Optane fueled ryzens - Intel testing PCIe4 SSDs

[williamcll]

Intel is on the final phase of development regarding their next generation optane SSDs, however, they run on the PCIe 4 lanes, something that Intel motherboards do not have.

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In an interesting revelation that could give us some insight into how Intel's processor and storage roadmaps converge, even if forcibly, the company's Technical Marketing Performance Engineer Frank Ober recently posted to Twitter the unannounced information that the Alder Stream next-gen Optane SSDs would support the PCIe Gen 4.0 interface. From what we can glean from the posts, Ober has already sampled the drives to one Linux developer, meaning the drives are likely in the final stages of development, and is actively sampling the drives to others. 

There's only one problem: Intel doesn't have any PCIe 4.0-capable CPUs available on the market for its customers to plug the drives into. 

Intel teased us with its new Alder Stream second-gen Optane SSDs a few months ago but didn't share many details about the new drives. We do know the SSDs will come with second-gen Optane media (details here), which is an important step forward for Intel in the wake of its split with its ex-manufacturing partner Micron.These initial Optane SSDs are destined for the data center, but this new revelation also gives us an indication of when we can expect to see new PCIe 4.0 Optane SSDs with second-gen 3D XPoint for the consumer market.

Given that Intel doesn’t have any processors (aside from the Stratix 10 FPGAs) that support the PCIe 4.0 interface, the developers obviously don't have access to an Intel-driven test platform with the new interface, so they could be testing with either AMD's EPYC Rome or Ryzen processors to use the new drives at their full potential. They could also connect them to Intel platforms with the PCIe 3.0 interface, which should still unlock extra performance from the next-gen SSDs controller and media. 

...

 

According to Intel's latest statements to Tom's Hardware, the company plans to begin production of its PCIe 4.0-equipped 10nm Ice Lake processors in H2 2020, which means we might not see significant volume until several months later. In the interim, Intel will begin production of its 14nm Cooper Lake processors in the first half of 2020, and those chips almost certainly come with the PCIe 3.0 interface. As a result, it's logical to expect the company to launch the Alder Stream SSDs with the Ice Lake chips in the latter half of 2020 (provided it remains on schedule).

If Intel follows its normal cadence, the consumer desktop SSDs in M.2 and PCIe add-in-card form factors should arrive shortly after the data center models, and that would slot into the expected timeline for Intel's PCIe 4.0-compatible desktop processors.

 

Source: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-has-pcie-40-optane-ssds-ready-but-nothing-to-plug-them-in-to

Thoughts:Unless they can somehow turn a PCIe3 x8 into a U.2 connector I think it's going to hard for Intel to sell these into their ecosystem if they can't push their new CPUs on time. 

 

[Bombastinator]

Removed.  Post made suppositions which turned out to be discussed in the article upon a rereading

[dizmo]

It doesn't really matter if it's in their eco system or not. If people buy it, regardless of what CPU they're running it's still profit for them. It's not like it's Intel locked.

Profit is profit, money is green regardless of where it comes from. And so on, and so forth.

It's also not like they're not working on PCIe4

[Guest]

They probably have CPUs not in public with 4.0.

[porina]

Tom's Hardware Guide on how to complicate something relatively simple... wherever it goes, if you can reduce a bottleneck, that's a plus. Optane's selling point is in its random performance more so than sequentials, but if it can keep up in sequentials that is a nice plus.

 

52 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

They probably have CPUs not in public with 4.0.

They're also working on 5.0 already. Standard was finalised last year, and it's used as the basis for CXL and CCIX for some seriously high end stuff in near future.

[mr moose]

I'm not sure why they even mention AMD in this way,   If they don't know how Intel are developing them then making suppositions about needing AMD is more moot than anything.  I guess to most of their readers the tech world doesn't exists beyond what they can buy at shop.

 

 

Intel likely have many options to test and tinker with these,  They likely have prototypes of the PCIe 5 already (they didn't have to wait for official  finalization to start developing the tech), they also might be developing them to work primarily with PCIe 3 and existing hardware for the consumer space while including PCIe 4 means  more sales. 

[Mira Yurizaki]

The only reason why Intel needs AMD systems is to do independent testing and validation on them to verify the SSD works as intended. Intel's not stupid enough to ignore the fact there's a rise in AMD based systems where their storage devices could be used.

 

You don't think AMD has Intel based systems to validate their GPUs on?

[Curufinwe_wins]

Also... like yeah cost tossed out the window, optane is basically the best nonvolatile memory on the market... so ofc they would want to move to pcie G4 as soon as possible... 

[leadeater]

Quote

Given that Intel doesn’t have any processors (aside from the Stratix 10 FPGAs) that support the PCIe 4.0 interface, the developers obviously don't have access to an Intel-driven test platform with the new interface, so they could be testing with either AMD's EPYC Rome or Ryzen processors to use the new drives at their full potential.

