Conclusion, Pricing, and Final Thoughts

Conclusion:

PROS:

  • > 2.4GB/sec and > 440,000 IOPS. Need I say more, really?
  • NVMe technology greatly reduces CPU overhead during high IOPS usage.
  • SFF-8639 option available for those reserving all PCIe slots for other uses.

CONS:

  • This line is in desperate need of an 800GB capacity.
  • No capability exists to boot from PCIe SSDs in a RAID configuration.

Pricing and Availability:

  • 400GB – $389   ($0.97/GB) (Amazon)
  • 1.2TB  – $1029 ($0.86/GB) (Amazon)
  • (estimated availability of the above is May 2, 2015)

These prices may seem high, but consider that the RevoDrive 350 sells for close to $2/GB. The Phoenix Blade is equally priced. Considering how badly those two were bruised by the SSD 750, I'm sure those prices will fall very soon. On the SATA side, sure an 850 Pro does run cheaper at $0.60/GB, but all SATA SSDs run at only 1/4 the speed of the SSD 750. Even the best 4-SSD RAID behind an Intel SATA controller can't keep up to just one of these.

Compatibility:

A quick note on compatibility. Booting from NVMe devices requires, at a minimum, UEFI BIOS with proper support for NVMe. All X99 and Z97 motherboards should have no problem booting an SSD 750, but support may be spotty for Z87/Z77/X79 systems. This is not due to any issue or problem with the SSD 750 Series – it is due to lack of proper NVMe device initialization and enumeration for bootability in those older systems. In short, a motherboard has to properly recognize a device in order to boot from it, and these are new devices.

Warranty:

The SSD 750 Series ships with a 5-year warranty.

Final Thoughts:

Intel really hit it out of the park with the SSD 750 Series. We might have liked to see this come out sooner, but motherboard makers needed time to implement proper NVMe boot support. With that present in nearly all current generation systems (and being added to some older motherboard UEFI BIOS), Intel has chosen the appropriate time to unleash this insanely capable SSD to the masses. Read and write performance is outstanding, and random IO performance outpaces much of the benchmark software out there. NVMe does its job in limiting the CPU overhead, as a device as capable as the SSD 750 could easily saturate several CPU cores if it had to rely on dated standards. With such incredible performance at a reasonable price, the Intel SSD 750 is the obvious choice for consumers who demand the most from their storage.

This SSD breathes fire and doesn't break the bank while doing so. For the fastest consumer SSD out there, the Intel SSD 750 is a no-brainer decision.

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