Sandy Bridge Motherboards Dissected, Compared 143
crookedvulture writes "As we've learned, Intel's Sandy Bridge CPUs are pretty impressive. If you're going to build yourself a system with one, you'll need a new motherboard with an 1155-pin socket. The Tech Report has an in-depth look at four such boards based on Intel's P67 Express chipset. Although the boards offer identical application performance, there are notable differences between their power consumption and the speed of onboard peripherals like USB 3.0 and Serial ATA ports. Some implement the new UEFI BIOS framework while others do not, and the quality of those implementations varies quite a bit. Recommended reading for anyone thinking about rolling their own desktop with one of Intel's latest CPUs."
Missing Story Tag : DRM (Score:5, Informative)
DRM should be one of the tags. After all that is what Intel Insider is and a major part of Sandy Bridge is. Read all about it... what a riot...
http://blogs.intel.com/technology/2011/01/intel_insider_-_what_is_it_no.php
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intel says that because it does not involve *media* that its not drm.
I'm so glad they cleared that up for us.
I'm a big fan of the core i3 chips and even some i5 chips. (i7 is overkill and over the price reasonableness curve). I love how low power the older i3 (etc) is. touch a chipset heatsink on an i3 system and its nearly cold. touch a socket 775 northbridge sink and - OUCH! sb is also an ouchie, sometimes even hotter running. but the core series is a real low power winner.
guess I'll keep that 'last
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sorry, 'sb' means 'south bridge' in that context NOT sandy bridge! poor choice of abbrev on my part in that sense.
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handing in my nerd card, I totally thought it was an abreviated sonofabitch.
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I recently bought a laptop with an i7 in it and it's really great. And, the price was good too. But, if you are building your own computer, the retail price of an i7 is insane (maybe that's what the "i" means). The retail price of an i7 alone is about one third the price of my entire laptop.
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I bought an i7 920 the black friday before last. According to my calculations, it was the processor at which the price curve changed places, beyond 920 the price grew way faster than is sensible, and below it the price increase was way too little for the price increase. For something like 250 bucks I got a processor that runs virtually anything I want with ease, and I run engineering applications and rendering software, such as autodesk inventor 2011, matlab, and the adobe CS5. Although I also run two nVidi
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Yea, but you would think they would make the awesome processor I speak of to please the high end crowd.
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Say what you want to about the i7 being "too expensive"... I have a quad-core i7 laptop with 8 GB of RAM, and it's WONDERFUL.
Running Fedora Core 13 Linux as the host, I'm able to run 3 separate VMPlayer instances each with its own copy of Windows CONCURRENTLY on two screens with minimal fuss and a snappy feel, while running Chrome, Firefox, OpenOffice, VNC, Flash, Acrobat, LogMeIn, a few KDE applets, and GIMP, etc concurrently in all the VMs all at once. And it's smooth!
I know that having gobs of RAM is key
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So switch to AMD.
My current setup is dual-core AMD 64 bit(X2 5400) with 4 GB RAM and I have not felt gimped at all.(Win7_64bit & Kubuntu 10.10_64 dual-boot W/ ATI 5670 1 GBVRAM vid-card)
Most apps now days can't use all of a dual core processor with adequate RAM and video card, much less anything above this.
Maybe when software catches up with hardware, this could be a problem, but we are not there yet, outside of a few niche markets.
As an off-topic side-note, my Intel PIV 3.0 GHz PC makes a wonderful sp
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Sorry, I did miss that part at the first sentence.
As to the rest, I wasn't recommending using dual cores as you gathered, I was just stating my setup handled everything I have thrown at it with ease.
I happen to agree that triple and quad cores are the current sweet spot.
Again, sorry for missing that first bit. Had I caught that, I never would have commented. You are preaching to the choir now.
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http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9203799/Intel_Sandy_Bridge_s_Insider_is_not_DRM [computerworld.com]
Claims that Sandy Bridge Insider isn't DRM.
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They say it is like the bluray protected path, which is in fact DRM.
Re:Missing Story Tag : DRM (Score:4, Insightful)
That is the biggest load of bullshit I have ever read.
Does it prevent you from making a copy? If so, yes it's DRM, which is essentially a euphemism for the older term 'copy protection'.
They're just trying to say that it's not DRM because DRM has become as much a four-letter word as 'copy protection' has always been, thanks to advocates like the EFF.
Saying that Intel Insider is like HDCP and HDCP is found in BluRay players and the PS3 doesn't make it not DRM, because HDCP is -- surpise! -- DRM.
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Re:Missing Story Tag : DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
Or people who want to play videos on OSes where no players are available, or people who want to be able to convert videos for mobile devices, or those who want to be able to capture samples for fair use purposes.
