Posted on Wednesday, August 10 2016 @ 15:00 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck
Intel revealed its 3D XPoint-based Optane will be backward-compatible with industry-standard interfaces, so consumers and enterprises will be able to plug it into existing slots. The goal is really to deliver broad support and the chip giant suggested that Optane
will work on PCs that have support for NVMe. AMD's Zen platform will roll out broad support for NVMe so Optane will not be limited to Intel-based PCs. Furthermore, Intel is working on Optane variants that are compatible with DDR4 memory lots, these are expected in 2017, whereas the Optane SSDs should ship later this year.
The first Optane SSDs will first be available at the end of the year for servers and high-end desktops. Some BIOS, engineering and validation work may be needed, but the goal is for Optane to work across PCs and servers. If a PC board supports NVMe then Optane may work with it, Crooke said.
Optane could be attractive to enthusiasts who buy or build gaming PCs with AMD's upcoming Zen chip, which will first be targeted at gamers. Some gaming PC motherboards for AMD processors that support NVMe are already available from companies like MSI and Gigabyte.
