Intel SSD 660p Review: Snappy NVMe Storage At Rock-Bottom Prices

Performance Summary: The Intel SSD 660p 1TB drive didn't lead in any one particular performance category. Peak transfers can't quite match some of the more expensive drives we tested and latencies, though consistent, are somewhat higher as well. At low queue depths though, which is where the vast majority of consumer workloads reside, the Intel SSD 660p performed well and actually finished near the top of the pack in 4K QD1 transfers. And in the trace-based application tests in PCMark's storage suite, the Intel SSD 660p also performed well and trailed only the new Samsung SSD 970 EVO.

The Intel SSD 660p may not be a consumer class SSD leader in terms of absolute performance, but it does offer some serious bang-for-the-buck. Intel has set the MSRP for the 512GB Intel SSD 660p at $99 and the 1TB model at only $199. Those prices equate to about $0.19 per gigabyte, which is among the lowest prices we've seen for any SSD, let alone a modern NVMe drive that's been tuned specifically for mainstream computing applications. And that's assuming they sell at MSRP -- many of Intel's drives have street prices below MSRP at the moment.

If you've got a system with an NVMe slot and are itching for an affordable solid state drive to fill it with, the Intel SSD 660p is worth a hard look for its value proposition alone.

Aggressive Pricing Good Low Queue Depth Performance 5 Year Warranty	Middling Large Sequential Transfers Higher Latency Than Other NVMe Drives