Intel Z68 - The True Sandy Bridge Chipset

The glitch that bugged Intel's Cougar Point chipsets may have taken most of the headlines, but Intel's P67 and H67 chipsets came with some unwelcome restrictions. Enter the Intel Z68 Express, which promises to be the superior Sandy Bridge chipset with its new Intel Smart Response Technology.

By Vincent Chang - 12 May 2011

The True Sandy Bridge Chipset

The criticism that Intel has too many sockets and chipsets, sometimes arbitrarily so, is about to get even louder today. For the chip giant is launching yet another chipset, the Intel Z68 Express, barely half a year after the debut of the Intel P67 and H67, (not to mention the lesser known, mostly OEM ones like the H61 Express).

Yet, the Intel Z68 Express could just be the best Sandy Bridge chipset you'll find this year. Ever since Intel aka Sandy Bridge, the question on the lips of many enthusiasts has been the artificial segregation between the two accompanying chipsets - Intel P67 Express for those who require discrete graphics, and Intel H67 Express for those using the Intel HD Graphics that's present on every Sandy Bridge processor.

Now you must understand, Intel was touting the benefits of the on Sandy Bridge, claiming that it can challenge even the discrete solutions from NVIDIA and AMD. Unfortunately, the design restrictions on the P67 and H67 chipset meant that you can either have discrete graphics or Quick Sync respectively, but not both at the same time.

On the Intel P67, there are no integrated display outputs and the Intel HD Graphics within the Sandy Bridge processor is basically dormant. With the Intel H67, you can enjoy the benefits of Quick Sync, but only if you're using the integrated graphics. For power users using discrete graphics on the H67 board, you would also have to manually switch the display option in the BIOS (and the physical display cable) to use the integrated graphics option; it's just not very convenient for the end user.

Additionally, the Intel H67 chipset locked the overclocking capabilities of Intel's 'K' SKU Sandy Bridge processors though it allows integrated GPU clock tweaking. The Intel P67 meanwhile allows CPU overclocking through unlocked multipliers, but there was no way of using and overclocking the integrated GPU. These decisions and limitations just mean that end users can't get the best of both worlds.

Enter the Z68 chipset, which merges the two - it has display outputs like the H67 and the PCIe lane configuration to support dual SLI/CrossFireX (the H67 only supports a single discrete graphics card by default). It also allows users to tweak the CPU (unlocked multipliers) and the GPU (core and memory tweaking) from the BIOS. Throw in a new feature that Intel is calling Smart Response (but is in fact a way of allowing users to install a SSD as a cache for recently used applications and files), and the Z68 chipset looks like what Intel should have released months ago.

The block diagram for the Intel Z68 Express bears much resemblance to the P67 chipset, with a touch of influence from the H67. Intel Smart Response Technology however is completely new.

Switchable Graphics for the Desktop

If that's not enough to tempt the enthusiasts, then there's Lucid's Virtu. Introduced originally as a technology to solve the limitations of the Intel P67/H67 chipsets, Lucid is now partners with Intel in disseminating this technology to selected H67 and Z68 motherboards. Two of the motherboards that we'll be testing in the review portion of this feature, the ASUS P8Z68-V PRO and the MSI Z68A-GD80 (B3), come with this software layer, which dynamically assigns the graphics workload according to performance and system load, similar to . Hence for a task like browsing the web, Lucid's Virtu may decide that the integrated graphics is good enough, and put the the discrete graphics card to idle, saving some power. Most importantly, Quick Sync will work.

This implies that everything will be going through the integrated display outputs on the motherboard, and one has to connect the physical display cable to the HDMI, DVI or VGA outputs on the Z68 board. It's not the case. Doing so just means that for those more intensive applications where the discrete GPU is working, the rendered output is copied to the integrated frame buffer and then output via the integrated graphics display outputs.

You can still connect it to your discrete graphics outputs, but obviously, this means a higher power draw since the discrete GPU will be active. This is however unavoidable if you're doing a multi-GPU configuration like CrossFireX or SLI because Lucid Virtu support using the motherboard's display output can only work with a single graphics card. Like Lucid's other more well-known software technology, Hydra, users will also have to install both discrete and integrated graphics before they can install the Virtu software driver.

