Internals, Testing Methodology and System Setup

Internals

Outside:

Inside:

With the rear plate off, we uncover half of the XPoint media.

The rear contains 14 32GB packages.

Further disassembly:

Note the pair of contact tabs to the right. These are to connect the LEDs integrated in the new heatsink assembly.

The controller appears to be a slightly revised version of the same ‘SLL3D’ part found in the 900P and P4800X. Based on the performance we are about to see in the review, we can also assume this controller runs at a slightly higher clock rate than the 900P.

I did not want to disturb the pads any more than I already had, but it's a safe bet (based on what we know of the 900P) that the front side contains 7 32GB and 7 64GB packages. This brings the total raw media count to 1,120GB.

…and if we dug deeper into those dies, this is what we would find. Want to know how this 3D XPoint stuff works? I have an article for that!

Testing Methodology

Our tests are a mix of synthetic and real-world benchmarks. IOMeter, HDTach, HDTune, Yapt and our custom File Copy test round out the selection to cover just about all bases. We have developed a custom test suite as off-the-shelf tests just no longer cut it for in-depth storage testing. More details on the next page. If you have any questions about our tests just drop into the Storage Forum and we'll help you out!

Test System Setup

We have several storage testbeds. A newer ASUS P8Z77-V Pro/Thunderbolt and a Gigabyte Z170X SOC Force (for RAID testing). Future PCIe and SATA device testing, including this review, take place on an ASUS Sabertooth X99, which comes equipped with USB 3.1, M.2, and can also handle SFF-8639 (U.2) devices with the proper adapter.

PC Perspective would like to thank Intel, ASUS, Gigabyte, Corsair, Kingston, and EVGA for supplying some of the components of our test rigs. 

Hard Drive Test System Setup
CPU Intel Core i7 5820K @ 4.125 GHz
Motherboard ASUS Sabertooth X99
Memory 16GB Micron DDR4 @ 3333
Hard Drive G.Skill 32GB SLC SSD
Sound Card N/A
Video Card EVGA GeForce GTX 750
Video Drivers GeForce Game Ready Driver 347.88
Power Supply Corsair CMPSU-650TX
DirectX Version N/A
Operating System Windows 8.1 Pro X64 (update)
  • PCPer File Copy Test
  • HDTach
  • HDTune
  • IOMeter
  • YAPT
  • PCPer Custom SSD TEST SUITE!!!
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