOPS

Latency

Full Spec
Case: BeQuiet! Pure Base 501 Airflow White - £86 new
Motherboard: Asus Rog Strix z590-F Gaming WIFI - £124 used (wanted a z590 Hero XIII but couldn't find any in UK for reasonable price / good condition)
CPU: Intel i9-11900k (8 core 16 thread) - £188 used (bought a 10700k at first but then realized needed 11th gen CPU for PCIe 4.0 to work in motherboard)
RAM: 4x 16GB DDR4 Ballistix White 3600 MHz CL16 - £125 used (tried to find 3600 CL14 but a bit too rare / expensive)
SSD: Dell Optane p5800x 800 GB (SSDPF21Q800GBE) - £625 used, counter offer accepted (i had no idea if it would work in the z590 tbh i just took a risk in hope)
> https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/286224357346 (sorry if links aren't premitted i'll remove this, i think maybe auction got less interest because p5800x was not mentioned in title)
SSD: Samsung 990 Pro 2 TB with Heatsink - £156 new
Adapter: StarTech U.2 to PCIe 4.0 - £44 new (read in a few other places that this seemed to work well, have to agree no problems for me neither)
> https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B072JK2XLC
Graphics Card: Asus RTX 4060 white - £245 used
Cooler: BeQuiet! Silent Loop 2 Series 120mm - £90 new
Power Supply: BeQuiet! Pure Power 750w - £107 new

Overall I'm really made up with the build, my last PC which I ran for 9+ years was a 3770k with 16 GB RAM and an Intel 750 Series SSD. I know in terms of value per performance I wasted alot of money here, buying a dead socket (instead of amd), DDR4 instead of 5. No where near the performance of more modern CPU's (amd or intel e-core CPU). But it's just what I wanted, and I'm happy with it. I could go into more details for the reason for why I picked these components but I really don't want to stir any opinions as I know I'm on the outside with some of the decisions I've made. I just thought after 9 years of grinding with my current rig, it was time to upgrade and get something that i wanted (i don't really like the e-cores or windows 11 and wanted to stick with intel). I didn't need the best of the best in terms of performance or value for money, I just needed an upgrade as my PC was on it's last legs and thought i'd splash out on this optane drive to peak my interest to see if it would actually run on a z590 (it was a very late at night decision ). I also installed Windows 10 IoT LTSC on the optane, so hopefully i'm good for a few years of security updates. I don't game much at all any more, just program in visual studio / android studio and a few VM's.

In hindsight, i think it was a great price i got for the 800 GB model but I would advise to others before being tempted by low latency benchmarks, the difference you will feel between the p5800x and say a top of the line m2 SSD is fractional in alot of circumstances. But do i regret it? Hell No! . For my next rig in 7-8 years time I'll probably end up moving over to amd and maybe even take the optane with me but who knows where we'll be at that point.

The Intel p5800x and the dell version use different firmware or at least that's what it looks like. I had v2.0.0 already on mine which I'm glad tbh so don't need to flash / upgrade.

Some final pics (just realised i really need a few more case fans in this, i wish they did more compact premium cases these days)

Mounting screws for the optane comes with the StarTech card

Graphics card runs at x8 and both m2 and optane ports run at x4 due to shared bandwidth.
Optane drive must also plug into slot which directly connects to CPU (sorry i don't know much about this, I just know it's the top two PCIe lanes for me)

Let me know if you would like any other tests

 

[NDRE28]

I just bought a dell p5800x a few week ago for my z590 motherboard.
Runs sweet as a nut, will add some benchmarks and full spec in a sec.

View attachment 391350

Benchmarks MB/s (note this is my c: drive / boot drive which is also running the OS)
View attachment 391351

IOPS
View attachment 391352

Latency
View attachment 391353

Full Spec
Case: BeQuiet! Pure Base 501 Airflow White - £86 new
Motherboard: Asus Rog Strix z590-F Gaming WIFI - £124 used (wanted a z590 Hero XIII but couldn't find any in UK for reasonable price / good condition)
CPU: Intel i9-11900k (8 core 16 thread) - £188 used (bought a 10700k at first but then realized needed 11th gen CPU for PCIe 4.0 to work in motherboard)
RAM: 4x 16GB DDR4 Ballistix White 3600 MHz CL16 - £125 used (tried to find 3600 CL14 but a bit too rare / expensive)
SSD: Dell Optane p5800x 800 GB (SSDPF21Q800GBE) - £625 used, counter offer accepted (i had no idea if it would work in the z590 tbh i just took a risk in hope)
> https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/286224357346 (sorry if links aren't premitted i'll remove this, i think maybe auction got less interest because p5800x was not mentioned in title)
SSD: Samsung 990 Pro 2 TB with Heatsink - £156 new
Adapter: StarTech U.2 to PCIe 4.0 - £44 new (read in a few other places that this seemed to work well, have to agree no problems for me neither)
> https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B072JK2XLC
Graphics Card: Asus RTX 4060 white - £245 used
Cooler: BeQuiet! Silent Loop 2 Series 120mm - £90 new
Power Supply: BeQuiet! Pure Power 750w - £107 new

