Intel Is Back to the Consumer SSD Game

Y'all volition have to pay for it, but the new Intel SSD 750 Serial is the fastest consumer-grade PCIe SSD currently in the marketplace.

With that out of the way, information technology wasn't all roses...

The performance of the SSD 750 Serial ane.2TB ranged from blistering fast to downright slow depending on the test. For case, the SSD 750 killed information technology in our file re-create benchmarks, and it comfortably handled the pack of consumer-course SSDs in most others (Samsung SSD 850 Pro, SanDisk Extreme Pro and Plextor M6e).

However, the synthetic benchmarks were mixed, with CrystalDiskMark showing weaker than expected sequential read performance and random 4K-QD32 functioning, while Every bit SSD provided stiff sequential and 4K-64 thread operation. Finally, it was Atto Disk Criterion that revealed the reason for this inconsistency.

When reading and writing data smaller than 4K, the SSD 750 Series i.2TB is terribly slow. The SSD 750 didn't impress until the file sizes reached 128K in the read tests, though things got moving a lot faster when measuring write performance. This weak small file performance probable explains the sluggish virus scan and game installation tests that but matched the less ambitious competition, while nosotros saw stiff overall bandwidth in PCMark vii and PCMark 8 but no real awarding improvements.

In that location'due south no denying that the SSD 750 Series 1.2TB is fast, but we were hoping to find it fast everywhere.

The SSD 750 Series isn't cheap and being an enthusiast/workstation series, that's hardly shocking. The 400GB model is gear up to sell for $390 ($0.97 per gigabyte) and the 1.2TB model that we reviewed is set at $1,030 ($0.85 per gigabyte).

Those were decent prices a few years ago, but with the Samsung SSD 850 Pro 1TB fetching $0.55 per gigabyte today, that makes the Intel SSD 750 Series rather expensive.

And so again, the SSD 750 Series isn't necessarily competing with the likes of Samsung'south SSD 850 Pro. Competing cards such as the Plextor M6e Blackness Edition -- the 512GB M6e costs $530 or a niggling over $1 per gigabyte, while being much slower -- and the SSD 750 Serial also lays waste to the M.Skill Phoenix Bract 480GB ($650) and the OCZ RevoDrive 350 960GB ($1120).

Intel is staying quiet on whether nosotros can look the SSD 750 Serial in more capacities than 400GB and 1.2TB. Although there are no plans to release an M.two version of the SSD 750 Series, the company says it does have NVMe 1000.2 drives in the works.

Pros: Baking fast, fastest consumer-form PCIe SSD available. NVMe back up, excellent endurance, five-year warranty.

Cons: Possible operation drops when working with small information. Expensive. Potential compatibility issues with older X79 and Z87 platforms.