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REPORT SUMMARY AND FINAL THOUGHTS
As impressed as we have been from the start with the Intel P3700 NVMe SSD, two more factors play into the success of this SSD; startup and heat. Unlike every PCIe solution prior, there is no requirement for a separate BIOS to boot prior to the system BIOS for that SSD to be recognized as a boot drive. Our boot time on the P3700 is around 15 seconds and this is slowed down somewhat by the fact that it still takes a second or two for the automatic logon to do its job.
The below components are present in this Test Bench, given exception to the Intel P3700 of course. All hardware is linked to sales on the right side of the chart, should one be interested in a specific piece.
| PC CHASSIS: | InWin D-Frame Open Air Chassis |
| MOTHERBOARD: | ASRock Z97 Extreme6 Socket 1150 |
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-4790 |
| CPU COOLER: | Corsair Hydro Series H105 Extreme Water Cooled |
| POWER SUPPLY: | be quiet Dark Power Pro 10 1000W PSU |
| SYSTEM COOLING: | be quiet Silent Wings 2 PC Fans |
| GRAPHICS CARD: | EVGA GTX 770 Superclocked with ACX Cooler |
| MEMORY: | Kingston HyperX Beast |
| KEYBOARD: | Corsair Vengeance K95 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard |
| MOUSE: | Corsair Vengeance M95 MMO/RTS Laser Mouse |
| MONITOR: | QNIX 27″ QX2710 2560×1440 |
| HBA | HighPoint RocketU 1144C 4 x USB 3.0 20Gb/s HBA |
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Heat, or rather the lack of, was also something we never expected. Many have always held the belief that the faster the throughput and higher the IOPS, the more heat created within the memory and controller. This is definitely not the case with the P3700 which is actually cool to the touch at any point in time in our system. Did we mention that it is our main boot drive?
Last but not least, we had to wonder how backup, or rather migration might work, as we are in the habit of using Paragon OS to SSD software to regularly do a system migration for our own security. After all, we are now moving a NVMe set system to a SATA 3 SSD in our case. We pulled the P3700 and the system started immediately, and without a hitch, using the SATA 3 SSD as its boot device.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Other than Q4, there is no set release date for the Intel P3000 NVMe SSD family and this has several drooling at the thought of getting one of these in their system. We might hazard to warn potential buyers that they can be found on Amazon (and other e-tail sources) right now for pre-sale, but through 3rd party sellers that have padded their price significantly from expected MSRP pricing. Buyer beware.
In any case, we have no doubt that Intel will be leading the SSD industry into the future with their NVMe designs, and at a price that most never expected. Until release though, the door is open for competition.
Many, many thanks for reviewing it this way too & sharing all these great details!!!
It would be nice if you posted a similar review for installation on Centos 6.5 or Centos 7 server. I’m particularly interested if this will allow SWAP space to be used on SSD as an acceptable use to not loading my database servers up with lots of more expensive DRAM.
Les, I’m not real clear on something. You stated that you had to use CSM mode, but then it sounded like you figured out that you didn’t need it. Can you clarify for us?
I have an ASRock Z87M OC Formula and I am trying to figure out if it will boot this drive. I understand the Z97 board you are using will, but hoping I won’t have to upgrade this board that is only a few months old.
I also understand that this would take away a couple of PCI channels from my video card and I am not sure how that will affect my video performance.
The manual for that board states “devices support UEFI, you may also disable CSM for faster boot speed.” I can install it from my Z87 Extreme11/ac.
This forum is unreadable- text blend to background, please change colors!
No… you need CSM, or a similar mode that will utilize UEFI for the primary boot device. Its a must. In the ASRock board, it is accomplished through CSM. What I intended to say was that, before I did the Win8 install, I had already set the board at CSM/UEFI.
the writer didn’t do his homework very well. Dell has been shipping the XS1715 2.5″ PCIe-SSDs under the Dell PowerEdge Express Flash name since March. BTW, Dell is still the only major server company shipping PCIe-SSDs
No. the writer just didn’t state what he wanted to as specific as he should have, meaninb no reviewer has gotten one in their hands as of yet. Amended and thank you.
Could you post what it gives for speed-battle.com score with Firefox browser?
Great review, thx!
>The stock driver on the left displays much higher 4K-64Thrd write speeds and subsequent scores, whereas the Intel NVMe driver results provide us with far superior high sequential throughput.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but for a development workstation (Multiple VMs, Visual Studio, SQL Server, etc.) the Windows’ stock driver looks like a better choice!?
It can be seen from that angle. This is the reason we wanted to include both results in the report.
“Installation of Windows 8.1 took a mind boggling 3 minutes”
Whats mind boggling about that? How slow it is?
My last install of Windows 8.1 took 90 seconds, on a 4 year old SSD. Don’t tell you you are still using optical drives? Try installing from a decent USB stick, dude!
That was a USB and send us a video of that 90 second installation when you get a chance won’t you….dude?
Windows 8.1 was easy to install on my Rampage IV extreme. Just be sure to switch to UEFI and turn the compatibility feature off. The drive will not show up in the BIOS, but Windows Setup will see the drive. Also worth noting – the card comes with a small form factor bracket which is inadequate for installation in a standard cases (or even some 4U chassis with full size slots.) I was able to re-purpose the IO shield from an Intel SATA/SAS RAID controller. Be careful when doing this. The bracket I used was off a RT3WB080 RAID controller. They used to have both brackets standard with RAID controllers – I guess they stopped doing this or maybe they sell them separate.
mine came with both brackets
Hi Nick
Since I’m Swedish, I wish to have more detailed information on the boot with Intel NVMe SSD and installation of Win 8.
If possible use bjorn.edarp@blixtmail.se.
Cheers
Bjorn
Hi !
It seems that the p3700 keep cool without any fan since its an open case This is good , but what if it got under heavy load , did you have the chance to test that ?
My home server is open case like yours with an atx motherboard with an air cooled cpu , but no other hot components at all. Room temperature is about 18 Celsius = 68 F.
Dear Les the intel DC P3600 400GB SSD, boots with Win 7 Pro 64-bit with two systems I have based on ASrock X99M-Killer and ASUS Maximus VII Ranger motherboards . Also
on the ASrock m/b I tested both PCIe 3.0 x16, PCIe 2.0 x4 slots , it is 3 times faster in the PCIe 3.0 slot in reading 2.1GB/s to 0.7Gb/s (ATTO Benchmark)
Hey Les, For windows 7, you may need CSM… but for windows 8.1, CSM can be disabled right? CSM is a module to support UEFI for Win 7. (As I understand it) Windows 8.1 should install with CSM disabled (hence FORCE UEFI mode)… Unless your GFX card is legacy…