Optane SSD as Boot drive - SQ Nirvana?

[seeteeyou]

Not a bad option for those of us who do have motherboards with CPU-connected PCIe x16 slots & bifurcation support, though that's gotta be Ryzen Threadripper / Intel Core X-Series / Xeon etc. with tons of PCIe lanes

 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815548004

https://www.techpowerup.com/240481/asrock-intros-ultra-quad-m-2-card

https://www.asrock.com/mb/spec/product.asp?Model=ULTRA QUAD M.2 CARD

https://techreport.com/news/33100/asrock-ultra-quad-m-2-card-puts-four-nvme-ssds-in-a-pcie-slot

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/quad-m-2-pcie-x16-nvme-raid0-adapter-by-asrock.18949/

 

[lmitche]

2 hours ago, seeteeyou said:

Not a bad option for those of us who do have motherboards with CPU-connected PCIe x16 slots & bifurcation support, though that's gotta be Ryzen Threadripper / Intel Core X-Series / Xeon etc. with tons of PCIe lanes

 

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815548004

https://www.techpowerup.com/240481/asrock-intros-ultra-quad-m-2-card

https://www.asrock.com/mb/spec/product.asp?Model=ULTRA QUAD M.2 CARD

https://techreport.com/news/33100/asrock-ultra-quad-m-2-card-puts-four-nvme-ssds-in-a-pcie-slot

https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/quad-m-2-pcie-x16-nvme-raid0-adapter-by-asrock.18949/

 

Nice find! This should work well with a single Optane.

[tboooe]

Check this out guys...passive cooling for m.2 SSD.  Not sure if this is really needed in our applications but it sure looks cool!  According to HWMonitor my Optane reaches about 50C which seems hot!  According to Intel though the operating temp is 0-70C.  I may have to look into something like this.

 

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/m.2-ssd-heatpipe-cooler-throttle,37101.html

 

[tboooe]

Hey guys...just an FYI...my mobo today all of sudden decided to go into an endless bootloop.  I figured out there is some issue with the lastest version of the bios supporting Optane causing it not work with XMP profiles.  After some searching it seems this is a well known issue with my mobo, a Gigabyte Z270MX Gaming 5.  The solution is to not use XMP.  Not sure if running my RAM at the lower speed instead of 3000Mhz impacts the sound in anyway.  I need to test.

 

Anyway, here is a post I did on this issue with the link describing the issue in more detail.  BTW, the issue was reported back in 2017 and Gigabyte still has yet to come up with a solution.

 

[lmitche]

7 minutes ago, tboooe said:

Hey guys...just an FYI...my mobo today all of sudden decided to go into an endless bootloop.  I figured out there is some issue with the lastest version of the bios supporting Optane causing it not work with XMP profiles.  After some searching it seems this is a well known issue with my mobo, a Gigabyte Z270MX Gaming 5.  The solution is to not use XMP.  Not sure if running my RAM at the lower speed instead of 3000Mhz impacts the sound in anyway.  I need to test.

 

Anyway, here is a post I did on this issue with the link describing the issue in more detail.  BTW, the issue was reported back in 2017 and Gigabyte still has yet to come up with a solution.

 

What a bummer! I only use Asus motherboards for reasons like this. It is impressive how quickly you found the solution.

 

I run my memory at 2400 MHz.  Last I checked a year ago, faster had a negative SQ impact.

[tboooe]

10 minutes ago, lmitche said:

 

 

I run my memory at 2400 MHz.  Last I checked a year ago, faster had a negative SQ impact.

Good to know!  BTW, whats really weird is that my mobo worked fine for the past week since I installed the Optane.  I've rebooted numerous times without a problem.  Then today, while playing music it just shut down and rebooted endlessly.  Why would it happen now instead of right away when I first installed the Optane?

[lmitche]

5 minutes ago, tboooe said:

Good to know!  BTW, whats really weird is that my mobo worked fine for the past week since I installed the Optane.  I've rebooted numerous times without a problem.  Then today, while playing music it just shut down and rebooted endlessly.  Why would it happen now instead of right away when I first installed the Optane?

It's hard to know the answer to "what changed"? It could be as simple as hitting some threshold as the Optane is filled. Very tough to say. All my friends with gigabyte motherboards have moved to Asus products.  Which cpu do you have?

 

Nevermind, I see a 6700k in your signature. I recently bought a slightly damaged Asus rog strix z270g motherboard on ebay for use with my 6700k with two direct to cpu slots. Highly recommended if you can find one.

[lmitche]

This is interesting:

 

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12828/intel-launches-optane-dimms-up-to-512gb-apache-pass-is-here

 

I have no idea what it may do to SQ.