Overall I'm really made up with the build, my last PC which I ran for 9+ years was a 3770k with 16 GB RAM and an Intel 750 Series SSD. I know in terms of value per performance I wasted alot of money here, buying a dead socket (instead of amd), DDR4 instead of 5. No where near the performance of more modern CPU's (amd or intel e-core CPU). But it's just what I wanted, and I'm happy with it. I could go into more details for the reason for why I picked these components but I really don't want to stir any opinions as I know I'm on the outside with some of the decisions I've made. I just thought after 9 years of grinding with my current rig, it was time to upgrade and get something that i wanted (i don't really like the e-cores or windows 11 and wanted to stick with intel). I didn't need the best of the best in terms of performance or value for money, I just needed an upgrade as my PC was on it's last legs and thought i'd splash out on this optane drive to peak my interest to see if it would actually run on a z590 (it was a very late at night decision ). I also installed Windows 10 IoT LTSC on the optane, so hopefully i'm good for a few years of security updates. I don't game much at all any more, just program in visual studio / android studio and a few VM's.

In hindsight, i think it was a great price i got for the 800 GB model but I would advise to others before being tempted by low latency benchmarks, the difference you will feel between the p5800x and say a top of the line m2 SSD is fractional in alot of circumstances. But do i regret it? Hell No! . For my next rig in 7-8 years time I'll probably end up moving over to amd and maybe even take the optane with me but who knows where we'll be at that point.

The Intel p5800x and the dell version use different firmware or at least that's what it looks like. I had v2.0.0 already on mine which I'm glad tbh so don't need to flash / upgrade.

View attachment 391361

View attachment 391370

Some final pics (just realised i really need a few more case fans in this, i wish they did more compact premium cases these days)

View attachment 391362

View attachment 391363

Mounting screws for the optane comes with the StarTech card

View attachment 391364

Graphics card runs at x8 and both m2 and optane ports run at x4 due to shared bandwidth.
Optane drive must also plug into slot which directly connects to CPU (sorry i don't know much about this, I just know it's the top two PCIe lanes for me)

View attachment 391365

View attachment 391386

Let me know if you would like any other tests

Hi!

Thanks for sharing these infos; They are of great value.

I love your build. It looks great.

Those RND4K Q1T1 numbers, in the CrystalDiskMark chart, are superior to the ones achieved by any Gen5 SSD, including the Samsung 9100 Pro & Crucial T705!

 

[Toss]

I just bought a dell p5800x a few week ago for my z590 motherboard.
Runs sweet as a nut, will add some benchmarks and full spec in a sec.


Let me know if you would like any other tests

is it better to buy p5800x 800 Gb for 800$ or 2x times slower p4800x for 400$ but 1.5 Tb instead ???

 

[A Computer Guy]

is it better to buy p5800x 800 Gb for 800$ or 2x times slower p4800x for 400$ but 1.5 Tb instead ???

It depends on your use case. Optane is on it's way to scarcity so you need to quickly determine how much durability, IOP's, and transfer speed you need for your use case before such hardware becomes unavailable or too costly. The fact we had been able to get them at all in the consumer space is/was a nice luxury.

• What are the characteristics of Optane that are important to your workload or intended use case?
• Does Optane make sense compared to other Enterprise SSD's you might consider?

For example in my use case the 905P with was a good fit. These were my considerations.

• Durability was a concern with my workload so 10 DPWD vs 0.3 DPWD and PLP is a significant step up to meet my storage concerns.
• Capacity was a concern as I use them for data not OS/boot devices. The 1.5TB and 960TB were good usable capacities for my use case as single or join drives.
• More affordable than the higher models in the stack. I could get more drives and possibly use them in different machines if needed later.
• Being PCIe 3.0 less potential issues with consumer hardware and adapters. (NVMe cables or PCIe cards)
• With the hardware I have soft RAID 0 (not firmware raid) to increase performance if needed (this just happened to workout really great)
• The novelty factor of having such hardware

 

[SiggiTheHun]

@Toss
If you are on an older Intel platform (CPU/chipset) that supports Optane memory or plan to do so...
AND if you can access the required discontinued Intel software ("Memory Drive Technology")...
AND if you need lots of RAM...
THAN I would choose the P4800 as it can be adressed like RAM(@Wirko) used as memory.