Given that this is after all, an additional software layer on top of your graphics, you can expect some minor performance penalties for using it. Gigabyte, which has decided not to offer Virtu on its highest end Z68 model, told us that there will be a slight performance difference of between 1 and 3% for enabling Virtu. In the end, it's up to the individual user to decide.

As you can see, you can control the iGPU settings in the BIOS for this ASUS Intel Z68 board, something you couldn't do on the Intel P67. Users have to enable the iGPU Multi-monitor option before you can install the Lucid Virtu driver.

The Virtu Control Panel allows users to toggle the software layer that automatically switches between the integrated and discrete (provided you have a discrete GPU installed). Do note that you have to also have installed Intel HD Graphics drivers before you can install Lucid Virtu. In the Games tab you can add your own list of games such that Virtu will recognize them, but a quick glance at the settings xml file revealed that there are already many supported games.

Introducing Intel Smart Response

So now that you know about the switchable graphics, thanks to Virtu, on the Z68 chipset, what about the other big thing touted by Intel? That's none other than Intel Smart Response Technology, a fancy, marketing term for what is essentially, using a solid-state disk (SSD) as a cache for your frequently used applications. Now, for those who have no idea what a cache is for, you should know that most modern processors come with different amounts of cache, with even a hierarchy of caches, like L1 and L2.

Without getting too technical, you can think of a rough sketchbook where the PC leaves its oft-used applications and data, because it's very likely that they will be called into use again in the next moment. The system can leave this data in many areas, like system memory or the hard drive. But it's usually much faster to access the cache on the processor (faster due to the fact that it uses higher speed RAM and also, for the case of the cache on the CPU, located very close to the processor).

However, the amount of cache on a processor is limited due to the relatively small size of the processor, and is hence, a very expensive computing resource. Therefore, other alternatives, like system memory and the hard drive are used. So, if one has to rank the various layers of cache or cache-like storage on a modern PC from the fastest to the slowest, it goes like this: cache on the CPU, system memory, and then your hard drive. Logically, one uses the fastest available storage until it is exhausted and then the next and so on.

What Intel Smart Response enables is this: a small-capacity SSD is used as an additional layer of cache that sits between system memory and your mechanical hard drive. Since a SSD is significantly faster than your mechanical hard drive, it will improve system performance to have your frequently used data blocks there instead of on the hard drive. And all this will be handled automatically by the Intel software.

Of course, this feature is moot if you're already using a SSD for your primary hard drive, which is what some users are doing with a small, say 40GB 'boot' drive to store their applications and operating system. The drawback with this approach is that there is limited capacity on such a small SSD primary drive, while a larger one, say 120GB would then be too costly for the typical user.

Intel Smart Response brings the best of both worlds - the system sees the large capacity of a mechanical hard drive while the SSD cache improves their performance. This is in fact what some hard drive manufacturers like Seagate, has already done with their products - a solid-state hybrid.

Along with the introduction of this technology, Intel has launched a new SSD, codenamed Larson Creek. This small, 20GB SSD is designed as the perfect partner for Intel Smart Response. Thanks to its use of SLC NAND (Intel's 34nm process), it is much faster for writes than the MLC variant and will also have a longer lifespan. Naturally, it won't be going for cheap, with Intel pricing it at around US$110, which would put it at around the cost of a MLC drive twice its size or in other words, the amount you would usually pay for a small boot drive.

Intel appears to have created a SSD designed just for Intel Smart Response.

Setting up

Intel Smart Response technology obviously requires the Z68 chipset, along with the appropriate Intel Rapid Storage technology drivers (version 10.5). Also, the maximum size for the SSD cache is 64GB (any extra storage will not be used as cache, but as normal storage), the minimum size is 18.6GB and you can only have one SSD cache for each system. Most importantly, you must set your hard drive to RAID mode (not IDE or AHCI).

There are two modes available for Intel Smart Response - Enhanced, which is write-thru cache and Maximized, which is write-back cache. The primary difference is that the highest level of performance will be achieved using Maximized, but there's also a greater risk of data loss since the data is written only to the cache (SSD). In the event of power failure, data may be lost.

