Intel Announces SSD 665p: Denser, Faster QLC NAND – AnandTech

by Billy Tallis on September 26, 2019 12: 30 AM EST

• Posted in
• SSDs
• Storage
• Intel
• Silicon Motion
• 96-layer
• QLC

Intel’s Memory and Storage Day match on the present time in South Korea became mainly enthusiastic with endeavor and datacenter products, nevertheless they did negate an upcoming user SSD: The Intel SSD 665p. This is the successor to the Intel 660p, the first and most winning user SSD to spend four bit per cell (QLC) NAND flash memory. The 665p is rarely always a major replace: it retains the identical Silicon Motion SM2263 4-channel controller nevertheless updates the NAND to Intel’s second-skills 96-layer 3D QLC NAND. This newer QLC retains the identical 1024Gb per-die ability whereas worried total die measurement, so we fabricate not take a look at any trade to the fluctuate of drive capacities supplied nor any main performance adjustments—nevertheless it’ll also lower costs fair a cramped.

Intel showed off the 665p with a dwell demo pitting the 1TB 660p against a 1TB 665p prototype with pre-production firmware, every establish in in otherwise identical ASUS notebooks. Intel worn a beta version of CrystalDiskMark 7 as an instance the 665p’s performance: 40-50% development to sequential transfer speeds and about 30% sooner random receive admission to speeds.

Left: 665p 1TB pre-production Sparkling: 660p 1TB


(Photos by Nathan Kirsch of Legit Reviews)

Caveats: given the short take a look at duration and comparatively empty utter of the drives, these numbers are measurements ultimate of the SLC cache performance. It’s not determined how unparalleled the worst-case write speeds to QLC agree with changed, and that’s the reason where the 660p falls far in the aid of TLC based fully SSDs. The sequential IO numbers Intel showed for the 660p are additionally well under what we now agree with measured with the 660p on our own testbed using CDM 7, so the sequential IO development is also extra along the strains of 20% rather than 40-50%. Our checking out of the Intel 660p additionally showed that it’ll reach identical speeds of 1.7-1.8GB/s in sequential transfers with a excessive ample queue depth, so the 665p’s development right here could perchance presumably amount to extending that performance correct down to queue depth 1. Either advance, it looks to be admire the 665p will be one more drive that offers correct ample performance for a whole lot of spend cases, nevertheless would not with out a doubt prefer all four PCIe lanes.

Nathan Kirsch over at Legit Reviews has shared his stop-up photos of the 665p alongside the 660p, so we know that the PCB layout is mainly unchanged: a single-sided M.2 2280 drive that ultimate needs to populate all four NAND package deal areas for the 2TB mannequin.

Intel hasn’t shared the deliberate beginning date for the 665p, nevertheless it must be no bigger than a pair of months away. Pricing must be similar to the 660p, making it considered one of many most cost-efficient user NVMe drives in the marketplace.