Intel Z68 Express Chipset Preview: SSD Caching And Quick Sync

[MasterMace]

Here's a question: Which chipsets will support 2 - PCIe x16 2.0 Slots, with 16 lanes x 16 lanes for SLI/XFire?

I see a lot of 8x8s, but what about 16x16?

 

[cadder]

We didn’t see any real improvement in boot times

WHY DON'T YOU PUT THAT DATA IN YOUR ARTICLES? Very few of your readers have any clue what the results from your test software mean, but everybody understands a stopwatch.

 

[caeden]

um... maybe it is just me, but wouldn't the average user get more noticeable performance by putting the OS with a few select programs on the SSD, and then your lesser used programs on a separate drive? I mean, it is not like you are tied to a single drive for installed programs. Or in a business environment, perhaps use it as a separate temp/working drive for large files, or rendering. I would imagine both of those scenarios would work better, and be a lot simpler than this new technology.

Besides, in annother 2-3 years SSDs will be cheap enough for even me to buy, so why complicate things, or delay a buy, when you can buy something simple now, and upgrade for something simple and much faster a year or 2 down the road?

 

[noblerabbit]

Totally sticking to my AMD tricore for another year. All this fusion of Z68 + Virtu (Do I have to pay for Virtu?) + where do I hook up my monitor? + separate windows for mediaencoding?? = gonna play some PS3 games for another year.

 

[clonazepam]

I have a question.

I dual-boot 32 and 64 bit Win7. Since I have 8gb of RAM, i use gaviotte ramdisk for a 4gb ramdisk (on the 32 bit OS) that houses the swap-file and temp folders. I'm just dreaming of the possible combination of a ramdisk plus this caching. To clarify, OS on one disk, and either having all the apps/games on that same drive with the OS or having a 2nd drive dedicated to apps/games, and choosing to cache either the single drive housing OS and apps or caching a 2nd drive config that has all the apps/games... (After a proofread i figured somebody would think i be dumber than i am, and meant caching the ramdisk hehe)

I don't know what benchmarks would reveal the advantage, if any, but can you maybe play around with it?

My next build will have atleast 16gb ram so i can put up a 4gb ramdisk on the 64-bit machine as well. I'm salivating, but then again, your web browser and word can only open so fast hehehe...

I use video/photo/audio editing or reencoding type softwares, WinRAR for backing up large folders (4gb and up), very rarely some gaming, and soon to be playing around with heavy-duty encryption software.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]MasterMace[/nom]Here's a question: Which chipsets will support 2 - PCIe x16 2.0 Slots, with 16 lanes x 16 lanes for SLI/XFire?I see a lot of 8x8s, but what about 16x16?[/citation]From Intel, just the X58. Intel is replacing that one later this year.

But if you're looking for graphics bandwidth, you can get by with an NF200 PCIe bridge on any LGA 1155 supporting chipset, because the NF200 has a repeater function that sends the same 16 lanes from the CPU to both graphics cards simultaneously.

 

[CopaMundial]

I like the sound of this Virtu setup.
Unlike the comments in the article, I would opt for the energy saving config (connect display to Motherboard) so that my discrete GPU(s) could power down.
The power needs of high end GPU's is only going in one direction, so even if there was a little performance hit it would be nice to not have to drive a big gaming GPU when you're only web browsing.
I've used that type of setup with Nvidia's 'Hybrid SLI' and I really liked it.

 

[Onus]

End of June is longer than I wanted to wait, but if I wait for Bulldozer, it will have given Intel time to settle down their chipset issues, mobo makers time to integrate features, and otherwise provide justification for choosing Sandy Bridge, which quite frankly I find missing right now. Even my lowly unlocked 740BE is handling my apps and games without issues.

 

[wolfram23]

Well as impressive as SB is, I'm kind of glad to be missing out on this first outing. In a couple years hopefully they'll have quick sync native on all motherboards. As for SSD caching, that is awesome. But being a person with an SSD already, I guess it's not useful for me. Although it would probably still be cool to have a portion of the SSD available for caching.

 

[itlnstlnef]

I have to disagree with the decision to use Enhanced mode instead of Maximized. From my understanding of the SSD caching it is a NON-VOLATILE solution and therefore would not pose any more risk of data loss then if you were to run an SSD by itself. I would hope that this review gets updated with the setup in Maximized mode as it seems that there would be some more gains to be realized in overall performance.

