The Intel SSD 760p 512GB Review: Mainstream NVMe Done Right
by Billy Tallis on January 23, 2018 11:30 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - Heavy
Our Heavy storage benchmark is proportionally more write-heavy than The Destroyer, but much shorter overall. The total writes in the Heavy test aren't enough to fill the drive, so performance never drops down to steady state. This test is far more representative of a power user's day to day usage, and is heavily influenced by the drive's peak performance. The Heavy workload test details can be found here. This test is run twice, once on a freshly erased drive and once after filling the drive with sequential writes.
The average data rate of the Intel SSD 760p on the Heavy test makes it clear that the 760p is not a high-end NVMe drive, but it does perform much better than SATA SSDs and previous low-end NVMe SSDs. The 760p also handles being full relatively well, so its SLC caching strategy seems well done.
The average and 99th percentile latency scores of the 760p aren't great, but they're still a big improvement over most earlier low-end NVMe SSDs. The 99th percentile latency has more room for improvement, since it is no better than a good SATA SSD.
The average read latencies of the Intel SSD 760p on the Heavy test are not quite as good as a high-end NVMe SSD but are definitely close enough for a product this cheap. The average write latencies are more in line with some of the better previous budget NVMe SSDs, and are close to the level of SATA SSDs.
The 99th percentile read latencies from the Intel 760p don't particularly stand out, and are reasonable for this product segment. The 99th percentile write latency scores are rather high, but not to egregiously like the Intel SSD 600p and a similar ADATA drive.
As with The Destroyer, the Intel SSD 760p shows very good power efficiency by NVMe standards, but the SATA drives and the Toshiba XG5 show that there's still room for much improvement.
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Jhlot - Tuesday, January 23, 2018 - link
Right we are comparing EVO not PRO here. And this is Intel's midrange consumer NVME now if Optane is high/enthu and 600p is low, and the 760p still doesn't compare to Samsung's lessor NVME 960 evo consumer from more than a year ago. The 960evo has a small premium in price because it can command it based on performance since no one else is stepping up to its level. Also the OEM 960 evo (PM961) is often available new on ebay for a little over $300 at 1TB which maybe the Intel offering will match. So, an altogether underwhelming showing by Intel is a valid criticism while msabercr's exaggerated Beetle vs. 911 jab which is implicit on price/offering tier not being comparable is misplaced because they are comparable consumer NVME offerings.milli - Thursday, January 25, 2018 - link
Why even compare to the 960 EVO?It barely matches the Toshiba XG5 and there's already a faster XG5-P.
andychow - Tuesday, January 23, 2018 - link
Toshiba is trying to sell their memory chip business, that's why their prices are out of whack and they have no successor. They gutted that division and leave old stock at inflated prices to pretend their brand has some sort of value. Bain must be working some sort of angle to see $18B of value.emvonline - Tuesday, January 23, 2018 - link
it has 2 dram chips? for a 512GB SSD? with average performance? is that normal?svan1971 - Tuesday, January 23, 2018 - link
Intel 50% lower performance for 33% less money than Samsung.HStewart - Tuesday, January 23, 2018 - link
And the new 960 was release today.megapleb - Tuesday, January 23, 2018 - link
Real world testing would be very helpful on SSDs. While the benchmarks are great, as a consumer, what I really care about is how much difference a drive will make to dad to day activities - boot time, application loading etc.niva - Tuesday, January 23, 2018 - link
You won't see much difference in those use cases, maybe some heavy applications might take a second or two longer to load even in the slowest drives. These drives only differentiate themselves in situations where you hammer them with tons of data and instructions.bug77 - Tuesday, January 23, 2018 - link
And that's the "dirty" secret of SSDs: as much as benchmarks show them performing faster or slower, in real life it makes little difference unless your workflow relies on heavy I/O. I can confirm that as I have currently installed Vertex4, 850EVO and MX300 drives and I cannot tell of any difference when using any of them.I've said it before and I'll say it again: when buying an SSD, the only rule to follow is "get the biggest drive you can fit in your budget".
Amandtec - Wednesday, January 24, 2018 - link
Contrarian view: A PC is as much a status symbol as a tool. By your logic no one should buy a BMW because you unlikely to use all that extra speed.