Oh wait, that is a whole bunch of non-pirates that hate DRM.
Even worse is that due to DRM AMD will not release proper documentation for its video acceleration hardware nor support it in their open driver. They admit this is to prevent their DRM from being defeated on other platforms.
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so you buy a discrete graphics card, and voila, you are no longer subject to Intel's content protection.
btw, moving the DRM from software to hardware actually eliminates the need for specialty players / baked-on OS DRM and makes it far more likely it will work with other OSes.
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And you don't get video acceleration since the DRM uses that too and they wont release an open driver for it.
Moving DRM to hardware does nothing about that. Even if it did allow its use on other OSes I still would not want it.
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Actually that is dead wrong. Out of the past 7 games I played, I purchased 3. The three I paid for did not work, the the rest I pirated (including the original three legal versions that DRM caused not to work right) all of which worked perfectly, and were quite fun.
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The only people who hate DRM are people who want to be able to pirate. No one really cares about keeping those people happy, since they only way to do so is to give them free shit while getting nothing in return.
There's a lot more too it, which you simply do not get to see as a consumer, because it happens behind the scenes.
For example, the protected audio path introduced in Vista made many sound drivers much more complex to write, and resulted in poor performance and system stability problems. This was of course passed on to the customer as an additional expense, as well as yet another source of blue screens of death.
A much more chilling thought it that if DRM is available, it won't just be used for movies. Sooner
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For example, the protected audio path introduced in Vista made many sound drivers much more complex to write, and resulted in poor performance and system stability problems. This was of course passed on to the customer as an additional expense, as well as yet another source of blue screens of death.
Hey? Vista simplified the audio system by handling more of the audio processing itself. The way they implemented the protected audio path effectively reduced what the companies had to do in their own drivers. Some of the things that used to be done using hardware acceleration is now handled by the OS in software. This resulted in new features such as per-application audio settings and enhancements such as virtual surround, room correction and loudness equalization for even the most basic sound chipset. APIs
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"Furthermore, the code was moved from the kernel into userland to prevent buggy drivers from causing blue screens of death."
Which caused much higher latency and throughout, especially for demanding apps like studio recording. So a lot of professional hardware actually implements completely separate audio stacks.
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latency has always been high in the OS and no sane person in a studio would use a built-in soundchip in place of studio gear.
for a start, where would you plug a mic or guitar?
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"latency has always been high in the OS"
Nope, Windows XP worked just fine. Vista with ASIO stack is also fine. However, Vista's native stack is horrible.
"and no sane person in a studio would use a built-in soundchip in place of studio gear."
??? How do you think most of music is produced?
"for a start, where would you plug a mic or guitar?"
In your auid card's input ports ( http://www.motu.com/products/motuaudio/8pre [motu.com] ). Do you think that nothing exists but Intel HDA cards?
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wtf are you talking about?
if you have a sound card with more than a 3.5mm unbalanced stereo input, you'll have ASIO as well.
even if you don't have a decent interface, you can get well below directsound (in ANY flavour of windows) latency using ASIO4ALL.
honestly, you think most music is produced using directsound?
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No, I'm talking that music is produced on common computers, not some kind of magical devices.
Of course, ASIO (or JACK) is used and that's the point - built-in audio stack in Vista is crap.
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*sigh*
Notice that I did not make a value judgement in my post above. I simply called out Intel's spokespeople speaking about Intel Insider for being the liars that are and told you, in no uncertain terms, what DRM actually is.
Value judgements are for you to make.
"Does not a rose by any other name smell as sweet?"
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And EVERYBODY ELSE who likes technology, freedom, logic, creativity, new things, quality art, etc. You're a dumbass. And also a troll.
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Mod up... you can't push this point hard enough. Intel occasionally tries to push this shit into hardware (see VIIV)... and each time it needs highlighting. Intel needs a kick in the teeth every time they try it - make them waste their money trying to screw over the consumer.
To paraphrase a famous quote: they only need to win once, we need to win every time.
Sandy Bridge-based machines have DRM in hardware. DON'T BUY THEM.
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the regular end-user won't ever hear of sandy-bridge. they'll just get their new pc with the latest intel chip i12 or something. they will not have any good alternative too.
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And just on the DRM debate, I dislike DRM, but love watermarking. That's because I dislike piracy and watermarking is a counter-measure that doesn't get in my way.
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This is a motherboard comparison, and it has nothing to do with the DRM features.
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It must have cost something to put there and to design it.
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Re:Missing Story Tag : DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't work like that.
