Micron Buys Out Intel's Stake in Optane's 3D XPoint Memory Tech

[Lucian Armasu]

Intel announced that it will exercise its right to buy Intel's share out of the IM Flash Technologies joint venture.

Micron Buys Out Intel's Stake in Optane's 3D XPoint Memory Tech : Read more

 

[JamesSneed]

This might be good for both companies. Intel can free up some fab space and get a little money. Micron can start selling Optane how they want which hopefully is decent sized and affordably priced M.2 drives that at least compete with the "pro" SSD drives on price.

Optane has been a weird you can use it as a cache or you can use it in a DIMM slot kind of tech that really isn't catching on.

 

[jimmysmitty]

This might be good for both companies. Intel can free up some fab space and get a little money. Micron can start selling Optane how they want which hopefully is decent sized and affordably priced M.2 drives that at least compete with the "pro" SSD drives on price.

Optane has been a weird you can use it as a cache or you can use it in a DIMM slot kind of tech that really isn't catching on.

The DIMM slot is only in servers currently. It wouldn't have been viable cost wise for consumers for a few more years. However I think thats the ultimate route to go. PCIe SSDs are good but they still are not as fast as memory. Having more direct connection to the CPU and lower latency would kill off one of the largest bottlenecks in the PC market.

 

[JamesSneed]

This might be good for both companies. Intel can free up some fab space and get a little money. Micron can start selling Optane how they want which hopefully is decent sized and affordably priced M.2 drives that at least compete with the "pro" SSD drives on price.

Optane has been a weird you can use it as a cache or you can use it in a DIMM slot kind of tech that really isn't catching on.

The DIMM slot is only in servers currently. It wouldn't have been viable cost wise for consumers for a few more years. However I think thats the ultimate route to go. PCIe SSDs are good but they still are not as fast as memory. Having more direct connection to the CPU and lower latency would kill off one of the largest bottlenecks in the PC market.

I was aware I like to build PC's but am also in IT so follow servers and gaming.

Yeah it's an odd time as servers can have rather large memory footprints which mitigates a lot of the needs for Optane especially since it has endurance wear as DIMM's effectively don't. To me Optane makes since as a SSD for pro/enterprise users or as cache inside of an SSD drive much like SLC was used as cache on cheaper MLC drives to help with the endurance but in the case of Optane it could have real performance impacts if implemented correctly..

 

[USAFRet]

Key words:
" if implemented correctly"

 

[AgentLozen]

Optane memory is objectively better than flash and a worthy successor. Everything about this technology is desirable except for its price.

Imagine if some car company built the first practical flying car. This flying car promises to:
-Be lots of fun to pilot
-Be safer
-End traffic forever
-Get you to your destination faster

Get yours today for the low price of $1,999,999!!!

Despite being the holy grail of driving, it would never catch on at that price point. I think technologies like Optane and OLED are in that spot. Once the price drops to a reasonable level then there will be no reason to keep the predecessor technologies around.

 

[Co BIY]

Ending the partnership with Intel doesn't seem like the best way to encourage them to add support for the tech in server CPUs which the article says is the key to selling in the data-center market.

 

[JamesSneed]

Ending the partnership with Intel doesn't seem like the best way to encourage them to add support for the tech in server CPUs which the article says is the key to selling in the data-center market.

Maybe or maybe not. It may just be to free up fabs on Intel's side more than anything.

 

[mlee 2500]

I love my Optane 905p. The random and mixed performance is great, sequential very nearly the same as my Samsung M.2's, and I don't have to worry about endurance in a drive that I intend to keep and heavily use for several years.

 

[USAFRet]

I love my Optane 905p. The random and mixed performance is great, sequential very nearly the same as my Samsung M.2's, and I don't have to worry about endurance in a drive that I intend to keep and heavily use for several years.

I'd love a 905p.
But at $1200 per 1TB, that's a bit much.

 

[mlee 2500]

I love my Optane 905p. The random and mixed performance is great, sequential very nearly the same as my Samsung M.2's, and I don't have to worry about endurance in a drive that I intend to keep and heavily use for several years.

I'd love a 905p.
But at $1200 per 1TB, that's a bit much.

Oh I agree, and that's why I use Samsung EVO's for my 1TB needs (Steam library etc.).

However I was able to pickup a 480GB Optane disk (U.2 with M.2 adapter) for only about $500 which I use for my lower capacity but more transactional I/O. Since I'm not space constrained at all in that regard, spending an extra $200 for a faster drive which will last me several years or more wasn't such a bad value proposition.