Earlier this year, Intel released 400GB and 1.2TB variants of its 750 series of solid state drives, leaving something of a gulf between the two products at each end of the spectrum. Now, it seems that the company will introduce a mid-range option with an 800GB capacity.
The Intel ARK site for product information and customer support recently added a listing for the 800GB SSD, according to a report from PC Perspective. While there has been no official announcement that the product is in production, it’s expected that its addition to the site signals an imminent release.
Many were expecting to see Intel launch this product sooner rather than later, particularly given that promotional materials that were circulated in connection with the release of the company’s Skylake CPUs made reference to it. Following the example set by the rest of the 750 series, early predictions pitch the 800GB model’s retail price at around $700. The listing on the Intel site points towards a Q3 2015 release.
However, the specs released via ARK don’t paint the rosiest picture of the new device. It can’t match either the 400GB or the 1.2TB drives in terms of sequential read and write speeds or random read and write speeds.
The gap between the drives is relatively small. While the 1.2TB drive offers sequential read speeds as high as 2,400 megabytes per second, the 800GB drive promises to hit 2,100MB/s. That’s 300MB/s less, but it’s also far higher than the majority of solid state drives on the market. The 400GB version of the 750 is also quicker, though only by 100MB/s.
Still, the performance difference will make pricing crucial. The 800GB will have to be less expensive on a price-per-gigabyte basis than the 400GB drive — otherwise, buying two of the latter would make more sense. Alas, final retail pricing has not yet been announced.
Our review of the 1.2TB drive back in April praised the device for its performance.