 

Larry

[AudioDoctor]

How does this Optane differ from an M2 SSD?  Is it just a brand name of the same thing?

[lmitche]

7 hours ago, AudioDoctor said:

How does this Optane differ from an M2 SSD?  Is it just a brand name of the same thing?

Optane is way faster than typical SSD memory for the kind of short bursty traffic generated by Windows. This speed translates into less contention as periods of overlapped resource demand are reduced.

[AudioDoctor]

So, it appears that Optane is a memory module meant only as an accelerator to a spinning drive, not a full system HDD.  It is on an M.2 card, and would still not be as fast as a system drive on an M.2 slot.  It's much cheaper though.

 

https://www.howtogeek.com/317294/what-is-intel-optane-memory/

[Iving]

sorry to butt in and if i am picking up fag ends but the conversation lately seems to have lost sight of 280gb and 480gb pcie optane cards which serve very nicely as system drives large enough for o/s and at least sig. part of music library - plus all the advantages of pcie vs chipset - see prev. posts in this thread

[rickca]

25 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

So, it appears that Optane is a memory module meant only as an accelerator to a spinning drive, not a full system HDD.

You can use it as an NVMe SSD without the Intel RST driver.  That article doesn't tell the whole story.

 

There is also the recently introduced Optane M10 64GB M.2 available if you feel 16GB or 32GB is too small.  And @Iving is right you can get large capacity add-in cards (AIC) like the 900p or recently introduced 905p.  The 905p is a 960GB AIC and costs a fortune.

 

As @lmitche points out, Intel will be shipping what I call 'real' Optane memory for Xeon systems that acts like DDR4 memory that is persistent. 

[Evo-No-Revo]

I am not sure which thread to ask this question.

 

Larry posted this comment in, "A Crowd Funded Motherboard for Audiophile Part 2 thread".

 

From @lmitche ,

 

"Yes, lots of 6 core 12 thread 45 watt processors. Nothing interesting in the PCie lane count front.  Looks like AMD owns that space.

 

I'm looking forward to the AMD 2700 65 watt processor and x470 motherboard announcements in a couple weeks. With 8 cores and 24 pcie lanes, I expect to head that way. A mini-itx is feasible with m.2 and pcie 16 slots both direct to cpu".

 

Larry, can you give your thoughts on the AMD CPU and x470 mobo in reference to the loss of Optane SSD for boot drive?

 

 

 

[lmitche]

6 hours ago, Evo-No-Revo said:

I am not sure which thread to ask this question.

 

Larry posted this comment in, "A Crowd Funded Motherboard for Audiophile Part 2 thread".

 

From @lmitche ,

 

"Yes, lots of 6 core 12 thread 45 watt processors. Nothing interesting in the PCie lane count front.  Looks like AMD owns that space.

 

I'm looking forward to the AMD 2700 65 watt processor and x470 motherboard announcements in a couple weeks. With 8 cores and 24 pcie lanes, I expect to head that way. A mini-itx is feasible with m.2 and pcie 16 slots both direct to cpu".

 

Larry, can you give your thoughts on the AMD CPU and x470 mobo in reference to the loss of Optane SSD for boot drive?

 

 

 

I think you are asking two questions.  First off the AMD Ryzen 7 2700 processor announcement was a little disappointing. I'd hoped for a significantly faster multicore clock speed.  That didn't happen so I doubt the 2700 has the juice to play Hqplayer with polysinc-xtr non-2s.

 

Secondly the Optane runs as an SSD just fine on Intel motherboards and I expect the same of the AMD motherboards. We won't know for sure until someone verifies this capability.

 

I hope this is clear.

 

Larry

[Evo-No-Revo]

Yes, that clears a small hurdle to figuring out my parts list. 

 

I was pretty set on Intel before I saw that other post relating to the AMD and x470 mobos.

 

Thanks for clarifying.

 

Christopher

 

 

[lmitche]

8 hours ago, Evo-No-Revo said:

Yes, that clears a small hurdle to figuring out my parts list. 

 

I was pretty set on Intel before I saw that other post relating to the AMD and x470 mobos.

 

Thanks for clarifying.

 

Christopher

 

 

If I were doing a new build today, I'd go for an Asus Rog strix z370-g board and an Intel i5-8400. In the states the combo can be had for $350 at microcenter. This should give you enough juice to do Hqplayer upsampling to dsd512 with polysinc-xtr-2. Two direct to cpu pcie slots allow Optane and USB cards without the PCH. It's an inexpensive solution as well.

 

This way when low tdp mainstream processors that are polysinc-xtr capable arrive you haven't wasted too much cash. Plus you may get lucky see that the motherboard can be re-used with a more powerful processor.

