Intel Z68?

[Durwittz]

When will we see Z68 Chipset motherboard in store?
Any idea of the price range?

 

[Leaps-from-Shadows]

Z68 will be announced the first week or two of May. Limited quantities should be available right away.

I've seen one board (Gigabyte Z68X-UD7) that's supposed to be over $400. I would guess that most of them would be in the $250-350 range.

 

[Durwittz]

Best answer selected by Durwittz.

 

[jaquith]

Launch is Confirmed May 11th and the prices are comparable to the P67, and if you like or want IGPU then Z68 is your best bet. -> http://fudzilla.com/motherboard/item/22512-intels-z68-comes-on-may-11th

 

[Durwittz]

I'M looking for SSD caching more than IGPU.

 

[jaquith]

Then you're kidding yourself, the SSD tests show ~5MB/s improvement then only on small SSD. A SSD smaller than 100GB is more a nuance than an asset. To achieve this it seems ~32MB is borrowed from your physical RAM to add an extra cache.

Read the article - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/z68-express-lucidlogix-virtu-ssd-caching,2888-4.html

 

[Durwittz]

I'm building a complete new +/- 1500$ rig right now and dont have money for an 100+ GB SSD.
That's why i'm thinking of Z68 SSD caching.

Would buy small SSD and 1 TB HD.

 

[jaquith]

$225 Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz
$190 ASUS P8P67 PRO
$100 2X4GB 1600 CAS 9 G.SKILL F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL
$177 OCZ Vertex 2 120GB OCZSSD3-2VTX120G
$218 EVGA 01G-P3-1561-AR GeForce GTX 560 Ti
$218 EVGA 01G-P3-1561-AR GeForce GTX 560 Ti
$70 Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST31000528AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache
$100 Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit English 1-Pack - OEM
$90 LG WH10LS30 10X Blu-Ray Burner
$120 Corsair TX950W
$42 HSF Scythe SCMG-2100
$90 COOLER MASTER RC-692-KKN2 CM690 II Advanced
=====
$1,640 ; save another $30~40 on combos; save add'l $218 with single GTX 560 Ti ; save $70 w/ Std DVD-R

The Z68 with GPU(s) + it's IGPU is a detriment {frame loss}. It's your rig and there's no advantage to the Z68 unless you're making a career of making MPEG-2/4 Youtube videos, and if you are then you need a very large SSD + HDD. The SSD Caching is a gimmick like Turbo Boost is to someone OC 4.5GHz+.

 

[Durwittz]

It's a 1500$ build including taxes + shipping , windows 7 and a monitor.

==============================

I5-2500K ==> http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072&Tpk=core%20i5-2500k

Radeon HD6950(2GB) ==> http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applicat [...] CatId=2306

Asus P8P67 Pro ==> http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ [...] 6813131703

Corsair HX 750W ==> http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ [...] &Tpk=hx750

HAF 922 ==> http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ [...] 6811119197

G.Skill 2 x 4GB 1600 ==> http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ [...] 6811119197

Caviar Black 1TB 64Mbs Sata6 ==> http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ [...] 6822136533

CD/DVD Burner LG ==> http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ [...] 6827136177

ASUS VH242H 23,6" ==> http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ [...] 6824236052

Hyper 212+ ==> http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produ [...] r%20212%2b

Windows 7 64 bit Home Edition
==============================

I'm at +/-1500$ after tax + shipping.

I understand that Z68 and his SSD caching ins't a great alternative solution and i should save a bit more to add a decent 100 GB+ SSD.

Thank!

 

[wjw2000]

$225 Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz
$190 ASUS P8P67 PRO
$100 2X4GB 1600 CAS 9 G.SKILL F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL
$177 OCZ Vertex 2 120GB OCZSSD3-2VTX120G
$218 EVGA 01G-P3-1561-AR GeForce GTX 560 Ti
$218 EVGA 01G-P3-1561-AR GeForce GTX 560 Ti
$70 Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 ST31000528AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache
$100 Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit English 1-Pack - OEM
$90 LG WH10LS30 10X Blu-Ray Burner
$120 Corsair TX950W
$42 HSF Scythe SCMG-2100
$90 COOLER MASTER RC-692-KKN2 CM690 II Advanced
=====
$1,640 ; save another $30~40 on combos; save add'l $218 with single GTX 560 Ti ; save $70 w/ Std DVD-R

The Z68 with GPU(s) + it's IGPU is a detriment {frame loss}. It's your rig and there's no advantage to the Z68 unless you're making a career of making MPEG-2/4 Youtube videos, and if you are then you need a very large SSD + HDD. The SSD Caching is a gimmick like Turbo Boost is to someone OC 4.5GHz+.

I dont agree it is a gimmik, products like Cisco WAAS use similar technologies for caching and the SSD's offer huge advantage in pure read and IO performance. This is a huge help for things such as gaming that dont write much but are constantly reading data. With textures in your recent cache load times in games can become non existent! I admit that it might cost you longer install times for games if you keep the write back sync enabled.

I hope to pair this technology with ACARD 32Gbyte Ram drive and hope it stays around for my use going forward in future gaming rigs! Doing this also eliminates the issue with SSD write speeds.

All the above being said and I didnt even get to talk about the impact to seek times in games relative to performance.

 

[jaquith]

^ Show me worthy info on the benefits of the Z68 SSD caching.

I've read plenty of Reviews of SSD caching with Z68, same conclusion with different analogous wording to 'gimmick.' The 'closet' analogy is a half baked effort of HHD; still a silly comparison but the same analogy repeated efforts to gain ANY speed - 'cached.' IMO - 5MB/s is a gimmick geared to lure sheep. Worst any data unprotected in a power loss can corrupt your drives(s); this concerns me the most. I use RAID with large cache but it's all protected under a battery backup. I can see more BS and Cons than Pros.

I'm not arguing or disagreeing the Pros & Cons of SSD, I'm very well aware of them all. WTH does a RAM Drive have to do with this discussion, or Cisco or any enterprise with the consumer grade Z68???!!!!

If you have a good SSD or an exemplary SSD e.g. Vertex 3 then you don't want anything screwing with it - just give us the real 600 MB/s speed and not 400+ MB/s pseudo SATA3.

I run plenty of servers so comparing WAAS or WAE to anything to the Z68 offers makes absolutely no sense; keep in mind it's a WAN orientated technology.