Sooner or later, if DRM hardware is 'everywhere', then a big corporation can simply make it mandatory for some file format or protocol... for... ahem... 'security'.
This will instantly lock out any possibility of an open source implementation of such a protocol, as most DRM schemes require code signed by a trusted central authority, which is a concept in diametric opposition to the 'open' part of the whole concept of open source.
Without open source, competition will be reduced, prices will go up, and your options as a customer will be restricted.
There are other abuses possible also, most of which you may never see coming until it is too late.
For example, if Microsoft can convince the idiots running most big bureaucracies that their network isn't safe from hackers unless there's an end-to-end DRM on everything, then this will effectively lock out their smaller competitiors from having any hope of even physically talking to any other machine on such a network. It probably won't do anything to increase safety from hackers, but it will certainly make Microsoft safe from their competition! This of course will increase costs for bureaucracies, which come out of your taxes.
You think I'm joking? Microsoft already tried this, it's called Active Directory Rights Management Services Role [microsoft.com]. Sounds innocent, right? It's horrifying! It's pure evil, the ultimate lock-in: using military grade cryptography to ensure that their customers stay locked in forever, and cannot possibly get their own data out of the walled garden of Microsoft software. They even tried to change low-level network protocols to prevent their competitors from competing on the 'corporate network' with their offerings by implementing open protocols: Network Access Protection [microsoft.com]. If you don't know what NAP is, it's a system that does nothing a firewall couldn't, except that to gain access, you must have a DRM-enabled computer running an OS kernel that's digitally signed by... a trusted authority.
Microsoft is pushing hard to have this technology become mandatory in some scenarios, like health data. Can you imagine if you couldn't obtain your own health records if you had one of those filthy 'untrusted' Linux computers? It's a very real possibility, and Microsoft wants it, bad.
I'm not making this up, check it out: Using Digital Rights Management for Securing Data in a Medical Research Environment [acm.org].
To put it another way: This is not a feature Intel is including for free, out of the goodness of their hearts, just in case you want it. It's about increasing profits of the biggest corporations not just at your expense, but at the cost of your rights and freedoms. How does this not upset you?
Re:Missing Story Tag : DRM (Score:5, Insightful)
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Exactly. If you're a corp who... y'know, actually has information you want to keep private (that you've won over hard-earned experience to achieve a competitive advantage), but maybe want to share with JV partners on a limited basis, the AD rights management allows you to achieve this.
That's the bait.
The hook is that after you've cryptographically ensured that it's physically impossible to extract your data out of the Microsoft-based DRM system, you've also dug yourself a hole down to vendor lock-in hell like you've never imagined.
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Uhh, yeah.. unless you pull the data out in the clear and...put it in another system.
Your point is idiotic, as the only way it would be physically impossible to extract your data was if it were effectively deleted or one-way (forever) encrypted.
Introducing the new Microsoft Data Storage System, where even you can't get access to your data!
That would sell real well. Where do you people come up with this shit, seriously?
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A lot of this is about turning up the heat on the pot with a live lobster in it. Right now, it's merely pleasantly warm, but it's going to become uncomfortable soon!
You have no idea what AD Rights management is for. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rights_Management_Services [wikipedia.org]
It is about companies protected their trade secrets and confidential data. It isn't about stopping you from stealing something off of the piratebay.
Except that the data is not protected from employees, who can steal it all the same. Access control lists and transparent filesystem encryption already provide the necessary features for protecting data from employees. What it does do, is prevent open source applications from interfacing with the data in any way. It protects Microsoft's monopoly
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I'm not sure if you've realized this, but even more obvious than that is that he's a breathless, hysterical idiot. Probably not much point in really carrying on too long a conversation with him other than to mock him.
I'm speaking from personal experience. Are you?
I have turned up at a customer site with NAP with a laptop running an "untrusted" OS, and was told it would simply not work.
I had to use one of their Windows desktops to work.*
If it wasn't for NAP, it would have connected to their network just fine, and I'm certain that it was far more secure and virus-free than their network.
This is reality now. If you want to keep your head in the sand, feel free.
*) Yes, I know, in principle one can simply turn off NAP on a s
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It's designed to make it so that a document can be distributed to you that you can read, but can't copy. That's exactly the same thing that any other kind of DRM is for, and if it becomes pervasive, sooner or later it'll start being used for music/vide
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Crypto technology of all sorts may be very good, or very bad. The question is who controls it.
Everyone, individuals or companies, should be able to secure their own data. But that's not enough. They also need to be able to issue their own keys or certificates. And the technology that uses those keys or certificates needs to be available from more than one vendor.
