Conclusion, Pricing, and Final Thoughts
Conclusion
PROS
- Good overall performance.
- Excellent cost/GB for an M.2 PCIe NVMe SSD.
CONS
- Inconsistent / stuttery performance while operating with a full write cache.
Pricing and Warranty (MSRP / Amazon w/Prime shipping)
- 128GB – $69 ($0.54/GB) ( Amazon – $77)
- 256GB – $104 ($0.41/GB) ( Amazon – $116)
- 512GB – $189 ($0.37/GB) ( Amazon – $211)
- 1024GB – $359 ($0.35/GB) (available Q4 2016)
This is the best deal out there on an M.2 NVMe SSD, coming in *way* lower than competing units and 60% of the cost of an equivalent capacity 950 Pro. Further (and rare for Intel SSDs), availability has been instant and broad. These were stocked at our local MicroCenter the day they were announced! Amazon prices are running a tad higher initially, but quick searches elsewhere show plenty of availability at the MSRP figures.
The SSD 600p ships with a 5-year warranty.
Final Thoughts
Intel has unleashed their 3D NAND across the majority of their product lines, and it has brought prices down considerably. Along with it came the 600p, their first M.2 SSD. Powered by a Silicon Motion controller, and with a portion of its TLC flash operating in SLC mode, it performs well in all typical usage scenarios. Intel has a habit of being laser focused on a specific set of use cases for their testing and validation, and that seems to have unfortunately let an issue slip through. Sustained write speeds exceeding 120 MB/s for a long enough period to completely fill the SLC cache appear to put the 600p into a data shuffling frenzy that ultimately results in *very* inconsistent performance. As a result, all benchmarks that involve sustained write operations turn in poor figures. Fortunately for Intel, most use cases will never result in a full cache, as the 600p does its best to empty it as quickly as possible. While the 600p did poorly in a lot of our legacy benchmarks, we must understand that it was not an SSD designed or optimized to run heavy-write benchmarks. The answer to this problem is to build better benchmarks that more closely behave like real-world use. We have developed such tests, and the 600p did will in them, as it would do well in the vast majority of use cases out there. Mobile and even most desktop users will rarely if ever fill their primary SSD with >6GB (16GB for 512GB model, 32GB for 1TB) of data at >120 MB/s, mainly because most systems just can't source that much information from any other input at that high of a rate. So long as you are mindful of that particular limitation, the Intel SSD 600p is a great SSD for the price.
I'm going with Silver for now, but the cost to performance ratio of this drive gives it a good shot at Editor's Choice provided Intel can sort out that full write cache inconsistency issue.
I agree int that I think the
I agree int that I think the price is great for the performance one receives and covers most uses cases for most users out there.
Also this may be my first time and read on pcper.com and I appreciated the feeling and feedback in the comments section.
I hope this particular feel of this community I just experienced is here for the long haul as it will keep me coming back to pcper for more.
Good write up too Allyn and love you involvement in the comments. Props to you and pcper.com
After seeing the podcast i’m
After seeing the podcast i’m happy to have gone for the plextor drive, 20 euro’s more but faster and no stutters. Ok i probably won’t notice it but still.
Is a TPM device still
Is a TPM device still required for optimal BitLocker support in Windows 10?
I use bitlocker with no
I use bitlocker with no problems in Windows 10 Pro. I do not have a TPM device only my 600p.
I installed the 512gb verson
I installed the 512gb verson last night in my H170 board. Runs nicely. Have not seen any hiccups. Very, very fast for my normal use.
I now have this as my boot drive with apps and games and a 512gb Samsung 850 EVO sitting on the side ready to fill up with steam games and my OneDrive folder. Best of both worlds!
Mark
Is this drive (512 GB model)
Is this drive (512 GB model) compatible with h97 motherboard (to be specific, msi h97 gaming 3) and Windows 7 (64bit)?
If the answer is yes,is it require any additional setup as boot drive?
Is it ok to use this drive as mainstream/gamer?
