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Comment by yskchu | Hacker News Reader

Intel marketing is confusing; Optane is several things

There's Optane memory, which is the one the link is referring to, it needs Intel CPUs

Then there's Optane SSDs, which works with AMD fine

Source: I'm using them on EPYC servers

Optane memory is not a traditional SSD, it's more of a disk cache, matched to the Intel CPU. While the rest of the Optane family are standard SSDs

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This is what happens when the marketing department gives the same name to two things which may be broadly in a general product category, but are technically very different. Have seen it with many categories of hardware.

It's actually worse.

If you follow Intel's marketing "Optane Memory" refers to the SSDs. The Optane DIMMs are called "Optane DC Persistent Memory".

Wait, why is it worse? It perfectly describes what it is: An Optane (3DXpoint) Persistent Memory Module. Guess the DC stands for DataCenter?

That part isn't terrible, even though it is really unwieldy. The big problem is using "Optane Memory" as the branding for the kind that isn't a memory module.

The natural things to call them are "Optane drives" and "Optane memory". Don't criss-cross that!

Like the Ford Mustang Mach E. Thanks marketing.

My blood pressure rose just reading your comment. (rhetorical) What in the hell were they thinking?

Ford marketing says it has "Mustang DNA" and "Mustang spirit". Steeling a successful brand.

Intel has basically been doing that for quite a while with the whole "Core i7", "Core i5", etc naming strategy. Where an i7 targeted at laptops might be substantially the same as an i3 targeted at desktops.

absolutely, for any meaningful comparison one has to track down what the code name for the CPU core is on various semiconductor enthusiast websites, and do ones' own research. There's like 10 different generations of core i3/i5/i7 now. I think the old i7 sitting behind me is an Ivy Bridge.

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