Intel SSD DC P3700 Enthusiast Report (800GB)

 TSSDR Z97 TEST BENCH

SSD Testing at TSSDR differs slightly depending on whether we are looking at consumer or enterprise SSDs.  For consumer SSDs, our goal is to test in a system that has been optimized with our SSD Optimization Guide, although CPU C States have not been changed at all.  Benchmarks for consumer testing are also benchmarks with a fresh drive so, not only can we verify that manufacturer specifications are in line but also, so the consumer can replicate our tests to confirm that they have an SSD that is top-notch.  We even provide links to most of the benchmarks used in the report.

This is a brand new test bench and, as such, we would love to thank those who jumped in specifically to help the cause.  Key contributors to this build are our friends at ASRock, Corsair, Kingston with components from past contributors to include In-Win, EVGA, beQuiet, Plextor, Samsung,  QNIX and RamCity, this still being a key resource in the acquisition of the XP941.  We have detailed all components in the table below and they are all linked should you wish to make a duplicate our system as so many seem to do, or check out the price of any soul component.  As always, we appreciate your support in any purchase though our links!

SYSTEM COMPONENTS

This Test Bench build was the result of some great relationships and purchase; our appreciation goes to the below mentioned manufacturers for their support in our project.  Our choice of components is very narrow, in that, we choose only what we believe to be among the best available and links are provided to each that will assist in hardware pricing and availability, should the reader be interested in purchase.

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

.

BENCHMARK SOFTWARE

The software we will be using for today’s analysis is typical of many of our reviews and consists of ATTO Disk Benchmark, Crystal Disk Info, Crystal DiskMark, AS SSD, PCMark Vantage, Anvil Storage Utilities, PCMark 8, and IOMeter. In our reports, we prefer to test with easily accessible software that the consumer can obtain, and in many cases, we even provide links. Our selection of software allows each to build on the last and to provide validation to results already obtained.

OUR TEST PROTOCOL

Short of PCMark 8 and IOMeter, all other testing is done with a fresh SSD DC P3700 NVMe SSD in order to demonstrate the type of result the buyer might see when comparing our tests to their own.  Our testing with IOMeter will include our ‘4 corners’ test scenario to determine what the drive is capable of in steady state, as well as server variations and further consistency testing.  Similarly, PCMark 8 requires just short of 18 hours to complete its extended storage testing, that of which puts several TB of writes on the drive.

ATTO DISK BENCHMARK VER. 2.47

ATTO Disk Benchmark is perhaps one of the oldest benchmarks going and is definitely the main staple for manufacturer performance specifications. ATTO uses RAW or compressible data and, for our benchmarks, we use a set length of 256mb and test both the read and write performance of various transfer sizes ranging from 0.5 to 8192kb. Manufacturers prefer this method of testing as it deals with raw (compressible) data rather than random (includes incompressible data) which, although more realistic, results in lower performance results.

With 2.8GB/s read and 1.9GB/s write throughput, the Intel SSD DC P3700 is dead on its listed specs.  A closer look at this ATTO benchmark will start to tell the story of NVMe a bit more clearly though.  We have never before seen a 4K file size transfer result of 590MB/s, much less 1GB/s at the 8K size.  This provides a very clear indication that NVMe will be capable of significantly increasing the visual performance we see in SSDs today, as files that are typically OS system files are now being executed with twice the speed.

QUICKBENCH v. 4.0

Similar to ATTO, QuickBench tests transfer speeds while gradually increasing file sizes.  In this scenario, we have run the standard tests that have graduating file sizes from 4KB to 1024KB.

For us, the key take away from this test was the high 4K write transfer speed of 242MB/s which painted the picture that some great results were yet to come.