Intel Z68 Motherboard Round-Up 74
AmyVernon writes "Until Intel's next-gen, high-end Sandy Bridge-E processor is released sometime this quarter, Intel's second generation Core family of processors and the Z68 Express chipset are Intel's current premiere desktop platform for the mainstream. This look at several different motherboard offerings from manufacturers that cover a range of form factors, feature sets, and price points. Asus, MSI, ASRock, Gigabyte, eVGA and Zotac are all represented here. In addition to support for the entire line of 2nd-gen Intel Core chips with Turbo Boost 2.0, the Z68 chipset supports Intel High Definition Audio, 8 PCI-Express 2.0 lanes (16 more in the CPU), 6 SATA ports (2 x 6Gbps, 4 x 3Gbps), integrated Gigabit Ethernet, 14 USB ports, and a smattering of A/v ports including HDMI and DisplayPort."
how did this make the front page? (Score:3)
Seriously. There are dozens of hardware reviews like this one daily. In what way was this one special enough to make the front page? I'm not seeing it.
Re:how did this make the front page? (Score:5, Funny)
I just can't wait until Intel gets to Z80.
Re: (Score:2)
I can't wait for the 8 series in general – we might get X86 too :D
wait for the X86-64 boards (Score:2)
wait for the X86-64 boards
now with more RAM
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'll wait for the Z68000.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously. There are dozens of hardware reviews like this one daily. In what way was this one special enough to make the front page? I'm not seeing it.
Well, let's see. This round-up has just about every major manufacturer's offerings in one detailed review, so folks can compare available solutions in one significantly more digestible location. It's perfect Slashdot geek news actually.
Re: (Score:2)
But my point, again, is that there is a roundup article just like this 3 or 4 times a week at various sites. What makes this one special?
Re: (Score:2)
That's fine with me. I wonder why we don't see dozens of these articles in that case, though.
Re: (Score:2)
I like the article, but who would buy old hardware? Supposedly Intel will release the next generation of chipsets next month. For example, the new chipsets will have all fast SATA and USB ports, instead of only 2 or 4.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps the point is just to highlight the new motherboards, and any review could do, so they took the first one? Which is reasonable enough, IMO.
If you disagree, then you can earn some karma by posting a comment with a list of other reviews.
In Soviet Russia (Score:1)
They round YOU up!
No Thunderbolt? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Am I the only one disappointed that this revision doesn't support the Thunderbolt port?
Yes.
maybe it's the lack of on board video? (Score:2)
As that maybe a hold up to having Thunderbolt with pci-e video cards and why there are no Thunderbolt data only pci-e cards. Also may be why there is no new mac pro yet as well.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like a driver issue. I would be more interested in how it works with linux.
I want more RAM Slots (Score:2)
Re:I want more RAM Slots (Score:4, Informative)
You're in luck. X79 (coming later this year) will typically sport 8 ram slots. It's the new enthusiast platform replacing x58.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_X79 [wikipedia.org]
pci-e lanes but out that 40-48 you need some for (Score:2)
Cpu to SB link, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0, Thunderbolt controller. Also 32 is 2 X16 slots and 8 at pci-e 3.0 seems good for chip set link + maybe a x4 slot.
But x4 at 2.0 limits the chipset link even more so if usb 3.0 and sata 6.0 are part of the chipset.
Re: (Score:2)
but a x4 pci-e 2.0 link does slow down sata 6 usb3 (Score:2)
when they are on the same bus.
The non high end intel boards have a hard time fitting in 1 video card + sata 6 + usb 3.0 as they need a switch on the x16 2.0 link or they need to cut down video to x8.
The DIM bus (pci-e 2.0 x4) can't really fit in gig-e, usb 3, sata 6, other x1 slots as well.
Now let's take x16 pci-e 3.0 and switch that to 2 x16 2.0 slots and then you have the lanes you need but the switches add cost and board space.
So in your case take 1 video card on x16 and to be safe say all on board stuff
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I won't buy a motherboard without USB 3.0 and 6Gbs SATA on it, but I don't really need more than 2 6Gbs links, and a few 3Gbs links which is what the X79 will have on it. I can always toss in a USB card if i need more USB 3.0 ports (just like I have right now in my X58 box), it works just fine. X79 adds what I can't add in with additional cards, like quad channel memory (vs X58's tri-channel memory that wasn't all that efficient -- better than dual channel, but not 50% better). Hopefully with the quad ch
Re: (Score:1)
Wrong.