In Enhanced, any writes are applied to both the SSD and your normal hard drive, so while you're restricted by the hard drive speed in some way, the data on both drives are always in sync.

As for the actual setup process, after reading the manuals and documentation, we recommend the following simple steps:

Do not connect the SSD to the system at start
Set the hard drive (mechanical) to RAID mode in the BIOS
Install Windows on the hard drive, taking care to install the RAID drivers from your motherboard manufacturer (Intel RST driver)
Boot to Windows desktop and install the RST drivers (version 10.5) and shutdown
Connect the SSD to the system and reboot to desktop
From the RST control panel, click on Enable Acceleration
Select the SSD that you wish to use and the mode (Enhanced/Maximized)

Upon clicking on Enable Acceleration in the RST menu, you'll get this screen with these options.

This is the screen you should see if everything had been setup properly. Sit back and enjoy the performance boost.

Tiny SSD, Big Scores

The question on everyone's lips is whether Intel Smart Response technology lives up to its promise. To find out, we tried out the two different modes, Enhanced and Maximized, with two system benchmarks, SYSmark 2007 and PCMark Vantage. They should provide a decent benchmark on the level of performance gain from the SSD cache.

We also tested the startup time (measured from the moment the Windows logo first appears, to having all your startup programs loaded and your desktop ready). We also conducted a short browser test, where we opened 20 tabs' worth of URLs on Mozilla Firefox 4 and took the average time taken of three runs.

For the HDD, we used a WD Caviar Black 1TB along with the 20GB Larson Creek SSD. The rest of the system is identical to that listed on our test setup, though we did use slightly newer Intel Rapid Storage drivers (as we tested this feature after we were done with the motherboards).

Going back to the benchmarks, we had to run it at least twice before we saw any performance gain. This is due to how the caching works to improve your system performance, so only your frequently accessed applications get 'accelerated'. However, you can't miss when it starts to kick in - our scores increased by around 20% in PCMark Vantage, no doubt thanks to a dramatic increase in HDD and Productivity scores. The margin was much lower in SYSmark though - an average gain of 6%, with Video Creation recording the biggest gain.

Maximized mode, as expected, gave the biggest performance gains, but given that it was only slightly better than Enhanced mode (at least from our limited time with it), users may actually be more comfortable going with Enhanced, since that would reduce the risk of data loss.

As for the qualitative aspect, we found the startup time for our Smart Response systems to be around 5 seconds faster than before. (19.9s vs 14.8s). Browser performance also saw a slight improvement in speed, with the SSD enhanced systems consistently faster by around 1.7 seconds. There was also practically no difference in performance between the two modes.

The ASUS P8Z68-V PRO

Some information on this page were first published in our earlier .

The ASUS P8Z68-V PRO is fairly typical by ASUS' standards. Given its upmarket slant, it comes packed with more features than other models, with FireWire, eSATA and extra SATA 6Gbps ports the icing on the storage cake. Don't expect surprises for multi-GPU support however, since the Z68 chipset is identical to the P67 in this respect - just a pair of discrete graphics cards are supported in the x8/x8 configuration. Quad-GPU support is technically possible, but only if you are installing a graphics card which packs two GPUs on a single PCB, like the .

Outwardly, there's little to distinguish this ASUS Z68 board from a similar class ASUS P67 board. The main difference, which is the chipset, is well hidden under the heatsink, thus it's difficult to tell apart at first glance.

HDMI, DVI and VGA outputs should be the usual display configuration for a Z68 board. Along with those, you'll find up to four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports (in blue) and extras like a Bluetooth antenna and an eSATA port

Identical to some of ASUS' P67 boards, we find four SATA 3Gbps ports from the Z68 chipset (blue), two SATA 6Gbps ports (gray, again from the chipset) and two additional SATA 6Gbps ports (in darker blue) from a Marvell controller.

You can make use of the third PCIe x16 slot (in black) but it has a maximum of 4 lanes of PCIe bandwidth and shares this with the neighboring PCIe x1 slots, USB 3.0 header and eSATA, so using this slot will affect the throughput for all these features.

