In 2019, there is no reason to start the PC except the solid-state drive.   Moreover, if you are concerned about performance, you will need a drive that uses the fast NVMe interface and the best memory.   Although most SSD still uses some form of NAND flash memory, Intel and Samsung have developed their own high-speed replacement products in the form of Optane (also known as 3D Xpoint) and Z-NAND respectively.

At this time, only a few Intel-branded SSD uses Optane memory, while a pair of Samsung enterprise drivers use Z-NAND.   However, if you are looking for the best storage performance that money can buy, then drives that use one of these technologies should be on a short list.

Which is better?   In order to find out the answer, we used 960GB Intel Optane 905P and Samsung 983 ZET to conduct seven rounds of confrontation between Optane and Z-NAND.   But first, let's look at how these memory types work.

Intel Optane(3D XPoint)

Intel's Optane is the first solid-state memory based on 3D XPointe technology. It developed the Blue Team in cooperation with Micron (Micron plans to launch its own 3D XPointe-based device later this year).   In Optane, the submicroscopic material layer is cut into columns, each column having memory cells and selectors.   Then, the wires are vertically connected to the top and bottom of the column to form an intersection structure.

Unlike traditional NAND, the memory does not store electrons in charge traps or floating gate arrays to hold information bits.   In contrast, 1 or 0 is specified based on the resistance level of the cell material.   Memory cells can be individually addressed by selecting a wire at the top and a wire at the bottom.   They are then read or written by changing the amount of voltage sent to each selector.   This leads to a change in volume properties, which leads the material to change the battery to a high or low resistance state, and is an important factor in the reason for such a fast speed.

Because 3D XPoint can be individually addressed, garbage collection is not required, and the read-modify-write process helps to recycle occupied units of deleted data.   Since garbage collection takes up the computing resources of the device, the lack of it makes Optane faster than NAND under heavy workload of writing.   In addition to the material characteristics, it also helps Optane to withstand more writing and show a lower delay curve during its service life.

Samsung Z-NAND
Samsung's Z-NAND (also known as Low Latency V-NAND) is the company's response to Optane.   Although Z-NAND suffers from many of the same disadvantages as ordinary flash memory to some extent, its design makes its performance closer to 3D XPoint than ordinary NAND.

Z-NAND is based on an improved V-NAND design. Currently, it uses 48 layers and operates in single-level cell (SLC) mode, so each cell can only have a charge level of 1 or 0. MLC, TLC and QLC NAND have more voltage states, thus reducing performance and durability.   Therefore, they need more powerful and complex ECC algorithms to prevent data reading errors and to be slower.

The page size of Z-NAND is as small as 2-4 KB, while that of ordinary NAND is 8-16 KB.   This, in turn, helps provide more parallelism so that the drive can read and write smaller blocks of data faster.   It also helps reduce delays.

Delayed performance
We have all been there.   You click on an application or file to view a rotating circle logo, and after a while it finally opens.   SSD with traditional NAND can provide much lower latency than traditional HDD, which helps to make the request take effect almost immediately, but Z-NAND and 3D XPoint drives are even better.

When QD is 1, the latency of 4KB random read/write requests on 983 ZET is about 0.023-0.024ms, or about 1/4 of that of conventional SSD.   However, Intel Optane SSD 905P based on 3D XPoint better, with a delay of 0.017 ms.

Moreover, most importantly, it can maintain low latency during reading and writing.   983 ZET outperforms 905P only once during 4K random reads of QD32 and above and during sequential read or write workloads.

Winner: Intel Optane.   Since most enterprise workloads are in the QD 1-16 range and are usually mixed, we awarded this round to Intel.   Optane is the lowest latency storage medium we have tested so far.

Random performance
Since it does not require garbage collection, Intel 905P can provide fast and consistent IOPS, so Optane's random performance is very strong.   Optane can provide some important performance during pure read and write, or both.

When QD is 1, Intel Optane SSD 905P provides 58/53k IOPS read/write, while at QD4, it is about 4 times.   When QD is 128, the maximum output is ~580K IOPS read/write.   During the 70/30% read/write mix, it even reached an average of 526K IOPS.

Although random performance is a feature of 3D XPoint, 983 ZET and its Z-NAND are not stingy.   Z-NAND wins high QDs 32 and above.   At QD 128, it provides nearly 800K IOPS, while Optane 905P provides 580K IOPS.

In QD1-4, Samsung's performance is close to 905P, but once you put in some writing, the performance lags behind 3D XPoint and is equivalent to a maximum of 75K IOPS.   SZ985 can provide up to 170K IOPS write, but still far below the 580K IOPS write performance of Intel 905P.

Winner: Intel Optane.   In terms of consistent random performance, Intel's memory can be provided to others that cannot be achieved.

Sequential expression
Sequential performance is most important when you have multiple GB files and want to access or move them.   Even most game files are loaded sequentially in nature.   Here, Z-NAND-based drivers are better than their Optane-based competitors.

We are not sure whether the controller or memory itself restricts Intel Optane SSD, but most of them are limited to sequential throughput of about 2.5-2.7 GB/s.   983 ZET uses Samsung's consumer Phoenix SSD controller, which can achieve continuous speeds up to 3.4 GB/s.   Even if QD is 1, Samsung SSD based on Z-NAND can surpass Intel 905P in read/write speed of 2-2.1 GB/s.

Winner: Samsung Z-NAND.   With excellent sequential read/write performance, Samsung's Z-NAND won this round.

