G.Skill Phoenix Blade (480GB) PCIe SSD Review
by Kristian Vättö on December 12, 2014 9:02 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench 2013
Our Storage Bench 2013 focuses on worst-case multitasking and IO consistency. Similar to our earlier Storage Benches, the test is still application trace based – we record all IO requests made to a test system and play them back on the drive we are testing and run statistical analysis on the drive's responses. There are 49.8 million IO operations in total with 1583.0GB of reads and 875.6GB of writes. I'm not including the full description of the test for better readability, so make sure to read our Storage Bench 2013 introduction for the full details.
| AnandTech Storage Bench 2013 - The Destroyer | ||
| Workload | Description | Applications Used |
| Photo Sync/Editing | Import images, edit, export | Adobe Photoshop CS6, Adobe Lightroom 4, Dropbox |
| Gaming | Download/install games, play games | Steam, Deus Ex, Skyrim, Starcraft 2, BioShock Infinite |
| Virtualization | Run/manage VM, use general apps inside VM | VirtualBox |
| General Productivity | Browse the web, manage local email, copy files, encrypt/decrypt files, backup system, download content, virus/malware scan | Chrome, IE10, Outlook, Windows 8, AxCrypt, uTorrent, AdAware |
| Video Playback | Copy and watch movies | Windows 8 |
| Application Development | Compile projects, check out code, download code samples | Visual Studio 2012 |
We are reporting two primary metrics with the Destroyer: average data rate in MB/s and average service time in microseconds. The former gives you an idea of the throughput of the drive during the time that it was running the test workload. This can be a very good indication of overall performance. What average data rate doesn't do a good job of is taking into account response time of very bursty (read: high queue depth) IO. By reporting average service time we heavily weigh latency for queued IOs. You'll note that this is a metric we have been reporting in our enterprise benchmarks for a while now. With the client tests maturing, the time was right for a little convergence.
Quite surprisingly, the Phoenix Blade takes the lead in our 2013 Storage Bench and even beats the XP941. After reviewing the RevoDrive 350, I didn't get my hopes up for the Phoenix Blade, but it looks like G.Skill has done a much better job at optimizing the drive for performance.
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personne - Friday, December 12, 2014 - link
Oh nice, how did I miss that? Must have been thinking of another site. Thanks.vLsL2VnDmWjoTByaVLxb - Friday, December 12, 2014 - link
"there is a market in users with older motherboards for whom the XP941 is simply not an option due to the lack of boot support."Presumably an enthusiast or one in the higher-end workstation markets would already have a suitable boot device so I don't see this as a hindrance. This is already a high-end product, so buying a motherboard to fit the niche would be expected.
Kinda like you don't bemoan a high-power GPU for it's inability to work on low-power supply systems.
Kristian Vättö - Friday, December 12, 2014 - link
I'm not sure I agree with this. Many enthusiasts/professionals haven't seen the appeal to upgrade from Sandy/Ivy Bridge setups, so it's not just the motherboard that needs to be updated.DanNeely - Friday, December 12, 2014 - link
I definitely don't agree with it. The only reason I'm planning to replace the core of my even older i7-930 system is that it's gotten old enough that an old age failure is becoming more likely and I don't want to do a rush upgrade when something catastrophically fails.hojnikb - Friday, December 12, 2014 - link
And i'm just here, expection a native pci-e solution.... Damn, raid0 sandforce is really annoying. Atleast use a proper controller, like marvell.And trim still doesn't seem to work properly...
UltraWide - Friday, December 12, 2014 - link
Would it be more prudent to wait for an NVMe based PCIe SSD? Maybe the Intel DC P3500 that is about to start selling in the next few weeks?Kristian Vättö - Friday, December 12, 2014 - link
I thought about mentioning the P3500, but it's been "about to start selling in the next few weeks" for the past six months, so I decided not to mention it since there is still no real schedule for its release.Luke212 - Friday, December 12, 2014 - link
Kristian why does noone bother to bench to P3600? I only need read performance and the P3600 might be suitable. its cutting edge tech yet noone has bothered to review it!Kristian Vättö - Saturday, December 13, 2014 - link
Intel hasn't sampled media with the P3600, that's why.otherwise - Monday, December 15, 2014 - link
I too have been waiting for this drive, but considering it was pulled from Intel's website, I don't think we're going to see it. I am going to guess that Intel though it would completely cannibalize P3600 sales, which it probably will if it sees the light of day.