Board layout is typically ASUS and one can probably superimpose a comparable ASUS P67 motherboard over this Z68 board and find the onboard components all located within the same ballpark. We didn't find any layout issues (and we don't expect to find any given the market segment this board is targeting).

The expected four DIMM slots on this dual-channel memory architecture is more determined by the Sandy Bridge processor rather than the chipset or motherboard. Notice the single USB 3.0 header besides the 24-pin power connector.

All the switches for ASUS' proprietary technologies are conveniently clustered together at one corner of the board. The location is suitable while the board is out of the case, but once it's in a more compact chassis like that of a mid-tower, this section can be hard to reach and use.

At the other corner of the board, we see the BIOS reset jumper in blue along with the front panel connectors. The FireWire headers are also located here.

Power and reset buttons are essential for power users like us who rarely ever test motherboards within the confines of a chassis. They are also handy when troubleshooting within the chassis.

There are quite a few expansion options presented here but essentially, the total PCIe bandwidth is identical to the P67 chipset. Realistically, you're looking at dual graphics cards (with 2 GPUs on a single PCB at best, but that's really pushing it).

Practically the universal HD audio CODEC you'll find on most motherboards - Realtek's ALC892.

No more NEC USB 3.0 controller it seems, as ASUS switches to ASMedia for its needs (which is only logical seeing that ASMedia is a subsidiary of ASUS).

Nothing too surprising here at the LGA1155 socket - plenty of space and ASUS' 12+4 power phase design.

As seen earlier, Virtu is supported on this ASUS board, so you can have the best of both worlds after enabling the appropriate BIOS setting. The BIOS meanwhile is identical to what we have seen on other ASUS 6-series boards and it is arguably one of the better EFI BIOS implementation at the moment.

Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD7-B3

Some information on this page were first published in our earlier .

You may have read about it online, but apparently, the UD7 has been spotted for sale in retail shops in Taiwan. It's the same model that we'll be looking at here today, though we do have a few more shots than just the box. However, the packaging is indeed attractive enough to deserve its own shot, what with its profusion of logos and marketing slogans:

Gigabyte seems to believe that the more logos the better, with the packaging of this Z68 board festooned with them.

When we examined the physical Z68 board, we were slightly taken aback at how familiar it seemed. We weren't wrong, as a closer look, along with a check with our showed that the new Gigabyte Z68 board was an identical twin to its P67 UD7 model. On hindsight, it's only logical that Gigabyte would replicate its P67 design with a Z68 chipset; the ASUS P8Z68V-PRO was also quite similar to its P67 boards.

There was nevertheless a major difference between this Gigabyte and the ASUS board - the GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 had no integrated display outputs at the rear panel like the ASUS. This makes this Z68 board even more like a clone of Gigabyte's P67 offering, as it offers only a discrete graphics option.

It also begs the question why Gigabyte went with a solely discrete option that appears to undermine the whole point of having a versatile chipset like the Z68 Express. From what we understand from Gigabyte, the manufacturer feels that the UD7 is a high-end SKU where the users are almost certainly going to have a discrete graphics card (or two), especially given the presence of an NF200 controller to allow for up to 3-way SLI/CrossFireX.

As for the other benefits of having the integrated graphics present, like Intel Quick Sync and Lucid's Virtu technologies, Gigabyte responded that Intel's Quick Sync was supported by a limited number of software currently for transcoding and it's not that essential for the target audience of the UD7.

The same too applies for Virtu, which while allowing dynamic switching between the integrated and discrete graphics, incurs a slight performance penalty (Gigabyte quotes between 1 to 3%) in the process. This is something that would not fly with users who have chosen to splurge on a high-end motherboard like the UD7. Those who wish to get the best of both worlds and enjoy the full advantages of the Z68 Express chipset, can look forward to Gigabyte's other, lower-end models, which will have Virtu and integrated display outputs for the Sandy Bridge processor.

It's a reasonable explanation for the design choices seen on the UD7, even if it does make this Z68 board practically indistinguishable from its P67 cousins, except for the chipset's support for Intel Smart Response. We would also have preferred that Gigabyte had allowed users to make the choice, rather than to make it for them.

