Details on Intel's Third-Gen SSD 25nm Refresh
By - Source: Tom's Hardware US
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Intel to battle the SandForce.
Intel SSDs, while very consistent in delivering good performance, is no longer the leader of the pack. Coming soon, however, will be the 25nm versions that'll be a significant upgrade from the current 34nm SSDs.
The 25nm versions are called the Postville Refresh, indicating that it's an upgrade from the current Postville generation. If the performance specifications published by AnandTech ring true, however, then the third-generation drives will definitely outpace the current G2s by a noticeable margin.

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A hand and a leg for 160/300 GB. Probably a kidney as well for the 600GB
A hand and a leg for 160/300 GB. Probably a kidney as well for the 600GB
SandForce advertised for their next gen controller and the specs are way more impressive (I know, wait until actual benchmarking is done).
What it could mean, though, is lower priced SSD's, which is what WE NEED.
Last year, SSD prices hovered around $3 to $4 per GB. Today it's more like $2 per GB (for SandForce and Marvell anyway).
When the prices hit $1 per GB, count me in.
Very rarely do you write a lot of data sequentially on an OS drive, outside of installing new programs or copying big files. For daily operations random read/write is what you want.
This is why Intel drives, even with their lesser write performance still beat most of the other drives out there. The intel offering is known for its amasing random read/write performance.
Of course SandForce has changed the game with their chip, I suppose only benchmarks will tell which is the better option for this generation of drives.
"The new drive uses 25nm IMFT Flash, which means we should get roughly twice the capacity at the same price."
While that would be quite good, Intel's drives seem to be quite overpriced as it is - a 160GB drive costs £320 here, whereas you can get a 256GB for the same money. If they release a 300GB drive for the same price then it would only just be cheaper than most of the competition.
I may consider getting a 300GB drive if it comes in at under £300 to replace my 256GB Crucial drive. If they come in at under £250 then I'll snap one up right away.
That and the size of Intel are what will keep me with them. They make very solid products. The Corsair x128 I had was extremely flaky where the intel drives are tanks
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3971/sandforce-announces-nextgen-ssd-controller-sf2000-capable-of-500mbs-and-60k-iops