Intel: 3.2TB Optane SSD P5800X Due This Year

Intel
(Image credit: Intel)

Intel's Optane SSD P5800X introduction late last year included four models with different capacities. So far, the company has brought the 400GB, 800GB, and 1.6TB SKUs to market, but the flagship 3.2TB model still isn't available and Intel recently removed the product listing from its website. That is a bit surprising because Intel recently reaffirmed its commitment to the data center lineup after it killed off its entire line of Optane drives for desktop PCs

There appears to be some confusion among Intel's own ranks, too, as a report has surfaced that cites the company saying it is unsure if the 3.2TB model will see the light of day. However, after our own inquiries, the company tells us the drive is still on track for release this year.  

Intel's Optane SSD P5800X drives use second-gen 3D XPoint and Intel's new proprietary SSD controller with a PCIe interface. The drives are aimed at data centers and deliver market-leading performance of up to 7.2 GB/s of sequential throughput, up to 1.5 million 4K random IOPS, and up to 1.8 million IOPS in mixed workloads. That performance comes paired with unbeatable endurance of 100 drive writes per day. 

At present, only three of four Optane SSD P5800X models are available for purchase (for $1,224 ~ $3,823). Considering that the supply of second-gen 3D XPoint is uncertain (Micron listed the only fab that produces this kind of memory for sale recently), the fate of the highest-capacity P5800X model was unclear, especially after Intel removed all mentions of the 3.2TB SKU from its website. Furthermore, the company did not provide concrete answers to ComputerBase.de when asked about the 3.2TB Optane SSD P5800X.  

(Image credit: Intel)

The good news is that Intel has not abandoned the 3.2 TB version of the Optane SSD P5800X, and it is on track to be available later this year. The price of the drive is unknown, though, but it will certainly not be cheap. 

"The Intel Optane SSD DC P5800X series is currently available in 400GB, 800GB, and 1.6TB capacities, and we expect the 3.2TB drive to be available later this year," said Kristie Mann, Senior Director, Optane DC Persistent Memory Products, Intel. 

Since the Optane SSD DC P5800X drives are designed for data centers, they aren't very interesting to the vast majority of enthusiasts (especially at a price that starts at $1,224). Intel recently canceled its entire lineup of Optane drives for the desktop PC, so we won't see any future generations of its Optane SSDs in enthusiast rigs.

Anton Shilov
Contributing Writer

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

  • littlechipsbigchips
    Since the Optane SSD DC P5800X drives are designed for data centers, they aren't very interesting to the vast majority of enthusiasts (especially at a price that starts at $1,224).

    Enthusiasts pay $1000 Just for water cooling to get some 3% more performance ... The only reason that we (I am one of them) dont care about Optane drives is that the Samsung 980 pro is more than enough for any Gaming PC today and not worth it paying more for optane drives. I remember I paid $1000+ for SCSI drives when the IDE drives were around , but the gain was worth it... in optane vs 980 pro ... not much
    Reply
  • ROBNTHROB
    littlechipsbigchips said:
    Enthusiasts pay $1000 Just for water cooling to get some 3% more performance ... The only reason that we (I am one of them) dont care about Optane drives is that the Samsung 980 pro is more than enough for any Gaming PC today and not worth it paying more for optane drives. I remember I paid $1000+ for SCSI drives when the IDE drives were around , but the gain was worth it... in optane vs 980 pro ... not much

    You replied back to counter but all you did was reinforce what was already said.
    Reply
  • HideOut
    The difference between the high end NVME 4x4 vs these is really the endurance, and to a certain point IOPS. But raw speed isnt as big of a difference.
    Reply
  • D_2_P_L_J_C
    ROBNTHROB said:
    You replied back to counter but all you did was reinforce what was already said.
    Well, the original comment said that its not interesting to enthusiasts, but i would argue that despite the cost and the fact that theyre not really viable to us, they ARE still interesting to us. Hell, i bet there are plenty of people out there with deeper pockets than me that will buy one regardless. Dont forget a lot of Titan cards ended up in gaming PCs just because :)
    Reply
  • jkflipflop98
    Optane was only ever meant for high-end workloads in enterprise type applications. If you're loading up the latest Call of Duty map, it's not really going to flex it's muscle. Put one of these in the Mastercard transaction database servers and it will sing. Sure the most hardcore of hardcore gamers will have them, and people that make a living editing 4k videos for youtube all day - but for the 99% of us Optane is simply overkill.
    Reply
  • lorfa
    The low queue depth performance should still be nice for a desktop PC, even if the price is a poor fit for that.

    The thing I can't stand about it is that the data only stays in the drive without power for 3 months (source), at least with optane v1. I don't think I would leave my PC not running for such a span of time, but it still bothers me.

    Standard SSDs vary greatly in their data retention rates depending on the underlying technology, but enterprise drives fair the worst in this regard and optane was designed to be competitive with them in terms of their power-off data retention rates.
    Reply
  • chickenballs
    littlechipsbigchips said:
    Samsung 980 pro is more than enough for any Gaming PC today

    Why do you think gamers need PCIe4 Samsung 980Pro ssds?
    Which games load noticeably faster with PCIe4.0 ssds compared to decent PCIe3.0 like the 970Evo/Evo Plus or sx8200pro?

    kt_iJTrzOusView: https://youtu.be/kt_iJTrzOus

    https://static.techspot.com/articles-info/2116/bench/13-p.webp
    Reply
  • littlechipsbigchips
    chickenballs said:
    Why do you think gamers need PCIe4 Samsung 980Pro ssds?
    Which games load noticeably faster with PCIe4.0 ssds compared to decent PCIe3.0 like the 970Evo/Evo Plus or sx8200pro?

    kt_iJTrzOusView: https://youtu.be/kt_iJTrzOus

    https://static.techspot.com/articles-info/2116/bench/13-p.webp

    it is not only about load times , it is about backups and fast installing large (huge) games , and copying files between drives.
    Reply
  • seanwebster
    littlechipsbigchips said:
    it is not only about load times , it is about backups and fast installing large (huge) games , and copying files between drives.
    Don't forget how fast windows updates fly by, especially major updates, when you have Optane. My 1.5TB 905P treats me very well. :D
    Reply
  • chickenballs
    So how many seconds faster is Optane vs 970Evo Plus when updating Windows?

    littlechipsbigchips said:
    it is not only about load times , it is about backups and fast installing large (huge) games , and copying files between drives.
    guess you do things differently or maybe have very slow internet
    I have Steam and Uplay libraries on both SATA ssds and nvme and I never have to backup game install files.
    Even the SATA ssds, at least the decent ones, won't slow down constant 1Gbit/s download speed.
    Reply