Sole source solutions are not solutions, they are traps. They may be acceptable for non-critical areas. Data which can only be recovered with a sin
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what AD Rights management is for
Your goal is irrelevant if the means themselves are invalid. It doesn't matter if you're "for" curing cancer, that obviously doesn't make it valid to kidnap people to work as slaves in a research lab. Some people dreamed up the idea of DRM with the valid goal of preventing copyright infringement, but their goal does not mean their means of pursuing that goal are valid, doesn't mean those means will actually work, doesn't mean they it's valid to expect those means to actually
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I would assume the bit about the medical records probably has something to do with the "HIPAA" standards compliance. That's a big deal these and only seems to be getting more so. HIPAA is an American regulation to make sure confidential medical records aren't exposed or leaked (I've worked in IT for at least two different medical-related organizations).
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This above post should be put into a plaque and put on every wall in every classroom in America. People need to learn this, depserately. DRM practices are the most disgusting thing in the computer world, and can do immesurable harm to our society and its progress, and to freedom at large, when so much of our modern freedom is based on the internet.
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I'm so tired of you dumb assholes posting just complete lies, FUD, and generally just nonsense gibber jabber. I have fun coming on here and mocking you but it tries even my patience dealing with this level of stupidity.
The rights management service is indeed incredibly important in e.g. healthcare, large corporations, etc... to ensure that documents are only available to people who should have access to them. If that includes you, you will still have access.
Your long, pointless, factually incorrect rant w
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Noooo! That's crazy talk, I'm so morally opposed to anything labeled DRM that I refuse to even buy a product from a company that advertises on a website that has an article on a motherboard for a CPU that supports DRM functionality!
Joking, of course. Don't try to talk rationally to any of these neckbeards, they are so incensed by the mere mention of DRM that they shut off any logical part of their brain that they may have.
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I'm so tired of people whining about DRM. If you don't like it, don't use the media content that uses it. It's really as simple as that.
Sometimes when I get a cheeseburger they have a pickle on them. Instead of crying for 10 minutes about it and posting a self-righteous post on the Internet about how evil teh picklez are, I take the pickle off and eat the cheeseburger.
Re: DRM - DON'T go NEAR this Chip! (Score:2)
Glenn Chapman
The Sydney Morning Herald
January 6, 2011
US chip giant Intel has introduced a speedy new generation of chips that thwart film piracy and enable quick handling of data-rich video and games.
The second-generation Intel Core processors, referred to as “Sandy Bridge”, have been built into computers big and small, many of which will be displayed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
“This is the best product we’ve ever built,” said Intel chief executive Paul Otell
cut pci but keep usb 2.0 and sata 3? (Score:2)
cut pci but keep usb 2.0 and sata 3? Will some boards needing add on chips for USB 3.0 and more then 2 sata 6 ports. AMD has 6 sata 6 ports.
Build in pci does still have use for stuff like on board sound and there still lots pci cards out there
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PCI slots dried up. My latest mobo has just the one.
However PCIe devices, except graphics cards, just aren't there in terms of availability and choice.
In the mean time, everything moved onto the motherboard, so you hardly need any expansion cards.
most build in wifi is just usb based pci / pci-e b (Score:2)
most build in wifi is just usb based pci / pci-e better.
Also there is that new 4 tuner cable card pci-e card.
As well OTA tv cards.
Better sound cards.
PCI-E SDD cards are coming up.
light peak likely will come on pci-e cards for use in older systems.
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My new motherboard has one PCI slot that's essentially useless, as it's right up next to the first PCIe slot, which the manual says you must use to get best performance. Most video cards take two slots, and there's no onboard video, so the only way I can see using it is on a headless system, and you wouldn't use a board with three PCIe slots for that.
The only PCI card I have that I might want to use is a TV tuner card, and PCIe tuner cards are cheap and pl
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PCI slots dried up. My latest mobo has just the one.
A lot of motherboards use PCI internally as the interface for their onboard systems such as audio. Just because you don't see or use the physical slot doesn't mean that it is completely unused.
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cut pci but keep usb 2.0 and sata 3?
Makes sense to me to keep most of the USB ports 2.0. USB 3 takes up a lot more pins (both more lines and they probably need much better grounding too). Remember despite the name USB3 is really a whole new interface that happens to have USB2 on the same connector. I really don't know why they didn't put ANY USB3 ports on there though (I heard rumours they were having some issues getting it to work properly but frankly I'd expect better than that from Intel).
I dunno why the
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I understand why they are doing things this way round, they royally fucked up the previous generation from a corporate desktop standard by not offering quad cores with integrated graphics
Not to mention mobile too, where battery life matter. The AnandTech review on mobile Sandy Bridge claimed that 45nm Clarksfield laptops would get from 40 min to at best about 2 hours of battery life because it was based on the older 45nm process and lacked integrated graphics. And the 45nm quad-core vs 32nm dual-core also led to things like losing AES-NI because you opted for a quad-core over a dual-core.
