Intel's upcoming 760p and 660p QLC PCIe NVMe SSD specs get leaked

Most of the SSD makers presented their upcoming PCIe NVMe products at CES 2018 last week, but Intel was quite evasive in this sense. There was a BGA SSD on display at CES, however, the specs were sketchy at best, and, apparently, Intel had more upcoming products under wraps. It looks like the secret could not be guarded for too long, as a fresh Chinese leak intercepted by Tom’s Hardware now reveals the mid-range and high-end consumer PCIe NVMe offers for 2018. The upcoming 760p and 660p SSD models integrate the 64-layer 3D NAND memory technology and come in a wide array of capacities.

First up, the 660p is Intel’s first take on the 64-layer QLC (4-bit per cell) flash memory. Although QLC should cut down on production costs, it is not particularly known to offer high writing/reading speeds, but the Intel solution does show considerable improvements over regular SSDs. Thus, the sequential reads can go up to 1800 MB/s and the sequential writes can reach 1100 MB/s, while the random 4K ratings show 150K IOPS for reads and writes. This model comes in only three capacities: 512 GB, 1 TB and 2 TB.

Intel’s high-end solution comes in the form of the 760p M.2 SSDs with 64-layer TLC (3-bit per cell) NAND.  Although the leak does not provide proof, the read/write speeds point out to the possibility of the 760p supporting four PCI 3.0 channels. Sequential reads can reach 3200 MB/s, while sequential writes cap at 1600 MB/s, and the random 4K reads can go up to 350K IOPS, with writes hitting 280K IOPS at most.  The array of capacities for this model includes 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, 1 TB and 2 TB options.

Pricing information in the leak did not seem too reliable and Tom’s Hardware was able to find more realistic prices for the 760p on Tiger Direct’s Business site. The list of prices is as follows:
•    128 GB – US$95.99
•    256 GB – US$129.99
•    512 GB – US$234.99
•    1 TB – US$447.99
•    2 TB – US$892.99

As for the 660p, since it uses the QLC manufacturing process, costs are rumored to be halved, leading to an MSRP of ~US$100 for the 512 GB version. Intel still offers the usual five-year warranty for all the upcoming models.

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