Performance tests of the retail product should be showing up any day now. EXPreview.com bought a retail unit in China and have a short preview with internal photos.

See http://www.silentpcreview.com/news-2011-03-22.htm and http://en.expreview.com/2011/03/22/excl ... 15541.html for starters.

I expect reviews will be popping up all over the place as NDAs and retail availability allow but it seems to be happening before the Mid April time frame we previously thought it would be.

The long-awaited G3 at last. I look forward to the reviews as this is potentially a real game-changer - not because performance is going to break any benchmarks, but because the biggest mainstream concern with SSDs (price/capacity) is going to be tackled head-on. The irony of this is that pricing will be even more keenly anticipated than the reviews...

Where I live prices have recently started to appear among retailers - price/capacity is pretty much the same as X25-M drives.

EXPreview review has showed up:
http://en.expreview.com/2011/03/23/worl ... 15569.html

What the... this is SLOWER than the Intel G2...
"While in 4K random read/write test,its performance was not so good,and the read/write speed was 22.53MB/s and 46.83MB/s,even lower than that of X25-M"

And the write speed is nowhere near the advertised speed of 160mb/s.

I waited for 5 months for this?

The sample in the review is the smallest version (80GB); they'll be available in sizes up to 600GB.
Higher capacity will bring higher speeds (at least for sequential writes).

25nm flash is faster than 34nm flash BUT you use less of it to make the same capacity drive. This means a 80GB to 80GB comparison will always favor the drive with more chips. In practical terms you'll have to buy a higher capacity drive to beat the speed of the previous generation. So comparing 80GB to 80GB is interesting in one way but doesn't tell us anything we couldn't predict. A proper comparison would be to benchmark each capacity offered and let you compare it to the old drives. Then as prices drop on the 25nm drives the comparisons would change to eventually favor the new drives.

Unfortunately the EXPreview doesn't tell us about performance as it scales with capacity on the 120GB, 160GB, 300GB models. We know that the 80GB has only half the flash chips on the PCB so it'll be the 160GB or larger to get full performance. I'm only guessing but I think the replacement table would be something like



With the 120GB 25nm being faster on reads but slower on writes than the 80GB 34nm. Of course if it were half the cost/GB no one would complain. They'd just buy a higher capacity drive and enjoy the increased read speeds.

As to your comment about advertised speed of 160mb/s, Intel hasn't advertised these drives at all yet. There is no official specs released on the 320 Series. In case I missed it please do post a URL showing official specs for these drives.

Your theory is great, but the problem is Intel's charging the same price (if not more) for the new G3 compared to the G2. If Intel is selling the G3 for half the price of the G2 at same capacities, then I'd be very happy, but that's not the case.

As for the advertised write speed of 160mb/s, it was on some news sites late last year (around September), they reported that Intel claimed a write speed of 160mb/s on their new G3 SSDs.

As to pricing I'm right there with you in that if they charge the same per GB I won't be happy with that. But the drives haven't even been officially released and they'll be around for one to three years on the market so I'll continue to adjust my view of them as facts develop.



Yes and the tested unit is not the one that would achieve that speed. You have to buy the highest capacity drive in the series to get the maximum advertised speed.

It's the same dirty secret with the OCZ SSDs and the Crucial SSDs and every other brand. Take these to examples

Corsair Performance 3
480MB/s read, 320MB/s write for 256GB model
410MB/s read, 210MB/s write for 128GB model
365MB/s read, 110MB/s write for 64GB model

C400 Performance to compare vs above
415MB/s read, 260MB/s write for 512GB model
415MB/s read, 260MB/s write for 256GB model
415MB/s read, 175MB/s write for 128GB model
415MB/s read, 95MB/s write for 64GB model

The Corsair loses speed on reads and writes as the capacity drops. The C400 loses speed only on writes and only when capacity drops below 256GB.

Where will Intel 320 Series stop dropping/gaining speed as the capacity changes? I don't know but I'm guessing based on the picture of the 80GB PCB that the 160, 300, and 600GB will all have the same performance unless Intel throttles one or more capacities. Assuming 160 is the max speed there will be a drop in speed for each capacity below that with 160 being faster than 120 being faster than 80.