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Not to mention mobile too, where battery life matter.
Afaict there was never really a decent low power quad core laptop option. It's not like a C2Q was light on power either and I bet laptops big enough to have a C2Q also often had discrete graphics. So by and large migrating to nahelm was a positive for laptop vendors. When I look at dell most of their lattitude laptops are i series as are most other laptops i've looked at recently (other than ultrportables)
OTOH with corporate desktops at least dell and HP
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Afaict there was never really a decent low power quad core laptop option. It's not like a C2Q was light on power either and I bet laptops big enough to have a C2Q also often had discrete graphics.
Until Sandy Bridge, which is supposed to solve this by offering quad-core with integrated graphics.
NF200 (Score:1)
Anyone know if there are any boards with a NF200 connected up in the sane way to ease the PCIe situation. LGA1155 has only 16 lanes from the CPU and those from the southbridge are now under even more pressure than they were before (because of onboard USB3, extra sata 6G ports and the fact that PCI slots now have to be driven off a seperate bridge connected by PCIe)with the result that on many boards there is a decided shortage of slots better than x1 (on some i've seen there was a slot that could operate in
this is where AMD better and why hypertransport (Score:4, Informative)
this is where AMD better and why hypertransport is good so you can take a low or high end cpu and have more chip set choice.
Intel only has QPI in the high end cpu and drive up the cost if need a lot of pci-e IO but not a high end cpu.
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You're totally right... except when you're not. SB is quite a bit faster than budget AMD cards, especially in the mobile variants. Most laptops don't have an HD 5870M.
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AMD's solution, at least as far as the graphics chip integration, is almost certain to be significantly better. Which won't matter seeing as Intel will probably go back to bribing companies not to use AMD products like they did last time
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For business use where you're not playing 3d games but merely want nice desktop effects and accelerated video decoding, intels onboard chipsets are fine.
If you're wanting to do 3d modelling (at work) or gaming (at home), you're in a small segment of the market. This is not what intel are aiming at with their onboard graphics solutions, so don't be surprised that they have generally sucked at it.
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"We've all heard that talk?" Have you even read the reviews and benchmarks? Seriously, WTF kind of remark is that? "We've all heard that an object falls when you drop it, but I'm skeptical." These aren't the same integrated graphics of yesteryear.
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Intel still makes their graphics solution because they can do it cheap. It's really all you need for most low end consumer or business systems.
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Intel only has QPI in the high end cpu and drive up the cost if need a lot of pci-e IO but not a high end cpu.
Worse is for those who DO want a fast CPU but also want expandability. At least those who want a low end CPU and an expandable platform can go AMD. Those who want a fast processor don't really have that option.
The blunt fact is that the high end sandy bridge processors beat every previous quad core CPU from BOTH AMD and INTEL by quite a significant margin. They don't quite keep up with the 980x in h
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Worse is for those who DO want a fast CPU but also want expandability. At least those who want a low end CPU and an expandable platform can go AMD. Those who want a fast processor don't really have that option.
This isnt entirely true. AMD has options that arent considered "consumer grade" but are as cheap as Intels $1000 high end "consumer grade" and I'll speak more of this is a moment.
The blunt fact is that the high end sandy bridge processors beat every previous quad core CPU from BOTH AMD and INTEL by quite a significant margin. They don't quite keep up with the 980x in highly multithreaded benchmarks
If you want to build a high end system for multi-threaded performance without breaking the bank with $1000 parts, a pair of Opteron 6128's score only slightly worse than a single i7 980X.
Thats a true 16-core server system you will be building, only benchmarks slightly worse than Intels flagship i7 980X, and its notably cheaper
How About No (Score:5, Insightful)
One word: Boycott.
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Better boycott all CPUs then, genius, because DRM can be implemented in software (remember old days iTunes?).
I have a crazy idea though. If a piece of media content has DRM restrictions that you feel are too restrictive...don't buy it. Crazy, I know...
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Impressive? (Score:2)
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Don't have to throw out your old MB/CPU you know (Score:2)
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Bye bye intel (Score:1)
DRMed CPU (Score:1)
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h67 chipset (Score:2)
Wonder why they didn't review the H67 chipset. I've got a gigabyte H67A-UD3H and it's working fine. The only thing is that it only comes with one PS2 port so i had to buy a usb mouse.
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SPAMMER! PLEASE DELETE POSTING! (Score:2)
... we've got some handbags that don't have much spam in them....