Whoever wrote this article is not, how should I put it, good at logical thinking and timeline analysis. Ice Lake-SP is coming second half of 2020 which has PCIe 4.0 support and Intel has engineering samples so no they are testing on Intel CPUs with PCIe 4.0 support and not only that you do not need a CPU with PCIe 4.0 support at all, you use a PCIe 4.0 controller chip and interface PCIe 4.0 devices with that and connect back to the CPU using PCIe 3.0. Will they also test using AMD CPUs? Duh...

 

This is Intels storage division of the business, like they actually care what CPU is used. These parts get used in standard servers along with OEM storage arrays from the big vendors that want to design systems around them if they wish to.

 

Bring a little competition back in to the CPU market and suddenly it blinds people in to thinking only that matters and everything must relate to it.

[ARikozuM]

What's next? Ryzen running Iris Pro? 

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

What's next? Ryzen running Iris Pro? 

You laugh but it could be possible soon.

[TechyBen]

5 hours ago, ARikozuM said:

What's next? Ryzen running Iris Pro? 

Intel AMD Skull Canyon (IIRC) has entered the chat.

[williamcll]

1 hour ago, TechyBen said:

Intel AMD Skull Canyon (IIRC) has entered the chat.

Its being replaced by the ghost canyon though. 

[RejZoR]

9 hours ago, leadeater said:

Whoever wrote this article is not, how should I put it, good at logical thinking and timeline analysis. Ice Lake-SP is coming second half of 2020 which has PCIe 4.0 support and Intel has engineering samples so no they are testing on Intel CPUs with PCIe 4.0 support and not only that you do not need a CPU with PCIe 4.0 support at all, you use a PCIe 4.0 controller chip and interface PCIe 4.0 devices with that and connect back to the CPU using PCIe 3.0. Will they also test using AMD CPUs? Duh...

 

This is Intels storage division of the business, like they actually care what CPU is used. These parts get used in standard servers along with OEM storage arrays from the big vendors that want to design systems around them if they wish to.

 

Bring a little competition back in to the CPU market and suddenly it blinds people in to thinking only that matters and everything must relate to it.

Which makes sense. Even if servers run EPYC's, Intel might still have some earnings participation via other components, like storage. It's how you build company that has less chance of losing revenue if some division has issues, because others may still bring you a lot of cash.

[BachChain]

Why do people assume that AMD has the only platform with pcie4. POWER9 had pcie4 two years before AMD

[Mira Yurizaki]

3 hours ago, BachChain said:

Why do people assume that AMD has the only platform with pcie4. POWER9 had pcie4 two years before AMD

Because many people here seem to think the x86 platform is the only one that exists.

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, Mira Yurizaki said:

Because most people here seem to think the x86 platform is the only one that exists.

*looks up briefly from playing a AAA video game.  Immediately dies onscreen*

[nick name]

Wait, those aren't commercial drives?  Because they look like commercial drives.  

[leadeater]

32 minutes ago, nick name said:

Wait, those aren't commercial drives?  Because they look like commercial drives.  

U.2 drives are most definitely server products, slim few and mostly workstation motherboards have U.2 connectors because for the most part there aren't really any consumer U.2 SSDs. Intel 750 SSD is the first one that comes to mind but that was a very high end very professional targeted device.

 

Would be a damn thick wallet for anyone that buys one of these for a desktop lol.

[nick name]

7 minutes ago, leadeater said:

U.2 drives are most definitely server products, slim few and mostly workstation motherboards have U.2 connectors because for the most part there aren't really any consumer U.2 SSDs. Intel 750 SSD is the first one that comes to mind but that was a very high end very professional targeted device.

 

Would be a damn thick wallet for anyone that buys one of these for a desktop lol.

Der8auer's build used two.  Lol.  

[Bombastinator]

7 minutes ago, leadeater said:

U.2 drives are most definitely server products, slim few and mostly workstation motherboards have U.2 connectors because for the most part there aren't really any consumer U.2 SSDs. Intel 750 SSD is the first one that comes to mind but that was a very high end very professional targeted device.

 

Would be a damn thick wallet for anyone that buys one of these for a desktop lol.

(Had to look up u.2 before I made the obvious 80’s pop band joke)

just ran into something which says u.2 just had a consumer level chipset released so it could theoretically be coming to consumer level stuff in the future.  Not yet though.

[leadeater]

6 minutes ago, nick name said:

Der8auer's build used two.  Lol.  

 

6 minutes ago, nick name said:

Would be a damn thick wallet

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

(Had to look up u.2 before I made the obvious 80’s pop band joke)

Ah yes, the Desire to makes jokes is strong but you managed to Walk On passed doing that. With or Without You, I will go there..... Yea this was Bad.

[tech.guru]

I think this is more about intel staying competitive in the storage space. 

samsung already has PCIE 4.0 PM1733 and PM1735 PCIe Gen4 SSDs from September last year.

 

seems like intel is lagging in storage too...

 

https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-brings-revolutionary-software-innovation-to-pcie-gen4-ssds-for-maximized-storage-performance

[mr moose]

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

Ah yes, the Desire to makes jokes is strong but you managed to Walk On passed doing that. With or Without You, I will go there..... Yea this was Bad.

 

It's not even Bad,  and you still have your Pride.   But it is One way to make an Exit.