Nearly a year and a half ago Intel introduced an entirely new way of thinking about Enterprise grade Solid State Drives: their Data Center series. During that first generation outing they focused in on steady-state performance and SATA based solutions, thus the 'S' in the DC S3700 and DC S3500 monikers. Put simply the DC S3xxx series introduced to the world the third generation Intel SSD controller, one which has recently cascaded down to the consumer grade 730 series. Now Intel has turned their attention to a more pressing issue: the underlying architecture that makes up a Solid State Drive. To showcase the fruits of their labor they have launched the DC P3700 series; and today we will be looking at the 800GB version.

The DC P3700 series is meant to highlight a number of advances within Intel's newly revised SSD environment but it still targets the same data center-based market as the DC S-series. However, instead of utilizing a SATA interface, it uses the PCI-E bus to maximize performance. Therefore, the P3700, P3600 and P3500 aren't meant as replacements to the slightly older but no less capable S3500 and S3700.

Like the Intel 910 series it obviously replaces, this new Data Center P3700 series will come in various capacities, but each and every one will have the same price per gigabyte ratio. While $3.02 per gigabyte does sound high (especially compared the DC S3700 series) this is a lot less than the 910 commanded when it was launched. For example a 800GB Intel 910 had an MSRP of $3,859 or $4.82 per GB whereas a 800GB DC P3700 will only set companies back $2,414. This is still high, but for the enterprise market it is much more palatable and should help the DC P3700 gain traction. However, lowered price is the smallest of the benefits the DC P3700 brings to the table.