And this is the new, high-end Z68 board from Gigabyte, as you can tell from the UD7 designation. It does look awfully familiar ...

And what do you know? This Z68 UD7 looks like an exact copy of Gigabyte's P67 UD7. Even the placement of onboard components, like USB 3.0 controllers and PCIe expansion slots appear to be identical.

It's all about the USB 3.0 ports on these newer motherboards, with VIA's VLI VL810 USB hubs extending the Renesas (NEC) USB 3.0 controllers. Despite this, Gigabyte still retains the FireWire options. There are also two LAN ports, a rather common configuration for the high-end segment.

Outwardly, this Z68 board looks identical to its P67 UD7 cousin, from the hefty, eight layer PCB enhanced with Gigabyte's Ultra Durable technology (this just means more copper content in the PCB), to the matte black color scheme with gold trimmings. It's a handsome board and it comes with many features you'll associate with the high-end segment. From extra SATA 6Gbps ports to FireWire and dual Gigabit LAN ports, they are all here. There are also a generous number of USB 3.0 ports and of course, support for 2-way/3-way SLI and CrossFireX due to the NF200 controller.

Eight SATA ports should be enough for most users. The four on the left here are SATA 3Gbps ports from the Intel Z68 Express chipset, while the ones in white are SATA 6Gbps versions. The two gray ones are from the Marvell 88SE9128 chip and support SATA 6Gbps speeds.

Gigabyte has gone all dark and moody for this generation of motherboards and all the DIMM slots are black to go with the theme. They support up to 2133MHz DDR3 memory modules, for a total of 32GB.

Around the larger power button, there's a black Clear CMOS switch and a small blue button to reset the system.

The headers for the front panel are labeled and color-coded to help users. There's also a debugging LED. Again, this configuration is identical to what we saw on Gigabyte's P67 UD7 board.

While the NF200 controller allows for a x8 configuration on each of the four graphics cards it can support simultaneously, there is only space physically for three such graphics cards, given the dual-slot nature of just about every decent graphics cards worth owning.

The two USB 3.0 controllers from Renesas (NEC) and the VIA USB hubs combine to enable up to 10 USB 3.0 ports (6 at the rear and 4 through headers).

Two Realtek RTL8111 Gigabit LAN controllers should satisfy the most demanding user.

Gigabyte is not shy to tout the capable and stable 24-phase power delivery system on its high-end board.

In short, we are repeating what we had said in our Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD7 review, including Gigabyte's Hybrid EFI BIOS, which looks exactly like an old-school non-EFI BIOS, but nevertheless supports the 3TB disks that users are concerned about. However, Gigabyte has now included a new BIOS utility that while not exactly what we were expecting, helps to alleviate the impression that Gigabyte is not following the graphical user interface trend.

Touchy Feely BIOS

This is none other than the new TouchBIOS, a Windows utility that brings a 'modern', graphical user interface to the BIOS. Available for download for Gigabyte's latest Z68 based motherboards, users also have to update the BIOS on their boards first before installing. What you get after that is a rather colorful skin to the usual Gigabyte BIOS. And, it works with a touch-based display, so with the right monitor, you can navigating it completely using your fingers instead of a mouse. Of course, for most users, they will be using the mouse and keyboard.

The skeptics will say that this TouchBIOS is Gigabyte's response to criticism that its Hybrid EFI BIOS is not competitive with the EFI BIOS implementations from other manufacturers. It's no doubt a different tack from the other vendors, but we see no wrong with having a tool that allows you to tweak your settings within Windows, though the touch interface is perhaps a bit too gimmicky given the lack of touch interfaces for the desktop.

Gigabyte's TouchBIOS has big icons that are suitable for even the fattest fingers.

The options present are identical to what you'll find on the actual Gigabyte BIOS, so you're not missing out anything.

MSI Z68A-GD80 (B3)

Unsurprisingly like its competitors, MSI's Z68A-GD80 (B3) reminds us of its current P67 lineup, with the same set of features, like OC Genie and Military Class, and a similar design. Since it's not part of MSI's Big-Bang series, we can safely assume that the GD80 is not the ultimate, top model in the vendor's lineup, but on paper, it's competitive with the ASUS P8Z68V-PRO.

