Intel SSD 760p 256GB NVMe SSD For $99 USD On Linux

When carrying out sequential reads with the 760p SSD on Ubuntu Linux, its performance was just under 100MB/s behind the Corsair Force MP500.

This NVMe M.2 SSD did manage to outperform the Samsung 950 PRO when it came to sequential writes with FIO.

The Intel SSDPEKKW256G8 also did very well with the basic SQLite database benchmark, which is a rare case where the Samsung 950 PRO has always struggled. The Intel Optane 900p meanwhile is so fast for this test that it's too quick to get an accurate measurement.

The GNOME Terminal start-up time was good for this NVMe drive while in the background enduring a mix of reads and writes.

Lastly is a look at the overall NVMe drive temperatures over the course of all the benchmarks carried out for this article. During this benchmarking it had an average temperature under load of 45C with a peak of 59C. This is much better than the Corsair Force MP500 and also the previous-generation Intel 600p 256GB NVMe SSD. The Optane 900p 280GB (SSDPE21D280GA) being in a U.2 chassis with PCI-E adapter was understandably the coolest during load. The Samsung 950 PRO meanwhile had a similar peak temperature but slightly lower average temperature.

Long story short, the Intel 760p NVMe solid-state drive is an okay performer on Linux. The 760p series generally delivered a nice boost over the older 600p NVMe SSD, but likely not something worth upgrading to this generation unless you are currently running with a SATA 3.0 SSD or HDD. Where the Intel 760p does deliver is in value with being able to get the 256GB NVMe M.2 SSD for $99 USD or the 512GB version for $199. The Intel 760p series line-up can be found from Internet retailers like NewEgg.com, which is where I happened to buy this SSDPEKKW256G8 drive for testing.

If you want to see how your own Linux system I/O performance compares to the drives tested in this article, simply install the Phoronix Test Suite and then run phoronix-test-suite benchmark 1801275-FO-INTEL760P40.