The licence limits the number of processors in the licensed machine (Home and Home Premium) but there are no restrictions on memory.
Useful link in case you're interested : http://www.microsoft.com/About/Legal/EN/US/IntellectualProperty/UseTerms/Default.aspx [microsoft.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And completely inexplicably so.
Re: (Score:2)
Right now the only way to get serious amounts of RAM is to go with XEON or Opteron. And those chips are pretty expensive without offering a whole lot of extra, or event less computing power (assuming single socket).
Yep, that would be the point. You don't think Intel would make server-level RAM capability available for less than server-level costs, do you?
Re:I want more RAM Slots (Score:4, Interesting)
The Sandy-Bridge-E (X79) motherboards have eight RAM slots each of which can hold an 8G module, which gets your 64GB. Of course, Sandy-Bridge-E is a Xeon in the same way that Socket-1366 Nehalem was a Xeon.
There are real electronic-engineering problems with getting lots of RAM slots attached to a single memory controller - you have to run the memory more slowly than you would if there were less of it. Cisco have a chip which pretends to be a very large slow DDR3 module by connecting together four large fast DDR3 modules, but it's sold only in expensive Cisco servers.
Re: (Score:2)
8GB not quite that expensive (Score:2)
Tigerdirect has Kingston 8GB PC3-8500 for $125.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I would really like to see motherboards with 8 or event 16 RAM slots become standard. Most of these motherboards support 16 GB maximum memory, which is nice, but once you start running VMs or databases on your machine, 16 GB can get eaten up pretty quickly. I would think that having a machine with a possible 64 GB of RAM would entice a lot of people.
Once you get above about 8GB of RAM, you really shouldn't trust it for anything serious without ECC.
Even the best listed bit-error rates (which are all pretty much a guess) show that 32GB of RAM will have an error every 3 years, while the worst listed rates would give you an error every 2 minutes. Based on ECC logs in my servers, I'd say the reality is about 8 errors per year for 32GB. So, if you want 64GB, and can live with a once-a-month error that could be anything from a BSOD to a subtle corruption of
Re: (Score:2)
Very few people care, and even fewer would buy ECC memory. It would be an insanely lame thing to brag about. I'm not going to spend 3X the amount on memory so my game doesn't crash. In all my years of running way too many computers in my house, I've never thought "damn, I wish I'd spent 3X the money so I could have ECC!".
If you care, buy a real server platform.
Re: (Score:2)
Context, my dear fellow.
If you're thinking "so my game doesn't crash" then you probably also don't have a problem with the already-absurdly-high amount of RAM that you can put on these motherboards. You are not asking for more RAM slots.
If you had needs where 64GB isn't enough RAM, then it's a lot more likely you'd be inter
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Which is non-issue for those who build their own. And in this case since this is a motherboard comparison, those who would be buying these motherboards would be building their own so non-issue.
It just means the re-sell value of a computer with that feature enforced will be pretty much just what you can get for the individual components.
www.discountelectronics.com has probably the most to loose from secure boot.
will X79 have Thunderbolt? (Score:2)
As it does not have on board video and there are no plans for data only cards.
So does intel have a plan for linking Thunderbolt to a add in ATI / AMD and nvidia cards?
Re: (Score:1)
Old hardware hacker (Score:5, Funny)
I'm an old hardware hacker and it JUST SEEMS WRONG that Intel is using the number 68. That is for Motorola, 65 is for MOS and Rockwell. 80 is for Intel.
It's WRONG I say, WRONG!
Re: (Score:2)
It's just intel showing off that they've killed and buried motorola.
Re: (Score:2)
With a sidestep to piss on Zilog's grave.
Re: (Score:2)
Amen brother.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Right, 80 is for Intel, so it would have been better to call it Z80 ... oh, wait...
The more serious answer is that the Z68 is a chipset and not a CPU, so they can call it whatever they want and old hackers won't complain (Z80 would turn some heads though). And if you want to know, "80" was originally Intel's prefix just for 8-bit microprocessors, just like "40" was for 4-bit ones. But they did not keep the scheme when they went to 16-bits possibly because they were not drawing hard lines for the new archite
Re: (Score:2)
Which allowed TI to grab 32.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Instruments_TMS320 [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:1)
Amazing that I stopped following after BX.
And it seems it was just a few months ago...
Hey Now! (Score:1)
Thunderbolt?! (Score:1)
Anyway, being Thunderbolt an intel technology, is there any such controller/port available in these boards?