Looks familiar? Well, the blue, brown and black aesthetics has been preferred by MSI for a while now. And we can't really be expecting something new so soon after the P67/H67 launch right?

MSI too has dual Gigabit LAN ports, though there's no VGA output, not that we feel its loss. Along with the now-standard rear Clear CMOS button, there are also two USB 3.0 ports in blue.

Besides the standard 6 SATA ports (two SATA 6Gbps in white), a Marvell 88SE9128 controller adds an extra SATA 6Gbps port and the eSATA 6Gbps port at the rear.

Below the power connector, there's a set of voltage measuring points for the niche group of users who are prepared to do some serious overclocking.

There aren't that many USB 3.0 ports available on this board, with just one USB 3.0 header to complement the two ports at the rear.

The power and reset buttons are clearly labeled. The OC Genie feature works decently, giving us an overclock of up to 4.2GHz. Users have to shut down the system, depress the OC Genie button to enable it, then restart the system before it kicks in.

In terms of its specifications, this MSI board certainly has quite a lot going for it, from its support for dual Gigabit LAN ports to three PCIe 2.0 x16 slots. However, the lack of bandwidth (which the Gigabyte alleviates with its NF200 controller) means that like the ASUS, you'll need to compromise. In the case of this MSI board, adding a third graphics card into the third PCIe x16 slot will lead to the loss of functionality for the Marvell-enabled ports (eSATA and the seventh SATA port), the VIA FireWire controller and the neighboring two PCI slots.

Additionally, the bandwidth is sufficient to support only x4 for that last PCIe x16 slot. Frankly, we don't think too many users are looking into installing more than two graphics cards, but if you do, then be prepared to fork out more for a board with the necessary bandwidth.

Overall, this MSI board maintains the quality and design elements that we have come to expect from the manufacturer. There are no layout issues that we can tell and the board is solidly built, though not to the extent of Gigabyte's 8-layer PCB. MSI also has an EFI BIOS with a graphical user interface. We have commented on it before and it remains a bit too bright and colorful for our tastes and could perhaps be improved in terms of visual cues; often we aren't too sure we had selected a particular icon due to ambiguous cues. At least it has improved in responsiveness from our initial experience.

Given how power hungry graphics cards can be nowadays, it's prudent to use the extra, dedicated power connector for your graphics cards. Especially if you have two or more cards.

There may be three available PCIe 2.0 x16 slots, but the PCIe configuration defaults to x16/x8/x4 with three cards. And you lose the Marvell and VIA controllers onboard. It's your call if you think that's worth it.

A VIA controller provides FireWire functionality for that small group of users who will need it. Personally, we're all for more USB 3.0 ports instead. As for the THX logo, it's stuck over the standard Realtek ALC892 HD audio CODEC that's actually doing the work.

All those high-quality components are focused mainly at the CPU socket region, where power delivery to the processor is important to ensure stability and of course for the enthusiasts, overclocking headroom.

Some of the more costly components on this board, hi-c capacitors with tantalum cores and ferrite cores.

BIOS Settings

Like the s we had tested previously, these Z68 boards came with enthusiast-class BIOS settings. While the BIOS interfaces remain similar to their P67 counterparts, with both ASUS and MSI opting for a graphical user interface with mouse support, Gigabyte kept to its Hybrid BIOS approach with an old-school interface that should be familiar to long-time users of Gigabyte boards. As mentioned before, Gigabyte has added the new TouchBIOS utility that works within Windows and effectively gives the same amount of control over the BIOS.

Besides the voltage settings (we listed some of the more important ones in the table below), the ASUS and MSI boards also support the integrated graphics output capabilities of the Sandy Bridge processor. Hence, you'll also find options to enable the Virtu software layer and even tweak the graphics clock speed of the processor. The Gigabyte board however only has the discrete option, so it's hardly any different from its P67 equivalent.