By comparison lets add some other older SSDs

Manufacturer specs on maximum sequential write speeds compared to Actual test results for Sequential Write speeds:


In those cases the tested drives from Corsair and Crucial tested worse than advertised and Intel tested better than advertised. The catch is we don't have per capacity specs for the 80GB 320 Series SSD to know if it is testing equal to, above, or below advertised specs.

So yes the quick review of the 80GB model doesn't meet the leaked specs for the entire line of 320 SSDs. That isn't a surprise. Just wait a few days until someone reviews the 300GB model or the 160GB model and see how much faster it is or wait for Intel to post the official specs and compare those.

No official specifications yet, closest thing are sequential read/write numbers published by a Taiwanese retailer as reported here.

Good catch. I hadn't seen those yet.



It still makes me wonder why they made the 40GB version. It performs so poorly compared to the competition at this capacity. Sandforce is the only competition at exactly 40GB and they have the compression trick to get much higher speeds. I guess if they push the price down aggressively I could see buying one for a system I didn't use frequently. But there would have to be a serious price gap between it and all the 64GB drives on the market for me to even consider it (I'd take one of the 64GB drives over the 40GB sandforce any day).

And comparing the specs of the 80GB version to the EXPreview we have

270MB/s read claimed and 280MB/s read in ATTO Disk Benchmark, 281 MB/s in Crystal Disk Mark
90 MB/s write claimed and 92MB/s write in ATTO Disk Benchmark, 94.7 MB/s in Crystal Disk Mark

So the claimed vs tested numbers seem about right.

Reads on the 80GB and above are being throttled by the 3GB/s bandwidth limit. Which is not a bad thing. Just shows how much better than a hard drive a SSD can be.

Given that, we can say that the fastest of the X25-M G2 drives had a write speed of 100MB/s and the Intel 320 Series of the same capacity promises roughly 50% faster sequential writes (165 MB/s). Comparing the 300GB 320 Series to the 160GB X-25M G2 the sequential write speed is claimed to be twice as fast (205 MB/s vs 100 MB/s).

Random writes won't be that much faster and it'll be the random write speed that I look at to decide which models to compare and it will play a large part in my price/performance comparison.

Now I'm not rich so I can't just buy a ton of drives for the fun of it but I can imagine why higher capacity drives with faster flash might be a plus for someone with the money to burn. And if the price drops I'd be happy to use any of the 320 Series drives that turns out to be faster than the 80GB X25-M in all tests. Since the 80GB 320 Series doesn't fit that bill that only leaves the 120, 160, 300, and 600. Still plenty of choices if the pricing gets down a bit.

Sounds like a good idea as random write speed does appear to be the aspect which has deteriorated compared to the X25-M series drive of the same capacity.

I think the price/GB is going to have to be significantly lower for the 320 series drives in order to provide at least comparable performance in all tests at the same price. For example, if the 120GB 320 (G3) model displays comparable or superior performance to the 80GB X25-M (G2) model in all tests, the price/GB of the 120GB 320 drive would need to be 33% lower. Not that the 320 series is likely to launch at such a discount but hopefully it will fall to that level with time.

SSDSA2CW080G310

wait a second, if those are specs for the 320 series why do the part numbers have 310 in them instead of 320?

The last two numbers/letters in the product code represent the packaging; K5=Reseller Box, B5=Retail Box, 10=Brown Box.

There were rumours that the 320 would be officially announced today, March 28. Granted I'm in a different time zone but still, the tech sites seem to have been quiet thus far.

Plenty of reviews unfortunately someone decided to start a new thread instead of just posting the link(s) in this one.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4244/intel-ssd-320-review is one.

Unfortunately they only sent out 300GB drives for review so it'll be a while before we get 160GB, 120GB, 80GB, 40GB test results.

