Earlier this year we tested the first enterprise-SSD from the Intel Optane series which uses the all-new 3D XPoint memory. That SSD broke almost all speed records, but was still extremely expensive. With the Optane 800p and 900p, Intel wants to bring this new technology to regular consumers too, at a much more affordable price.

If you are shopping for a high-end SSD, you will soon end up at a model with nvme. Although that protocol allows for much higher performance in scenarios with long queues and many threads, the same nand-memory chips are still used for those SSDs. This flash memory has barely gotten any faster over the years, because manufacturers primarily focused on reducing production costs and increasing (or maintaining) sustainability.