by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/11/2011 2:34:00 AM

The problem with Sandy Bridge was simple: if you wanted to use Intel's integrated graphics, you had to buy a motherboard based on an H-series chipset. Unfortunately, Intel's H-series chipsets don't let you overclock the CPU or memory—only the integrated GPU. If you want to overclock the CPU and/or memory, you need a P-series chipset—which doesn't support Sandy Bridge's on-die GPU. Intel effectively forced overclockers to buy discrete GPUs from AMD or NVIDIA, even if they didn't need the added GPU power.

The situation got more complicated from there. Sandy Bridge's Quick Sync was one of the best features of the platform, however it was only available when you used the CPU's on-die GPU, which once again meant you needed an H-series chipset with no support for overclocking. You could either have Quick Sync or overclocking, but not both (at least initially).
Finally, Intel did very little to actually move chipsets forward with its 6-series Sandy Bridge platform. Native USB 3.0 support was out and won't be included until Ivy Bridge, we got a pair of 6Gbps SATA ports and PCIe 2.0 slots but not much else. I can't help but feel like Intel was purposefully very conservative with its chipset design. Despite all of that, the seemingly conservative chipset design was plagued by the single largest bug Intel has ever faced publicly.
As strong as the Sandy Bridge launch was, the 6-series chipset did little to help it.

Addressing the Problems: Z68

In our Sandy Bridge review I mentioned a chipset that would come out in Q2 that would solve most of Sandy Bridge's platform issues. A quick look at the calendar reveals that it's indeed the second quarter of the year, and a quick look at the photo below reveals the first motherboard to hit our labs based on Intel's new Z68 chipset:

Architecturally Intel's Z68 chipset is no different than the H67. It supports video output from any Sandy Bridge CPU and has the same number of USB, SATA and PCIe lanes. What the Z68 chipset adds however is full overclocking support for CPU, memory and integrated graphics giving you the choice to do pretty much anything you'd want.

Pricing should be similar to P67 with motherboards selling for a $5—$10 premium. Not all Z68 motherboards will come with video out, those that do may have an additional $5 premium on top of that in order to cover the licensing fees for Lucid's Virtu software that will likely be bundled with most if not all Z68 motherboards that have iGPU out. Lucid's software excluded, any price premium is a little ridiculous here given that the functionality offered by Z68 should've been there from the start. I'm hoping over time Intel will come to its senses but for now, Z68 will still be sold at a slight premium over P67.
Overclocking: It Works

Ian will have more on overclocking in his article on ASUS' first Z68 motherboard, but in short it works as expected. You can use Sandy Bridge's integrated graphics and still overclock your CPU. Of course the Sandy Bridge overclocking limits still apply—if you don't have a CPU that supports Turbo (e.g. Core i3 2100), your chip is entirely clock locked.

Smart Response Technology (SSD Caching)

We finally have a Sandy Bridge chipset that can overclock and use integrated graphics, but that's not what's most interesting about Intel's Z68 launch. This next feature is.
Originally called SSD Caching, Intel is introducing a feature called Smart Response Technology (SRT) alongside Z68. Make no mistake, this isn't a hardware feature but it's something that Intel is only enabling on Z68. All of the work is done entirely in Intel's RST 10.5 software, which will be made available for all 6-series chipsets but Smart Response Technology is artificially bound to Z68 alone (and some mobile chipsets—HM67, QM67).
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While the heavy workload was long enough to not show any benefit in performance by running it multiple times, our light workload boasts serious gains if we run it a second time with the cache active. With a light enough workload the SSD 311 as a cache can actually bring hard drive performance up to the level of an Intel X25-M G2, which is exactly what Intel was targeting with Smart Response Technology to begin with. For light users you can get an SSD-like experience at a fraction of the cost and without having to manage data across two drives.

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Posted By: Dave76
13 May 2011