[Quadman]

I don't think there is any i5 chip that is capable of doing polysinc xtr filters, the 2s family yes.  I am no hardware expert but it seems to me the more cores you have the slower the processor speeds become just look at the intel family the i7 and i9 x series as you go up in core count the base CPU speeds slow down, in turbo boost the newest x series (7900 series) can go slightly over 4.0 Ghz and I believe it has been reported that they can handle XTR non 2s filters.  On the AMD side base speeds with high multicore count is faster than Intel but its turbo boost speeds fall short of intel best turbo boost.  It has been reported that the thread ripper 1950X from AMD with 3.5 base speed and up to 4 turbo burst speed can do non 2s XTR filters.  I think to get non-2s XTR's too play you need a high core count (forget virtual cores they do nothing) reasonable speed (over 3.0 GHz) and lots of memory cache.  Unfortunately to get this it requires much higher wattage, at least with todays technology.  That means big CPU coolers probably water based.

 

I run AMD 1800x here and prefer it to even intel 7700K which I had a chance to compare to similar builds with each processor in my system at the same time, I believe it comes down to L3 cache memory.  As it is, even with my 8 cores, 16Mb L3 cache and 3.8 boosted speed I can not do the non-2s XTR filter and without a graphics card and cuda offload the closed form and minringFIR filter cause some stuttering at DSD512, and the graphics card does nothing  for non 2s XTR.

 

I cannot report on optane memory for the AMD as I really like the SLC sata II SSD's in my system so much that I am reluctant to switch and then there is the issue of using extra licenses for Fidelizer pro and AO, tweakers get penalized heavily for trying to better things.  Has anyone moved from a SLC sata II OS drive to a optane drive and reported on it?

[Johnseye]

32 minutes ago, Quadman said:

I don't think there is any i5 chip that is capable of doing polysinc xtr filters, the 2s family yes.  I am no hardware expert but it seems to me the more cores you have the slower the processor speeds become just look at the intel family the i7 and i9 x series as you go up in core count the base CPU speeds slow down, in turbo boost the newest x series (7900 series) can go slightly over 4.0 Ghz and I believe it has been reported that they can handle XTR non 2s filters.  On the AMD side base speeds with high multicore count is faster than Intel but its turbo boost speeds fall short of intel best turbo boost.  It has been reported that the thread ripper 1950X from AMD with 3.5 base speed and up to 4 turbo burst speed can do non 2s XTR filters.  I think to get non-2s XTR's too play you need a high core count (forget virtual cores they do nothing) reasonable speed (over 3.0 GHz) and lots of memory cache.  Unfortunately to get this it requires much higher wattage, at least with todays technology.  That means big CPU coolers probably water based.

 

I run AMD 1800x here and prefer it to even intel 7700K which I had a chance to compare to similar builds with each processor in my system at the same time, I believe it comes down to L3 cache memory.  As it is, even with my 8 cores, 16Mb L3 cache and 3.8 boosted speed I can not do the non-2s XTR filter and without a graphics card and cuda offload the closed form and minringFIR filter cause some stuttering at DSD512, and the graphics card does nothing  for non 2s XTR.

 

I cannot report on optane memory for the AMD as I really like the SLC sata II SSD's in my system so much that I am reluctant to switch and then there is the issue of using extra licenses for Fidelizer pro and AO, tweakers get penalized heavily for trying to better things.  Has anyone moved from a SLC sata II OS drive to a optane drive and reported on it?

 

I'm currently using Optane as OS where I used SATA II previously.  I'm waiting on a new SATA II filter from SOtM before I compare the two.  I fried my last one.  It will be a couple weeks before I know how they compare.

[Quadman]

2 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

I'm currently using Optane as OS where I used SATA II previously

 I also use the sotm sata II filter in my set up, I'll will be very curious to hear your results.  Regardless the SLC OS Drive with Cat 7/8 DC cables sounds awfully good.  The graphics card makes PCIe optane challenging for me, and 32 Gb M2 sticks are just to small, but I see 64gb is finally out, So maybe.

[mansr]

2 hours ago, Quadman said:

I am no hardware expert but it seems to me the more cores you have the slower the processor speeds become

There are several possible explanations for this. Firstly, more cores need more power, as do faster cores. There is a limit to how much power can be distributed across the chip, so there's a trade-off there. Heat dissipation also becomes more difficult with many high-power cores, leading to the same trade-off. Secondly, most CPUs are manufactured with the same number of cores per chip. Each chip is then tested, and any broken cores are disabled. The remaining cores are tested for maximum stable clock rate, thus determining which model number the chip will be given. They might even disable some functional cores in order to get a chip with a few really fast ones. The exact combinations available to buy are determined by market demand as well as actual production yield.

