If you want the absolute fastest performance from your storage device, look no further than Intel’s Optane SSD DC P5800X. The P5800X delivers up to 7.2 GBps of sequential bandwidth and random performance that tops 1.5 million IOPS, easily beating all competing storage devices on the market. It’s even four to five times faster than the fastest flash-based NVMe SSDs at the all-important queue depth (QD) of 1, meaning that it provides the snappiest user experience money can buy.
Intel originally launched the P5800X as a pricey data center SSD and didn’t offer it to the consumer market, largely because the company had already killed off its entire line of Optane products for desktop PCs. However, after hearing feedback from storage enthusiasts, Intel reconsidered and made the P5800X available for anyone to purchase. But that comes with a few caveats: the P5800X is only intended for “workstation use” and carries a hefty price tag.
Intel’s previous-gen Optane SSD 905P was the company’s fastest SSD when it launched. Still, it didn't provide PCIe 3.0 bus-saturating performance due to its controller design, and it hasn’t been the all-around best SSD for some time — particularly as new PCIe 4.0 SSDs became widely available. However, the DC P5800X delivers more bandwidth and performance in random workloads than its predecessor thanks to improvements to the controller coupled with a wider PCIe 4.0 interface and second-gen Optane media, making it easily the fastest drive money (a lot of it) can buy.
Specifications
| Product | 400GB | 800GB | 1.6TB |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | $1,189 | $2,044 | $3,724 |
| Form Factor | U.2 | U.2 | U.2 |
| Interface / Protocol | PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3d | PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3d | PCIe 4.0 x4 / NVMe 1.3d |
| Controller | Intel S LNBF | Intel S LNBF | Intel S LNBF |
| DRAM | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Memory | 2nd Gen Optane | 2nd Gen Optane | 2nd Gen Optane |
| Sequential Read | 7,200 MBps | 7,200 MBps | 7,200 MBps |
| Sequential Write | 4,800 MBps | 6,100 MBps | 6,200 MBps |
| Random Read | 1,500,000 IOPS | 1,500,000 IOPS | 1,500,000 IOPS |
| Random Write | 1,150,000 IOPS | 1,350,000 IOPS | 1,500,000 IOPS |
| Security | AES 256-bit encryption | AES 256-bit encryption | AES 256-bit encryption |
| Endurance (TBW) | 73 PB | 146 PB | 292 PB |
| Part Number | SSDPF21Q400GB01 | SSDPF21Q800GB01 | SSDPF21Q016TB01 |
| Warranty | 5-Years | 5-Years | 5-Years |
Intel’s Optane SSD DC P5800X comes in capacities of 400GB, 800GB, and 1.6TB. Ranging from $1,189 to $3,724, each is priced significantly higher than any typical flash-based SSD. With performance specs rated for up to 7.2/6.2 GBps of read/write throughput, the P5800X offers awesome sequential performance, addressing one of the key weaknesses of its predecessor. The DC P5800X also delivers up to 1.5 million random read/write IOPS, not to mention market-leading QD1 performance.
Intel backs the P5800X with a five-year warranty and also gives these drives the highest endurance ratings we’ve seen — up to 100 drive writes per day. For example, while a standard 1TB NVMe SSD is rated to handle 600 - 1,800 terabytes of writes, the 800GB P5800X is warrantied to handle a staggering 146 petabytes of write data. The 1.6TB model doubles that to a record 292 petabytes of endurance.
Software and Accessories
Intel supports the SSD with the company’s recently redesigned Memory and Storage tool. With it, you can monitor and diagnose the SSD and update the firmware if a newer version is available.
A Closer Look
As a data center SSD device first and foremost, the DC P5800X comes in a more serviceable U.2 form factor, measuring 15mm thick, rather than a large Add-In Card (AIC) like the P4800X and 905P. The casing is solid aluminum and has fins integrated into its design to ensure proper cooling. Although Intel improved power efficiency on this new generation of Optane products, they still guzzle lots of power compared to standard consumer flash drives.
A PCIe 4.0 x4 NVMe Optane media controller, which we’ll refer to as the LBNF (as etched in its IHS), powers the drive. The LBNF controller is NVMe 1.3d-compliant, but the company says a firmware update could upgrade the device to NVMe 1.4. The controller supports AES 256-bit hardware encryption to ensure data security. It also comes with standard features such as S.M.A.R.T. data reporting capability and thermal throttle protection that kicks in when the device reaches or exceeds 70 degrees Celsius. Our sample also supports three power states (13W, 15W, and 17W) and multiple LBA sizes.
