Optane is marketing.  3D Xpoint PCM aka Optane SSD.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWqO36Zj65k

Wont help games run faster or Video Editing work better.

"This is not like the move from hard drives to SSD"

its not faster in a noticeable way.

 

 

 

There is a good discussion about Optane here:

https://www.dell.com/community/Inspiron-Desktops/Inspiron-5680-M-2-SSD-or-Intel-Optane/td-p/6048001

However, I don't think I would go through the trouble of returning a whole desktop computer over it (if you decide to go the other way).

 

Howdy lovehifi, I have had my R7 with Intel Optane Memory for about 2 weeks now (it sat and did nothing for my first week, had family in town). What others have said is basically true, but lacking context. Intel Optane Memory (note the keyword 'Memory') is not meant to replace or be a substitute for a good SSD, it is supposed to improve the performance of a spinning HDD to be "SSD-like". It does this by intelligently caching your most frequently used applications (Intel says that it typically takes 3 runs to get the most benefit) to improve load time. It does this by caching parts of these programs on the Intel Optane Memory device, and it uses it as sort of an asynchronous RAID 0. This dramatically speeds up booting, and once cached, the launching of your most frequent programs should also improve. This does not produce the same results as a good SSD, but what it does do, is give you a flat file system to work with. My previous two systems had a smallish SSD for boot, and a larger spinning HDD for data. I was constantly having to decide which drive to install apps to, and then moving them off of the SSD as it got full. I found this annoying, which is why I went with the Optane route. I enjoy having the one large C drive :-) There is another Intel Optane product which just came out, but is is not called Optane Memory, but Optane SSD. These install in a PCIe slot (currently), and have performance characteristics of the highest end SSDs, but have much longer endurance (read and write cycles), but this is not the same thing as what you have now. If you want to replace your Intel Optane Memory device, make sure you launch the Intel Rapid Storage program, and disable the Optane Memory BEFORE you remove it. Once you have done that, you can safely replace it with an M.2 SSD of your choice :-) Good luck! Rich S.

https://www.techquila.co.in/intel-optane-is-it-worth-the-hype-optane-memory-vs-ssds-explained/

This article should be able to answer all your queries regarding Intel Optane products. It compiles every Optane memory module and SSD and the difference and pros and cons of each are explained in detail.