[rando]

6 hours ago, lmitche said:

If I were doing a new build today, I'd go for an Asus Rog strix z370-g board and an Intel i5-8400. In the states the combo can be had for $350 at microcenter. This should give you enough juice to do Hqplayer upsampling to dsd512 with polysinc-xtr-2. Two direct to cpu pcie slots allow Optane and USB cards without the PCH. It's an inexpensive solution as well.

 

This way when low tdp mainstream processors that are polysinc-xtr capable arrive you haven't wasted too much cash. Plus you may get lucky see that the motherboard can be re-used with a more powerful processor.

 

Z390 boards should start coming out this month or shortly after.  Intel's roadmap is well into construction season disparities.  So we will see about this and the purportedly troubled next gen 10nm processors.  The inclusion of USB 3.1 v2 with twice the speed would make more sense even if you weren't buying on speculation of using an overclockable processor down the road.

 

 

I actually put together an ASUS Prime H370M-Plus/CSM and i5-8400 on Friday.  Everyone has different needs.  Mine include a lack of RGB LED's pretty high on the list.  When Q370 boards are out in large enough numbers I'll probably grab the pick of the litter. 

 

Is there any consensus here on 8xx, 9xx, or M10 Optane?

[Evo-No-Revo]

8 hours ago, lmitche said:

If I were doing a new build today, I'd go for an Asus Rog strix z370-g board and an Intel i5-8400. In the states the combo can be had for $350 at microcenter. This should give you enough juice to do Hqplayer upsampling to dsd512 with polysinc-xtr-2. Two direct to cpu pcie slots allow Optane and USB cards without the PCH. It's an inexpensive solution as well.

 

This way when low tdp mainstream processors that are polysinc-xtr capable arrive you haven't wasted too much cash. Plus you may get lucky see that the motherboard can be re-used with a more powerful processor.

Larry the card you suggested, a Asus Rog strix z370-G is the micro ATX version of the card I was considering, an Asus Rog Strix Z370-E.

 

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/ROG-STRIX-Z370-E-GAMING/

 

I am building the server to be used as HTPC so 4K video is going to be needed.  I will be using it for Roon Core and sending audio out on my home network and USB audio.  So I want as clean a signal as I can get given that limitation of a audio/video build. 

 

I am not upsampling to anything above DSD256 for the foreseeable future.  I think I will probably go with the Intel 8th Gen Core i7-8700, 6-Core 3.2 GHz, 65watt. 

 

I am getting tired of waiting for the next release of cpu and mobo technology....even though the Z390 boards looking interesting.

 

I just need to pull the trigger and get this built.

 

3 hours ago, Quadman said:

Has anyone moved from a SLC sata II OS drive to a optane drive and reported on it?

 

I would like to hear about this as well.

 

 

 

 

[rando]

I am getting tired of waiting for the next release of cpu and mobo technology....even though the Z390 boards looking interesting.

 

Computex starts tomorrow and E3 is next week.  If not released for distribution on the spot at these two conventions.  A release date will be fixed by the numerous board makers who already have the chipset in hand.  Might be worth waiting a few more days.  Gaming stuff moves fast to account for low attention spans.

 

On topic, Intel has a very large presence at the Taipei convention and is expected to release a number of products for delivery that were hovering under NDA's.  Might be a good demo of the Xeon Optane in action or other exciting and unexpected products relevant to our interests.

[lmitche]

2 hours ago, Evo-No-Revo said:

Larry the card you suggested, a Asus Rog strix z370-G is the micro ATX version of the card I was considering, an Asus Rog Strix Z370-E.

 

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/ROG-STRIX-Z370-E-GAMING/

 

I am building the server to be used as HTPC so 4K video is going to be needed.  I will be using it for Roon Core and sending audio out on my home network and USB audio.  So I want as clean a signal as I can get given that limitation of a audio/video build. 

 

I am not upsampling to anything above DSD256 for the foreseeable future.  I think I will probably go with the Intel 8th Gen Core i7-8700, 6-Core 3.2 GHz, 65watt. 

 

I am getting tired of waiting for the next release of cpu and mobo technology....even though the Z390 boards looking interesting.

 

I just need to pull the trigger and get this built.

 

 

I would like to hear about this as well.

 

 

 

 

For a music server, our goal is to avoid use of PCH, so I doubt the difference between the 370 or 390 matters very much. Of course the i7-8700 will work perfectly and the Asus z370-e has the direct to cpu PCie slots you need. Have fun with that build!