Intel Optane Memory EXPLAINED (In Under 5 Minutes!) _ The Tech Chap

Intel's Octane Memory: A Game-Changer for Storage and Performance

I have to admit that I never really paid much attention to Intel's Octane memory until now. I had a vague idea what it was, but that's about it. However, it turns out that Octane is actually a pretty big deal. Essentially, it's either a very fast storage drive like one of the options shown in this video or a small capacity acceleration drive also known as a caching drive.

The technology behind Octane is actually really interesting. It uses a brand new type of memory technology developed by Intel called 3D Crosspoint. This is different from traditional NAND memory that we get with normal SSDs. Instead, Octane uses non-volatile memory like normal SSDs but can deliver performance like volatile memory similar to the sticks of DRAM that you have on your PC. This means that we can potentially get the capacity of a NAND SSD with the low latency speed of DRAM.

In terms of how it works, Octane is very fast and very low latency compared to a normal SSD. It's much quicker at receiving and executing commands, which is why it really shines in benchmarks when looking at 4K sequential read and write times or running low Q dev tests. However, what does this mean in the real world? In short, Octane can speed up your storage by caching or storing your most often used apps, games, and files.

I've got a 32GB Octane memory stick here that will cost you around £55 in the UK. You can get a 16GB version for half the price. If you have a desktop PC like this, you may already have an SSD boot drive with Windows on it, but because SSDs are still a lot more expensive than traditional mechanical hard disks, especially at larger capacities if you need lots of storage for your games, videos, and apps, you may have a hard drive like this with 1-2TB of storage. This hard drive is slow, slow when running Windows or opening files on a drive, which can be painful if you're used to SSD speeds.

So, what does this little opt-in stick do? It speeds up your storage by caching or storing your most often used apps, games, and files. Whatever you have on your hard drive whether it's Windows, your Steam library, Photoshop, Premiere Pro, it'll all load faster if you pair it with an Octane memory stick. This is pretty easy to set up as well; you just plug this into an M2 slot on your motherboard, download the Intel software (links in the description), select which drive you want to speed up and click enable, and one reboot later, you'll see the results.

However, there are some fairly hefty restrictions. Octane only works on PCs running Windows 10 with an Intel 200 series or newer motherboard and a KB Lake I three or better processor. This means that not everyone can use it. However, even if you do have a modern PC but maybe still have a big hard drive for your Steam library or videos, you can definitely see adding a nice little Octane memory stick to that and making it feel like an SSD.

The future of Octane is looking exciting as well. We're actually seeing the first generation of laptops with Intel Octane memory coming out now, which I'm really excited about. Making a separate video on the speed difference between two identical laptops one with Octane and one without is pretty incredible, so make sure you subscribe to not miss that.

Finally, speaking of Intel, I've teamed up with them to give away another brand new i7 8700 K processor. You can check the description and my pin comment for details on how to win.