Model	CPUVoltage	DRAMVoltage	Other Voltage Settings
ASUSP8Z68-VPRO	0.80 to 1.99V (0.005Vsteps)	1.20 to 2.20V (0.00625V steps)	CPUPLL: 1.20 to 2.20V(0.00625Vsteps) PCHVoltage: 0.80 to 1.70V(0.01Vsteps)
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD7-B3	0.75 to 1.7V (0.005Vsteps)	0.90 to 2.60V (0.02V steps)	QPI/Vtt:0.80 to 1.70V(0.02Vsteps) PCH Voltage: 0.84 to 1.94V (0.02V steps)
MSIZ68A-GD80(B3)	0.80 to 1.80V (0.005V steps)	1.108 to 2.464V (0.008V steps)	CPUPLLVoltage:1.40 to 2.43V(0.01Vsteps) CPUI/OVoltage:0.95 to 1.55V(0.02Vsteps)

Test Setup

The same test configuration that we used for all our P67 testing has been replicated for this Z68 roundup. Note that the Z68 boards were installed with a slightly newer version of Intel's chipset drivers. Besides the three Z68 motherboards slated for review, we have also thrown in one of our best performing P67 motherboard, the ASUS Maximus IV Extreme as a reference.

Intel Core i7-2600K @3.4GHz
2 x 1GB Kingston HyperX DDR3-1333 (CAS 7-7-7-20)
NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX (ForceWare 260.99)
WD Caviar Black 1TB, SATA 6G (Intel 6G)
Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit)
Intel INF 9.2.0.1015 (Intel P67), Intel INF 9.2.0.1021 (Intel Z68)

The following benchmarks were used:

BAPco SYSmark 2007 (version 1.05)
Futuremark PCMark Vantage (1.0.3.1)
Futuremark 3DMark Vantage (1.0.3.1)
SPECviewperf 9.0
Far Cry 2

Results - SYSmark 2007 Preview

As you can tell from the first benchmark in our test, the system suite SYSmark 2007, the Z68 does not necessarily bring any significant performance boost over the P67 (as represented by the ASUS Maximus IV Extreme). Overall, the scores for the two chipsets are mostly similar, not to mention that the Z68 did have a newer set of drivers. The ASUS P8Z68-V PRO was the best performer for the Z68 contingent, but it was however a tad behind the Maximus IV Extreme.

Results - Futuremark PCMark Vantage

The next system suite, PCMark Vantage found the ASUS P8Z68-V PRO again leading the pack, this time by quite a decent margin across all the sub-categories. The other two Z68 boards were marginally ahead of the P67 Maximus, though in truth, one would be hard pressed to differentiate them.

Results - SPECviewperf 9.0

The ASUS P8Z68-V PRO continued its fine run in SPECviewperf 9.0, where it was slightly ahead of the other boards. Again, the Z68 chipset did not exhibit any clear performance advantage over its P67 predecessor.

Results - Futuremark 3DMark Vantage & Far Cry 2

When it came to synthetic graphical benchmarks like 3DMark Vantage, the ASUS and MSI Z68 boards fared identically, with the P67 Maximus following closely. The Gigabyte Z68 however was slightly off the pace. This continued to be the case in the game benchmark, Far Cry 2, where there was quite a significant difference in frame rates between the Gigabyte and the other boards.

Temperature

The modest heatsinks on these Z68 and P67 motherboards tell the whole story; heat is generally not much of an issue here, even when overclocking. You can expect 50 degrees Celsius or less on the heatsinks, with the actual onboard components obviously having slightly higher temperatures. Nevertheless, these are all fairly safe temperatures.

Power Consumption

The MSI Z68A-GD80 (B3) had some issues with our Antec Quattro 1kW power supply, which meant we had to use a different PSU from our usual test configuration. This may skew its power draw figures slightly due to different power efficiency ratings, but looking at all the numbers, only the two ASUS boards went beyond the 200W mark at peak. These are all pretty efficient motherboards, especially at idle when the processor clocks draw down.

Overclocking

For our overclocking test, we tried to achieve the highest possible stable CPU frequency by increasing the CPU multiplier, while leaving the base clock untouched at 100MHz. For the core voltage, we pushed it to a maximum of 1.45V, though often, there was little difference between 1.4 and 1.45V in getting that maximum frequency, in which case we took the lower of the two voltages.

