Conclusions
Intel's tick-tock approach to processor development delivers new architectures on each tock and then shrinks them to finer process technologies with each tick. This philosophy now appears to be influencing the company's solid-state drives. The second-generation X25-M retains the same architecture as its predecessor, but takes advantage of new manufacturing technology and some targeted tweaks to deliver real improvements. The move to a more advanced process node has allowed Intel to cut the X25-M prices dramatically, with new 80GB models selling for just $225 in bulk quantities and 160GB drives running only $440.

Lower prices put the X25-M G2 drives around $2.80 per gigabyte, which is still much more expensive than mechanical storage. However, it's certainly competitive with the cost of other SSDs on the market. The 120GB OCZ Summit, for example, sells for around $350 online. And the 120GB Vertex? It's just under $400, at least for now. Soon after the 34nm X25-M was announced, OCZ revealed a new price list for its Indilinx-based drives. The 120GB Vertex should hit its freshly discounted suggested retail price of $290 (which translates to $2.42 per gigabyte) before long. Neither OCZ nor Corsair has promised price cuts for Samsung-based drives, though.

Of course, there's more to the 34nm X25-M than lower prices. The reductions in internal latencies and improvements in random write performance pay big dividends. The gen-two X25-M is faster than its forebear nearly across the board, and by dramatic margins in FC-Test and IOMeter. The fact that the drive excels when faced with both real-world sequential transfers and demanding, highly random workloads is a testament to the strength of Intel's storage controller design. The Samsung controller does well in FC-Test but turns in an abysmal performance in IOMeter, while the Indilinx controller thrives in IOMeter but is woefully slow in FC-Test.

The original X25-M was already an impressive all-around performer, and since this new revision is even faster, I think we have new storage performance king, at least among MLC-based SSDs. With Windows 7 TRIM support promised in a fourth-quarter firmware update and a manual TRIM tool coming for Vista and XP users, the latest X25-M appears to have all the bases covered. Indeed, the drive's only real weakness is its comparatively slow sustained write speeds in synthetic benchmarks like HD Tach. That's a result I'm inclined to overlook given the G2's otherwise strong showing with real-world write operations, though.

At the end of the SSD round-up we published earlier this month, I concluded that it was probably best to wait until Windows 7's release to splurge on an SSD. We simply won't know how TRIM will affect performance until then. However, the new X25-M is so much faster overall than its competitors that it seems unlikely the current generation of Indilinx and Samsung drives will be able to make up the difference, even with TRIM support added to the mix. That's why we're tentatively granting the X25-M G2 TR Recommended distinction. If I were looking to plunk a solid-state drive into a netbook, notebook, desktop, or even web server today, I'd go with Intel's latest X25-M in a heartbeat.