We do have official specs now and they are slightly different than the leaked version.

http://download.intel.com/design/flash/nand/325152.pdf
http://download.intel.com/design/flash/nand/325212.pdf

I'm seeing pricing on google products including amazon, superbiiz, and others (and in other countries where I can't easily read the page)
SSDSA2CT040G3K5 = 40GB ~$110
SSDSA2CW080G3K5 = 80GB ~$???
SSDSA2CW120G3K5 = 120GB ~$250
SSDSA2CW160G3K5 = 160GB ~$375
SSDSA2CW300G3K5 = 300GB ~$565
SSDSA2CW600G3K5 = 600GB ~$????

I know the 600GB will be over $1000 but I'm not sure by how much.




As an example the 120GB 320 series has 30% faster sequential writes and 13% faster sequential reads but slower random writes. If you want it to be faster all the way around you'd want to step up to the 160GB 320 series vs the 120GB X-25M where the improvement is 65% faster sequential writes, the same 13% faster reads, and basically a wash (nearly equal) on random writes (but with 40GB extra capacity, improved reliability, and encryption thrown in). So the question becomes what are the street prices for the 120GB X25-m, 120GB 320 Series, and 160GB 320 Series?

Right now I can get the x25-m at $208 so I'd want the 320 Series to be more like $210 for the 120GB and $290 or less for the 160GB. But I'm a cheapskate. Obviously Intel is trying to sell these on sequential speeds and reliability (and other features) and hoping no one will complain about the random write speed.

So long as we aren't talking about the silly 40GB version with it's insanely low random writes I'd probably be willing to buy the 320 Series over the X-25M if the price was in line with the $1.75/GB of the X-25M 120GB. I'd want it to be cheaper but I'd be happy enough if it gave me all the other improvements and stayed price competitive with the mid range drives.

"Intel SSD 320 prices, based on 1000-unit quantities, are as follows: 40GB at $89; 80GB at $159; 120GB at $209; 160GB at $289; 300GB at $529 and 600GB at $1069. All models include a limited 3-year warranty from Intel." Xbits
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/storage/di ... rives.html

@ 120GB range, the C300 still seems to be the better choice.

The official pricing (per 1000 units) and street prices (from Amazon) are now available:

So while it looks as though your wish of <$210 for the 120GB and <$290 for the 160GB models has been fulfilled based on the official prices, the street prices are currently inflated, particularly for the smaller capacity models and with the exception of the 600GB model.

It should be interesting to see how SSD prices evolves over the next few months as all of the next generation drives are released.

Interesting but I sure wish they didn't do this B5 is basically the same as K5 stuff.

SSDSA2CT040G3K5 = 40GB = SSDSA2CT040G3B5
SSDSA2CW080G3K5 = 80GB = SSDSA2CW080G3B5
SSDSA2CW120G3K5 = 120GB = SSDSA2CW120G3B5
SSDSA2CW160G3K5 = 160GB = SSDSA2CW160G3B5
SSDSA2CW300G3K5 = 300GB = SSDSA2CW300G3B5
SSDSA2CW600G3K5 = 600GB = SSDSA2CW600G3B5

Per Tephras K5=Reseller Box, B5=Retail Box but does that mean anything to the consumer or can I blindly check the prices on both and buy the cheaper one with no practical difference?

Amazon sells both B5 and K5 of the 300GB and 600GB drives, the smaller drives are only available as B5. The difference between the 300GB/600GB B5 and K5, as listed in the product details at Amazon, is that the former has more accessories included in the box; Also includes a notebook install kit: USB to SATA cable, protective sleeve and screwdriver. And, despite this, B5 cost less than K5.

Not sure if you meant Amazon doesn't have the smaller drives as K5 or if you really thought that there is no K5 variant of the lower capacities.

FWIW I see more than 10 stores listing SSDSA2CT040G3K5 right now by way of Google Products.

On the 80GB I find one listing for the b5 and 6 listings for the K5.

But if all that is different is included accessories I suppose I'll have to search for both and list the cheaper of the two when I do a price update.

I meant drives sold by Amazon, but I just saw that they now also sell the smaller drives as K5.