The LBNF’s higher channel count is a notable improvement over the previous generation SLL3D controller. While the SLL3D had up to seven channels, the LBNF scales up to eight channels for our 800GB model, and up to 12 channels for the 1.6TB model (The extra channels only impart minor performance improvements).
Intel optimized for single-sector reads, which makes it easier for small-file 512B transfers. Surprisingly, the controller only has a single-core ARM Cortex R7 CPU operating at up to 1.1 GHz. The drive lacks DRAM — it’s not needed with bit-addressable Optane media.
Intel’s second-gen Optane media is what makes the P5800X so special, but it’s also why it costs so much. With eight packages on the PCB, each containing four dies, our 800GB sample comes with a lot of fast and expensive 256Gb dies (half as many as the bigger 1.6TB model). That’s twice the die density of first-gen Optane media.
Intel scaled out to a four-deck design, up from just two decks with the first-gen media, which also helped to improve memory array efficiency. As a result, the number of bond pads per die has increased from 81 to 85, and the memory array efficiency increased from 57.8% to 67.4%. Intel shrunk the die size a little, too, from 206.5 mm2 to 195.6mm^2. This figure allows us to calculate the second generation Optane media’s bit density as 1.31 Gb/mm2, which is minuscule compared to today’s high-layer count NAND flash that can measure 10x that.
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Comparison Products
Today, we put the 800GB Intel Optane SSD DC P5800X up against some of the best consumer SSDs on the market. We include the Samsung 980 Pro, WD Black SN850, and Corsair MP600 Pro with Phison’s E18 NVMe controller, as well as a few top competing PCIe 3.0 SSDs, too. These include the SK hynix Gold P31, Samsung 970 EVO Plus, Crucial P5, and a 1.5TB Optane SSD 905P.
Game Scene Loading - Final Fantasy XIV
Final Fantasy XIV Shadowbringers is a free real-world game benchmark that easily and accurately compares game load times without the inaccuracy of using a stopwatch.
With their near-instant response times, Optane SSDs lead the pack. While the 905P was over a second faster than the WD_Black SN850, the P5800X loaded the level the fastest. Loading all the levels in under 10 seconds on average, the P5800X is the undisputed champ in this comparison.
Transfer Rates – DiskBench
We use the DiskBench storage benchmarking tool to test file transfer performance with a custom dataset. We copy a 50GB dataset including 31,227 files of various types, like pictures, PDFs, and videos to a new folder and then follow-up with a reading test of a newly-written 6.5GB zip file.
With roughly a 400MBps lead over the WD Black SN850 and 500MBps lead over the Samsung 980 Pro, large and complex file copies go quickly when you’re using Intel’s DC 5800X. It delivered not only the fastest copy result we have seen - twice as fast as the 905P - but also the fastest read performance thus far.
Trace Testing – PCMark 10 Storage Test
PCMark 10 is a trace-based benchmark that uses a wide-ranging set of real-world traces from popular applications and everyday tasks to measure the performance of storage devices. The quick benchmark is more relatable to those who use their PCs for leisure or basic office work, while the full benchmark relates more to power users.
Based on the PCMark 10 results, the Intel Optane SSD DC 5800X is in a league of its own in terms of user responsiveness. It delivers almost twice the score of the closest competitor in both the Quick and Full System Drive benchmarks, that closest competitor being the 905P.
The P8500X is a low latency monster that not only can handle enterprise and data center workloads, but also excel in delivering snappy performance when tasked with simple everyday use by a single user.
Synthetic Testing - ATTO / iometer
iometer is an advanced and highly configurable storage benchmarking tool while ATTO is a simple and free application that SSD vendors commonly use to assign sequential performance specifications to their products. Both of these tools give us insight into how the device handles different file sizes.
The P5800X leads at small block sizes, but the WD Black SN850 takes lead after files sizes reach 128KB. We see a similar trend in the write workload, too. The P5800X delivers the fastest overall sequential performance in the group, though it isn't the fastest at QD1 write tests with 1MB blocks.