Unfortunately for me, this Optane-RAM/cache/memory/storage-party was long over when Optane storage became somewhat affordable.
P5800´s 1$/GB is still hard to swallow. 2x 905P (960GB) here. RAID looks promising.

I think "A Computer Guy" gives pretty good advice.

Maybe! - if you can afford it - buy both, test, and sell the other one as it seems these drives become less and less obtainable.

 

[Hardcore Games]

M.2 NVMe speeds have risen almost as fast as PCIe speeds suggesting that NAND can be ramped up even more.

PCIe 4.0 tops out at 8G/s for a 4-lane M.2 SSD. PCIe 5.0 brings 16GB/s and PCIe 6.0 jumps to 32GB/s which is close to DDR4 speeds.

Work on PCIe 7.0 is being driven by network demands rather than how fast your laptop can load Halo

 

[Wirko]

If you are on an older Intel platform (CPU/chipset) that supports Optane memory or plan to do so...
AND if you can access the required discontinued Intel software ("Memory Drive Technology")...
AND if you need lots of RAM...
THAN I would choose the P4800 as it can be adressed like RAM.

Hm, what exactly do you mean here? I'm aware of the existence of Optane memory but that was packaged on DIMM modules, with a 64-bit memory bus and byte-addressable (although this isn't exactly true, even DRAM on DIMMs isn't byte-addressable). But it sure didn't go by the name P4800, it was Series 100 and Series 200. In what sense could a PCIe-connected device be addressed like RAM?

 

[SiggiTheHun]

Hm, what exactly do you mean here? I'm aware of the existence of Optane memory but that was packaged on DIMM modules, with a 64-bit memory bus and byte-addressable (although this isn't exactly true, even DRAM on DIMMs isn't byte-addressable). But it sure didn't go by the name P4800, it was Series 100 and Series 200. In what sense could a PCIe-connected device be addressed like RAM?

Look here:

Intel® Memory Drive Technology

Transparently integrate Intel® Optane™ SSD and memory subsystems with Intel® Memory Drive Technology, extending capacity with DRAM like performance.

www.intel.de

Intel Optane DC P4800X with Memory Drive Technology Discontinued

With the new P5800X and PMem 200 launch, the Intel Optane DC P4800X and accompanying Memory Drive Technology Plans are being discontinued

www.servethehome.com

Afaik, this Optane-storage-as-memory works only on platforms that support the Optane memory technology (Optane "RAM" modules) you mention.

 

[QcRMoD]

Hm, what exactly do you mean here? I'm aware of the existence of Optane memory but that was packaged on DIMM modules, with a 64-bit memory bus and byte-addressable (although this isn't exactly true, even DRAM on DIMMs isn't byte-addressable). But it sure didn't go by the name P4800, it was Series 100 and Series 200. In what sense could a PCIe-connected device be addressed like RAM?

I think there might be confusion by the OP in regard to Intel advertising their Optane SSDs as closer to RAM (top of the pyramid) than conventional SSDs. IDR exactly how they worded it, but they certainly made the point.

Look here:

Intel® Memory Drive Technology

Transparently integrate Intel® Optane™ SSD and memory subsystems with Intel® Memory Drive Technology, extending capacity with DRAM like performance.

www.intel.de

Intel Optane DC P4800X with Memory Drive Technology Discontinued

With the new P5800X and PMem 200 launch, the Intel Optane DC P4800X and accompanying Memory Drive Technology Plans are being discontinued

www.servethehome.com

Afaik, this Optane-storage-as-memory works only on platforms that support the Optane memory technology (Optane "RAM" modules) you mention.

Good answer, and also making the point that you need Optane at both place so that the SSD becomes adressable like RAM.

 

[SiggiTheHun]

I think there might be confusion by the OP in regard to Intel advertising their Optane SSDs as closer to RAM (top of the pyramid) than conventional SSDs. IDR exactly how they worded it, but they certainly made the point.



Good answer, and also making the point that you need Optane at both place so that the SSD becomes adressable like RAM.

https://www.intel.com/content/dam/support/us/en/documents/memory-and-storage/intel-mdt-setup-guide.pdf

Optane-Kosmos. I remember that one could load some official Intel driver/firmware for the consumer 905P to enable these features that the expensive enterprise P4800 drives already had on-board.

@Wirko
I see your complain... "address like RAM " is technically wrong. I don´t know how Intel mixed their different modules into such a memory pool.