The auto-overclocking tools (if any) included with these boards were also tested, though the best was the ASUS P8Z68-V PRO, which unfortunately was a mediocre 4.4GHz. The ASUS Maximums IV Extreme was also included here as a reference example of how a top P67 board performed.

Our conclusion here, limited as it is to three samples, is that we couldn't find any significant overclocking advantage for the new Z68 chipset. The maximum 5.1GHz we managed was replicated on both the ASUS boards, regardless of the chipset. It does seem that we are constrained more by our processor. The overclocking results are listed below:

Model	Maximum Overclock Achieved	Voltage Used
ASUSP8Z68-VPRO	5.1GHz (Maximum auto-overclock = 4.4GHz)	1.4V
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD7-B3	4.7GHz	1.4V
MSIZ68A-GD80 (B3)	4.9GHz (O.CGenie = 4.2GHz)	1.4V
ASUS Maximus IV Extreme	5.1GHz	1.48V

Conclusion

If there's one conclusion that you can draw from the introduction of Intel's Z68 Express chipset, it's that Intel is so dominant in the CPU market that it can afford to emerge from the Cougar Point fracas relatively unscathed. Notwithstanding the actual cost of replacing and repairing the faulty chipsets, Intel remains in a very good position. And whatever flaws that the P67 and H67 chipsets had, the new Z68 chipset has just swept them away.

Which is why, even though there's a slight premium for the Z68 chipset over the older P67, it's very likely that the Z68 chipset will become the chipset of choice from now onwards for anyone getting a new Sandy Bridge system. It allows the use of some of the platform's more attractive features, like Quick Sync, without compromise or restrictions. And, the value-conscious power user can take advantage of Intel Smart Response Technology to get a hefty performance boost while waiting for the prices of the top SSDs to become more affordable.

Throw in the flexibility of Lucid's Virtu and despite the slight performance penalty, we can't really find anything wrong with the Z68. At worst, we can only say that Intel should have covered the switchable graphics angle right at the start, and not have to rely on Lucid for the fix.

This chipset launch does remind us of the flaws of the previous Intel chipsets. Despite the criticisms about its frequent socket changes, Intel has stuck to its guns. It figured that the typical user don't really care to upgrade and would gladly buy a new platform when the need arises, especially since most users are only changing their PCs after several years of use.

In a more competitive CPU environment, one would perhaps expect Intel to suffer from this approach. It's not the case at the moment, with AMD missing in action. While AMD's Bulldozer is expected very soon, there is a big question over whether it can top Intel, especially with Intel's big announcement recently about its . Ivy Bridge will be out next year and already it looks formidable.

Model	Performance	Features	Value	Overclocking	Overall	Estimated Retail Price
ASUSP8Z68-VPRO	9.0	8.5	9.0	8.5	9.0	S$349
Gigabyte GA-Z68X-UD7-B3	8.5	9.0	7.5	8.0	8.0	S$549
MSIZ68A-GD80 (B3)	8.5	8.5	8.5	8.5	8.5	S$359

ASUS has been very strong with its 6-series motherboards and the ASUS P8Z68-V PRO maintains its good start. While there wasn't anything really new on this board that differs from ASUS' P67 offerings besides the chipset differences, there was little need for ASUS to change its winning formula. This board is targeted at the upmarket crowd, but not the extreme users, which is why some features are missing like an NF200 controller. But it more than made up for it with its excellent BIOS, strong benchmark performance and a user-friendly layout. The rather competitive price tag helps.

Gigabyte's GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 was an interesting board. The company obviously felt that the target audience for the UD7 would not care to accept any compromises from having Virtu or have the need to use Quick Sync. We cannot agree with this, but as Gigabyte has many other models that do have these features, there's no harm done. Unfortunately, while this Gigabyte board lived up to its usual high standards, the price too can be quite daunting. Unless you really need the 3-way CrossFireX/SLI support, there are more attractive alternatives.

In many ways, MSI's Z68A-GD80 (B3) is very similar to the ASUS board. In terms of features, the two are almost identical and both suffer from the same lack of PCIe bandwidth that the Gigabyte avoids. Both are also very closely matched in price, with the MSI just a bit more costly. Although we find little fault with this board for its layout or choice of features, we just feel that its BIOS loses out to the ASUS.