Your Optane has low random reads above 400MB/s which has never been achieved by any other SSD, consumer, client or enterprise. That’s your answer to right there.

Just to make sure: My 1.6TB Optane P5800x is still 3x faster on load times compared to non-Optane users to your estimation or slower?

Understood; thanks for taking the time well after this review to provide additional nuance and context with your experience with your PCIe 5 Gen SSDs.

Continue the great work!

The 12GB/s limitation in M.2 slots is limited to Intel 200 series boards alone. With respect to the P5800x continuing as your boot drive, it is really a matter of personal preference when you compare the speed of SSDs today. Modern SSDs have surpassed Optane performance in all but one area… low random 4K read performance which still sits at over 400MB/s. You are still 3x on load times compared to non-Optane users.

I don’t use M.2 slots. I use the ASUS Hyper card when testing SSDs to ensure full performance.