Intel is announcing its newest Optane™ SSD, designated as the Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P Series. The 900P Series is the industry-leading drive for enabling a smooth gaming experience with CIG Roberts Space Industries’ (RSI) latest game Star Citizen. Star Citizen is an epic space adventure where the player controls their own destiny. Players decide how to make their own way through the galaxy, in any number of roles including a merchant trader, a pirate, a mercenary, or any combination thereof. Star Citizen enables a huge sandbox universe for exploration, with incredibly immersive detail and is a social and career-based MMORPG.

RSI and Intel are innovating together on the SSD 900P Series, and are offering a promotional program that includes an exclusive in-game Sabre Raven Ship and free enthusiast game. This unique single-seater ‘ship assassin’ is the fastest in its medium fighter class, and is great for stealth and sneaking up on opponents. It also features an EMP disruption weapon and KRIG Quarreler Laser Cannons for long-range attacks.

The major advantages of pairing an Intel Optane™ SSD 900P with Star Citizen include the ability for multiple concurrent file reads during streaming, and more efficient data streaming during gameplay. Game load times are significantly improved, and on high-specification gaming rigs with maximum graphics settings you are able to render very high resolution textures and meshes, assuring that your gameplay will remain smooth.

According to Chris Roberts, Chairman and CEO of Roberts Space Industries (RSI), “The Intel® Optane™ SSD 900P is amazingly fast; easily the fastest drive I have ever used. Our Star Engine developers have been working on technology to improve loading times using new technologies developed for Star Citizen and optimized for Optane™, the fastest SSD we’ve tested with the game. We continue to enhance Star Citizen so the performance benefits with Optane™ drives will continue to grow, alongside Star Citizen, into the future.”

Intel’s Optane™ SSD 900P and its 3D Xpoint™ memory is not only geared towards gaming, but also game development and media creation, and engineering workloads. It is being offered in two form factors – a 280GB or 480GB add-in PCIe card, or a 280GB 2.5” U.2 version. It is rated for sequential read speeds of up to 2500MB/s, and sequential write speeds of up to 2000MB/s. Random 4K read speeds are stated as up to 550,000 IOPS, with random 4K write speeds of up to 500,000 IOPS. Latency is less than 10µS. Endurance (480GB) is stated as up to 8760 TBW.

Intel is also recommending a sale price of $599.00 for the 480GB version, and $389.00 for the 2 x 280GB versions. Intel is backing the Optane™ SSD 900P Series with a 5-year limited warranty. Intel also plans to continue its collaboration with RSI for future game development.