Thx for info Hilbert, Intel slowly getting there but still big disapointment. Its still too low capacity, most users would want 256/512 GB at least (unless one want PCI-e card version). PCI-e x2 limit, when still good for normsal users make it slower than most NVMe drives out there. 200GB per day is about 365TB writes limit which is on par with higend SSDs (I would say this is big disapointment as intel promissed for optane much higher endurance) Unless price is much lower (which I do not believe it will be), I do not see benefit using it as SSD disk and it have too low write endurance to be used as for cache disk.

You are right about the capacity issue. I have gone as far as exploring that Asus 16X card with 4 M.2 -> U.2 adapters connected to 4 U.2 Optane 2.5 inch SSDs to get decent capacity and while this should work (and on certain motherboards even allow VROC) the price and case clutter involved makes it impossible to justify. I see stuff like this: https://www.pcper.com/news/Storage/Intel-Quad-RAID-0-Optane-Memory-32GB-Bootable-Without-VROC-Key and think about just how close to amazing that is. That is way too much hardware to attain such a small boot/app drive and is way too expensive.

ASROCK announced a 4x m.2 card this CES as well, without VROC. It's cross platform compatible with AMD and Intel, so should work in any system that has a slot that can be configured with x4/x4/x4/x4 (or x4/x4 on z370/z270 boards).They are showing it off as a supplement to use with their new matx Threadripper and X299 boards. Not sure if it will work with Optane at this point, but considering ASUS and ASROCK are partner companies I wouldn't rule it out.

Optane was always meant to be used with a high capacity hd to boost the hd access speed. Originally it was meant for enterprise use. But now it is being marketed for the desktop/laptop user. People are confused and think it is the main part to be used for read write which isn't the case. Intel has done a poor job at explaining, or at least getting the word out to the mainstream user on it's true use and function. This is not a turbo charger for ssd's or m2's as people mistakenly think it is. It works hand in hand with your hd storing data the computer uses all the time, thus cutting down access time and sending the data out for use. Nothing magic about it. https://imgur.com/a/Wi0cL here is a link from someone using a 960 evo vs optane memory and showing some benchmarks.

It's really just a way for OEMs to make their customers think they have a faster system than they do for a couple weeks after their purchase. Then, of course, the Optane cache gets full and every app they run comes from the crap 5400RPM drive they put in, but by that time most people won't return it.

illrigger:

It's really just a way for OEMs to make their customers think they have a faster system than they do for a couple weeks after their purchase. Then, of course, the Optane cache gets full and every app they run comes from the crap 5400RPM drive they put in, but by that time most people won't return it.

Full? It doesn't works like this, it clears old stuff automatically. Even 32gb of Optane is more then enough to hold every single crap program from both Program Files and program Files x86 folder. I dont know what people use, but both mine take 16gb right now. Optane is a great idea, even used with SATA SSD, just look at benchmarks it has great 4k speeds faster than 1Tb NVMe drives. If Intel introduces whole system caching with the new 800p optane drives (right now it only caches the OS drive, you cant manually change it to cache game drive even if you want) it will be a great option, plug the 188gb one ,set it up and forget, it will cache all your HDD,s SSD,s and NVMe drives automatically

NewTRUMP Order:

https://imgur.com/a/Wi0cL here is a link from someone using a 960 evo vs optane memory and showing some benchmarks.

There has been a LOT of testing and it always comes out the same. Samsung destroys everything for sequential speed and is between decent and good at everything else. Optane destroys everything in terms of latency and random mixed reads and writes. Optane is terrible at sequential writes. What we want is a best of both words SSD. I suspect that Samsung will get there first, I was kind of hoping to see something to indicate this at CES.

NewTRUMP Order:

Optane was always meant to be used with a high capacity hd to boost the hd access speed. Originally it was meant for enterprise use. But now it is being marketed for the desktop/laptop user. People are confused and think it is the main part to be used for read write which isn't the case. Intel has done a poor job at explaining, or at least getting the word out to the mainstream user on it's true use and function. This is not a turbo charger for ssd's or m2's as people mistakenly think it is. It works hand in hand with your hd storing data the computer uses all the time, thus cutting down access time and sending the data out for use. Nothing magic about it. https://imgur.com/a/Wi0cL here is a link from someone using a 960 evo vs optane memory and showing some benchmarks.

Even headline states this is SSD and not Optane Cache and even for it use "as cache" it have very little write endurance and I can asureyou I have a LOT more than 200GB a day reads from disks. Not even mentioning another problem/limitation (not sure if thats still case) and thats that at least initialy Optane could be use for only single drive caching and that was for C: drive only where majority people already use SSD or will for cost of optane cache rather get SSD+HDD combination.