Today Intel officially launched their Z68 Express chipset. It is designed for the second generation Intel Core i3/i5/i7 CPUs (based on Sandy Bridge architecture), and it combines the best world of both P67 and H67 chipsets.
First of all, the Z68 Express chipset allows users to overclock the CPU and/or memory, a feature not present on the H67 chipset. If you wanted to overclock your Sandy Bridge processor, you would need to buy a P67-based motherboard.
However, the P67 chipset does not support the Sandy Bridge's integrated GPU. You have to buy a discrete GPU to install on a P67-based motherboard, disabling the integrated GPU. To make things worse, you can’t use Intel's Quick Sync transcode engine if you're using a discrete GPU; you need to use the processor's integrated GPU to take advantage of this technology. However, Intel's Quick Sync technology is supported by the H67 chipset.
So, until now you had to decide on either overclocking or Quick Sync, but not both.
The Z68 chipset overcomes the limitations mentioned above and combines the best features of both the P67 and H67 chipsets. It supports overclocking and Quick Sync.
The Z68 chipset brings two new features: Virtu and Intel Smart Response technologies. The former dynamically switches between the Sandy Bridge's integrated GPU and a discrete GPU based on what you are doing. Simply put, the discrete card will be used only to run 3D games, while the integrated GPU will be used for trivial 2D applications. Intel Smart Response technology is an SSD caching that copies your most commonly used applications from your hard disk drive to your SSD in order to load faster.
The Z68 chipset supports one x16 PCI Express lane (or two x8 lanes), RAID (0,1,5,10), 14 USB 2.0 ports, four SATA-300 ports, two SATA-600 ports, eight PCI Express slots, Gigabit Ethernet, and four DDR3-1333 memory sockets.
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Several manufacturers have launched models based on this new chipset from Intel, as you can see below.
Originally at http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/news/Intel-Intros-Z68-Express-Chipset/5622
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