Measuring just 0.009ms, the 5800X’s random read speed is four to five times faster than both the Samsung 980 Pro and WD_Black SN850. Furthermore, random performance peaks at 1.56/1.34 million random read/write IOPS when loaded up with enough threads on our Rocket Lake test bench.
Sustained Write Performance and Cache Recovery
Official write specifications are only part of the performance picture. Most SSDs implement a write cache, which is a fast area of (usually) pseudo-SLC programmed flash that absorbs incoming data. Sustained write speeds can suffer tremendously once the workload spills outside of the cache and into the "native" TLC or QLC flash. We use iometer to hammer the SSD with sequential writes for 15 minutes to measure both the size of the write cache and performance after the cache is saturated. We also monitor cache recovery via multiple idle rounds.
One of the main benefits of the Optane P5800X is that it is a bit-addressable device, meaning it doesn't need to perform garbage collection like flash-based SSDs. There's also no need for a cache. This enables incredible sustained performance, and unlike regular SSDs, that applies even until the drive is filled with data. Our 800GB sample wrote 5.5 TB of data at an average speed of 6.1 GBps within a 15 min span; that's roughly seven times its own capacity without any performance degradation.
Power Consumption and Temperature
We use the Quarch HD Programmable Power Module to gain a deeper understanding of power characteristics. Idle power consumption is an important aspect to consider, especially if you're looking for a laptop upgrade. Some SSDs can consume watts of power at idle while better-suited ones sip just milliwatts. Average workload power consumption and max consumption are two other aspects of power consumption, but performance-per-watt is more important. A drive might consume more power during any given workload, but accomplishing a task faster allows the drive to drop into an idle state more quickly, ultimately saving energy.
We also monitor the drive’s temperature via the S.M.A.R.T. data and an IR thermometer to see when (or if) thermal throttling kicks in and how it impacts performance. Bear in mind that results will vary based on the workload and ambient air temperature.
The 800GB DC P5800X is more than twice as power-efficient as the 1.5TB Optane SSD 905P but lags the other top-performing PCIe 4.0 competitors. In addition, the P5800X has high idle power consumption and sucks over 15W under load.
Even though it sucks down roughly 3.3W of power at idle, the large form factor and fins on the enclosure keep temps cool under standard consumer workloads without the need for forced airflow. However, Intel still recommends airflow when using these SSDs, especially the larger 1.6 TB model. At idle, our sample measured roughly 35C without airflow in a 24C environment.
After filling with multiple simultaneous file transfers while simultaneously running the Crystal Disk Mark benchmark on the SSD, the P5800X peaked at only 61C. We didn't observe any throttling, even after writing more than twice the capacity of the drive. However, the U.2 form factor has greater thermal mass, so it doesn't cool down as quickly as the much smaller M.2 alternatives.
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Intel’s initial goal with the DC P5800X was to double the performance of its predecessors, and in our testing, we can see it delivered. The P5800X is an incredible NVMe SSD that leaves everything else in the dust — flash-based SSDs simply can't compete. Due to the inherent advantages of the Optane storage media, like the ability to write data in place, Intel’s Optane SSD DC P5800X sets the new high bar for PCIe 4.0 performance.
Based on what we’ve seen, we can say that the DC P5800X is the fastest storage device we've ever tested. The P5800X's increased bandwidth feeds voracious content creation applications with aplomb. As they say in the storage industry, bandwidth is easy, but latency is hard. The P5800X wins here, too, with its average latency results showing remarkable improvement in low-QD operations and providing exceptional agility and responsiveness in nearly any type of work. Even Intel's previous-gen Optane SSD 905P, which was previously the fastest storage device in the world, pales in comparison.
The P5800X is also the most resilient SSD we’ve come across, too — nothing else is even close. With up to 100 drive writes of endurance per day, it can handle more write data than your average user will do within a lifetime.
Given its eye-watering price point, the DC P5800X isn’t a value-oriented drive, but it is the most responsive and durable storage money can buy. If you have heavy workloads that saturate the PCIe 3.0 interface and command PCIe 4.0 speeds, the Optane DC P5800X is your best choice. With speeds of up to 7.2/6.2 GBps read/write and capable of handling up to 1.5 million random read/write IOPS, this SSD gives you the fastest performance at any cost.
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