In my country, the price for this intel drive is 10-15 percent cheaper than 850 EVO 500 GB which means i have to choose between this and 850 evo.
I appreciate for your help 😀
I installed the 600p 256GB
I installed the 600p 256GB M.2 in an HP 27 inch All-in-One. I am getting 1550 mb/sec read and 580-590 mb/sec write speeds.
I have a Samsung 950 Pro 512 in another HP 27 inch All-in-one and it tests at 2550 read and 1100 write. I have i7 6700ts in both. When running drive intensive tests they both will reach a max of 70 degrees C.
Boot times with the 600p 256 M.2 NVMe versus the 2 TB 5400 RPM in the one AIO went from forever to 11-12 seconds to desktop and the 950 Pro 512 boots to desktop in 8-10 seconds which is 30 seconds faster than the other AIO that had a WD 1 TB 7200 RPM SSD cache Hybrid HDD in it. I have a Graphics station with a pair of 256 GB SSDs in a RAID 0 and this 600p does everything snappier that the RAID 0 does
Intel toolbox shows that S.M.A.R.T. isn’t enabled. Hardware Info version 5.37 shows S.M.A.R.T., but shows drive failure although it is working fine, so I suspect that there is an issue with the firmware that is preventing it being read properly.
Considering that it is $100.00 less than the Samsung 950 Pro 256 GB, even though it falls behind in read and write speed, it is still head and shoulders above SATA SSDs, so I consider it a great affordable option, especially in laptops or All-in-Ones. Now you can use the M.2 slot for the system and the SATA port for storage.
I like it. Hopefully Intel has created a solid reliable NVMe drive, but until we know for sure I will keep my system image backups current.
title says full review, so
title says full review, so where’s the temperature test ?
how hot does this get ?
Can I install this 600p on a
Can I install this 600p on a GIGABYTE G1 Gaming GA-Z97MX-Gaming 5 ???
I’ve get a less that half of
I’ve get a less that half of advertised speed of Intel intel SSD 600p using m.2 port on MSI Z170A Krait Gaming 3X motherboard using Intel i5 6600k. I updated BIOS, all the motherboard drivers and running windows 10 pro and still get only 750 mb/s seq read . Does anybody has any ideas what i can do before return ssd back?
If I have a Z97 system with a
If I have a Z97 system with a M.2 port which supports only a PCI-E 2.0 x4 speeds, would I still be benefited by going with a 600P SSD over a regular 2.5″ 850 Evo?
How well does these m.2 NGFF
How well does these m.2 NGFF drives manage when you suit them up in adapters, like an USB3 stickdrive, or if you put them in a sata3 adapter-plate to be used where m2 slot aint present-
any insight into what limitasions there will be in play?
The 600p has had a firmware
The 600p has had a firmware update since this review, was the write cache behaviour fixed?
Could you add your test
Could you add your test environment 20000x1kb file copy test benchmark.
because when see your 1mb test hdd and ssd gab getting very close.
I suspect, at about 1kb file transfer hdd and ssd will show same performance even nvme ssd.
thanks.
Is this M-Key or B-Key?
Is this M-Key or B-Key?
I’ve got a 1TB M.2 version
I’ve got a 1TB M.2 version and probably the only time I’ll ever write more than the SLC cache (32GB) sequentially to the drive was cloning what it replaced. It was going well over 300MBps until the 40Gb point then it dropped like a stone to average 120MBps with dips to 30MBps. I care not; as a big storage drive in a tiny M.2 form factor, it’s perfect for what I wanted.
Planning to put it on my MSI
Planning to put it on my MSI Z270 Gaming M5 motherboard and to have Windows 10 installed on this SSD, will it run smoothly?
I just purchased a 512GB 600p
I just purchased a 512GB 600p on sale for $165 the other day. I wanted to try and hold out and save up for the Samsung 960 EVO because for the TLC Cache issue, but at $165 it was really hard not to get it.
I guess I’ll try to refrain from doing 16GB data transfers
Is inconsistent / stuttery
Is inconsistent / stuttery performance while operating with a full write cache fixed ?