Intel 750 PCIe SSD (1.2TB) Review – Unprecedented Performance for Under $1 Per GB!

TECHNOLOGY X TEST BENCH AND PROTOCOL

Solid State Drive testing at Technology X 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 The SSD Review’s SSD Optimization Guide. To see the best performance possible the CPU C states have been disabled, C1E support has been disabled, Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology (EIST) has been disabled. Benchmarks for consumer testing are also benchmarks with usually a fresh drive. In our case, this drive has previously been tested at The SSD Review. We benchmark our drives to 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.

While this SSD is simply plug and play, for testing we are utilizing Intel’s NVMe driver to ensure the best performance possible.

SYSTEM COMPONENTS

This Test Bench build was the result of some great relationships and purchases; our appreciation goes to the below mentioned manufacturers for their support in our project. All of the components we use for testing and evaluation can be easily purchased at a relatively affordable price. The links provided below can assist in pricing, as well as availability for those of you who may find interest in our equipment.

BENCHMARK SOFTWARE

The software in use for today’s analysis is typical of many of our reviews and consists of Intel Toolbox, ATTO Disk Benchmark, Crystal Disk Mark, AS SSD, Anvil’s Storage Utilities and PCMark Vantage. 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.

ATTO DISK BENCHMARK VER. 2.47

ATTO Disk Benchmark is a relatively easy-to-use benchmark tool, which happens to be the benchmark of choice for many manufacturers. ATTO uses compressible data rather than random data, which results in higher performance and thus, higher benchmark scores. In our testing, we have selected the transfer size to range from 0.5KB to 8192KB, and have set the total length of the test to be 256MB.

The first benchmark test that we put the Intel 750 PCIe SSD through shows very impressive results, with read speeds reaching up to 2,690 MB/s and write speeds reaching up to 1,231 MB/s. The test results reveal the typical SSD result of read speeds that gradual increase over time. We do see that write speeds increase up until 16KB, where it plates at around the 1.2GB/s mark.

CRYSTAL DISK BENCHMARK VER. 5.1.0 x64

Crystal Disk Benchmark is visually straightforward, and is used for measuring the speeds at which your storage device reads and writes in both compressible (oFill/1Fill) and random, mostly incompressible, data. Random data is more consistent with everyday use of a computer, such as transferring videos, pictures and music. We run the benchmark twice, using oFill data first, and then proceeding to test with random data. Since results typically return with nearly identical scores, we only include the results for random data samples.

Our second benchmark test shows sequential read speeds of 1,627 MB/s and sequential write speeds of 1,175 MB/s. While our sequential results do show up lower than our expected results, we do see something here that is quite phenomenal, specifically the 4K performance. At 44MB/s read and 331 MB/s write, the write performance blows any SATA SSD out of the water!