 

[cbass64]

[citation][nom]TeraMedia[/nom]Is it possible to split an SSD so that part serves as a boot drive (e.g. just 25 GB or so), and the remainder serves as an SSD cache for a normal HDD? This would solve the problem of the slow boot speed with the SSD cache drive approach, while affording the benefits of dynamically-allocated cache space for program and data files. With Intel Matrix Storage, you can use part of each of several drives to form a RAID array, and use the remaining part for a different array - possibly with a different type. Can that type of thing be done with Intel RST and an SSD for both boot drive and caching?[/citation]

I'm pretty sure that's exactly why you have the option of using the entire SSD or just a portion for caching during the setup. This would mean you could use a portion of your larger and faster X25-M for caching AND as a boot drive.

 

[cbass64]

[citation][nom]itlnstlnef[/nom]I have to disagree with the decision to use Enhanced mode instead of Maximized. From my understanding of the SSD caching it is a NON-VOLATILE solution and therefore would not pose any more risk of data loss then if you were to run an SSD by itself. I would hope that this review gets updated with the setup in Maximized mode as it seems that there would be some more gains to be realized in overall performance.[/citation]
I have to agree, why would you be at any more risk of losing data in Maximized mode if all the data is non-volatile? If your system loses power, the data is no more at risk than it would be if your SSD was your OS drive.

It would be cool to see how one of the Intel SLC drives performs as a cache device.

 

[ProDigit10]

installed xp on a 4gb ssd,with some trimming it takes up 800MB. Adding to that some basic programs, and one serious program which is 1,2GB in size, and my XP is very happily cruising below 2,7GB on a 4GB SSD!

Windows 7 32 bit home edition with no xp legacy support fits nicely within 5GB on an 8GB disk.

If you per se need to have the ultimate edition with legacy support, install ms office, and some vantage benchmarks,as well as several games, I can understand you'll need more than a 40GB SSD drive.
32GB is the bare minimum for normal users. A 40-64GB is perfect for most.
Need more space?
Learn to keep your computer clean and in order!
Documents,video's, and audio files can all go on an external HD if necessary.
For the not-so-multimedia-fanatics, a simple 8 GB SD card can host almost anything they need, and costs next to nothing.

I don't get these guys that say they NEED a 128GB SSD for just running windows! It's just a stupendously stupid claim,and just shows you know very little of computers!

 

[geekapproved]

Same reasoning you would run a dedicated physics card with your Nvidia or AMD card, for more performance. You have the graphics on chip not being used, might as well make use of it.

 

[ProDigit10]

also, the caching seems to be only active AFTER booting the OS, since the drivers need to load first.
Most users will want their OS to start up fast,as that is one of the most time consuming processes on a computer.

 

[itlnstlnef]

[citation][nom]ProDigit10[/nom]also, the caching seems to be only active AFTER booting the OS, since the drivers need to load first.Most users will want their OS to start up fast,as that is one of the most time consuming processes on a computer.[/citation]


Technically the OS needs to load the driver in order to boot, so Caching benefit would start right from the moment the OS begins to load (i.e. Starting Windows logo)

 

[christodoulosk]

For disk caching you should take a look at that... http://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/fancy-cache/demo-hybrid-disk.html

 

[lradunovic77]

Just run 40 or 80Gb SSD with your Windows in it and you don't need any stupid caching.

 

[Guest]

So, could you (and would there be any increased performance) run 2 7200rpm drives in RAID 0 array and have a small SSD for caching? Or would the RAID 0 performance be good enough to preclude the SSD cache?

 

[ubercake]

Finally, the real 1155 platform will emerge in May. I'll wait.

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]cadder[/nom]WHY DON'T YOU PUT THAT DATA IN YOUR ARTICLES? Very few of your readers have any clue what the results from your test software mean, but everybody understands a stopwatch.[/citation]

Hi,
It's in the story

 

[ern88]

So, will you be able to use the Integrated GPU on the CPU with a discrete video card???

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]ern88[/nom]So, will you be able to use the Integrated GPU on the CPU with a discrete video card???[/citation]

Yes. If the discrete card is native, the integrated graphics handle Quick Sync. If the integrated graphics is native, the discrete graphics gets "virtualized."

In no situation do you use the integrated graphics for 3D--unless you run without Virtu entirely. The whole point is that the add-in card is much better than anything Intel can do.

 

[galeener]

I think I will wait for some more reveiws on this . I am looking forward
to seeing a 2011 chipset reveiw.

 

[liveonc]

To SSD cache or to RAMDisk, that is the question... Do desktops need this virtu(e)? ;-)