Game load performance
One of the most frustrating parts of PC games is sitting there tapping your thumb and waiting for the rating to load.   In order to find out the most suitable storage technology for the game, we used the Final Fantasy XIV StormBlood Test, which is a free real game benchmark test and can easily and accurately compare the game loading time without stopwatch.

Samsung's Phoenix controller is very powerful with its ability to provide nearly 800K random read IOPS and continuous throughput of up to 3.5GB/s in consumer products.   After seeing its statistics, it is natural to expect strong game load performance.

However, we do not think 983 ZET will actually beat Intel's 905P.   Here, we see that Z-NAND can surpass Intel's 3d xpoint905p to some extent due to faster sequential performance.

Winner: Samsung Z-NAND.   With QD1' s better sequential reading performance, 983 ZET can surpass Intel's Optane SSD 905P in game scene loading.

Productivity/Application Performance
For productivity comparison, we used two very famous software suites.   The first is PCMark 8' s trace-based storage test 2.0.   This test uses Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, World of Warcraft and Battlefield 3 to measure the performance of storage devices in real-world scenarios.   The other is SYSmark 2014 SE, an application-based test, similar to PCMark 8, but it uses more applications and can even perform multiple operations simultaneously in order to draw a more realistic performance map.

In PCMark 8, 983 ZET and 905P both gave incredible high scores.   983 ZET scored 5,140 points with an average bandwidth of 1423 MB/s.   However, Intel's 905P still beat it with 5144 points, with an average bandwidth of 1609 MB/s.

SYSmark 2014 SE shows similar results.   Although 983 ZET scored higher than any other NAND-based driver we have tested, Intel's 905P still outperformed the previous three points.

Winner: Intel Optane.   Even with low sequential performance, Intel's memory proves that its ultra-low latency and high random IOPS at low queues make it the fastest storage medium you want to complete tasks.

Endurance
One disadvantage of SSD technology is that all drives can only absorb a limited number of writes before they are finally exhausted.   For most consumers who write 10 to 20GB per day, even the cheapest NAND-based SSD will take many years.   However, large enterprises that want to use SSD in servers or workstations have more stringent durability requirements.

The good news is that both Optane and Z-NAND products have incredible durability data.   Samsung 983 ZET and Intel Optane SSD 905P have the same durability grade, about 17.5 PB(PBW).   From this perspective, this is about two centuries of consumer writing (20GB/day * 365 days/year * 2000 = 14.6 PB).   Basically, both can take on almost any workload as long as you need them.

Extending to the enterprise-class Intel Optane DC P4800X, we can see that it has a durability level of 41 PBW at 750GB capacity.   Similarly, ZET's larger brother Samsung ZS985 can absorb very similar write volumes, with a capacity of 43.8 PBW at 800GB.

However, when considering smaller 375GB and 480GB 3DXPoint and Z-NAND products, we can see that Intel's DC P4800X can withstand almost three times the 983 ZET number of writes, while the 480GB 905P can withstand a little more than PB and write more data.

Drawing: Both storage media show very high durability and trade impact, depending on the final product and capacity.

Power efficiency
When it comes to computer hardware and even storage, power consumption is an important part of this problem.   You don't want storage devices to consume as much power as CPU or GPU, do you?

Fortunately, this is not the case yet, but in the past few years, we have seen our fair share in power-hungry SSD devices.   Intel Optane 905P has 960GB of capacity and consumes up to 15W of power.   On the other hand, the 960GB Samsung 983 ZET consumes about 7.5-8W on average.

However, although Z-NAND devices consume less power, Optane's absolute performance plays a huge role in its efficiency.   Once you handle random write workloads, 905P can provide 2-4 times the Z-NAND efficiency.   However, in any other index, Z-NAND ranks first.

983 ZET can provide performance of up to 350-430MB/s per watt in pure sequential workloads and up to 100K IOPS per w in random read workloads.   Intel's Optane SSD 905P delivers half the performance.   In our simple 50GB file copy test of both, 983 ZET was also the winner.

Winner: Samsung Z-NAND.   Intel's Optane provides better random efficiency under pure and mixed write workloads, but overall, Samsung's Z-NAND provides higher efficiency, especially in sequential and random read workloads.

Bottom line
Optane    Z-NAND
Endurance?   ?
Power efficiency?
Delayed performance?
Random performance?
Sequential performance?
Productivity/Application Performance?
Game load performance?
Total 4 4
Although each has its advantages and disadvantages, we do not necessarily have a winner after today's round.

Intel's Optane is a memory technology that changes the rules of the game.   It has excellent durability, ultra-low delay, and does not have the disadvantages of NAND flash memory.   It even has a high price matching its throne.   However, some improvements can be made to the controller selected by Intel in its Optane-based products.

For beginners, Team Blue needs to promote sequential speed in the next generation of Optane SSD products and improve random read performance.   Surprisingly, they can provide more than 500K IOPS from consumer products, even under 70/30% read/write mix, but NAND-based solutions scale even higher under heavy loads.

Moreover, with Optane, idle power consumption and overall power consumption are much higher than those of NAND-based products with the same capacity point, although incredible performance can make up for it when you consider its efficiency.

Samsung's optimization of SLC NAND flash memory is also impressive.   With similar low QD read performance and strong sequential throughput, it can keep pace with Optane in many workloads.   It is also very energy-saving.   Although it is not so expensive, it is still expensive and comes with performance compromises that 3D XPoint does not have.

With the emergence of other suppliers, they themselves chose 3D XPoint, and they knew what would happen.   Maybe we will compare WD's ReRAM next time.