Intel Z68 Express Chipset Preview: SSD Caching And Quick Sync

[BlueFireAngel]

I think the SSD caching is very cool and probably a better way to use an SSD at this time particularly in a business environment. I work in construction and do a limited amount of CAD work but I can see the potential benefits in that appplication especially.
Personally, now I have to decide whether to buy a small(er) SSD or save up for a larger one. Decisions, decisions!

 

[popatim]

I wonder why they didn't go into gaming with SSD caching; I suspect it would have near zero impact and was looking for confirmation

 

[mt2e]

Intel literally has run out of ideas so they started to segment their products and provide less value to the consumer. Z, P, and H should have been combined. Calling Z68 an enthusiast version is a joke.

 

[cangelini]

[citation][nom]mt2e[/nom]Intel literally has run out of ideas so they started to segment their products and provide less value to the consumer. Z, P, and H should have been combined. Calling Z68 an enthusiast version is a joke.[/citation]

The Hs used to be called Gs, and there have always been discrete-only versions. Our contention is that the Z68 is what P67 should have been. My guidance is to avoid P67 until Z68 is out. No joke!

 

[iam2thecrowe]

[citation][nom]masterofevil22[/nom]waiting for Bulldozer...[/citation]
you will be waiting forever. I think if you bought this MB and a k series cpu, you would not be dissappointed that you didn't wait for bulldozer. I like AMD but they are really too late to the party and probably dont have an answer for intels transcoding thingo.

 

[mt2e]

[citation][nom]cangelini[/nom]The Hs used to be called Gs, and there have always been discrete-only versions. Our contention is that the Z68 is what P67 should have been. My guidance is to avoid P67 until Z68 is out. No joke![/citation]

Yea I agree 100%, I'm gonna wait to see what Bulldozer will "actually" be before I pull the gun on this round of upgrades. If I was a betting man I'd say don't bother but I wanna be safe.

 

[insightdriver]

So yeah hooray for intel, ssd caching is just taking performance down (note, this is an option aimed for power user, they are kind of guy who pay 300$ bucks and then choose the worst way to get perf...), quick sync is a unstable restricted piece of crap, transcoding media is a top priority... what about a trim support in raid a array? something that is really needed by power user and not those wanabee features

The above sounds like a computer enthusiast who is long on enthusiasm, and short, very short on the facts.

so-called power users? Don't you go out at night to socialize?

 

[billj214]

I think the P67 is a compilation of a little something for everyone and for the price/performance aspect it is still a great deal. I don't foresee AMD Bulldozer being anything more than a few more cores which we all know does not mean more performance, especially comparing the i7 990x to the 2600k. Lets at least hope they show up with some decent performance but I wouldn't hold my breath!

 

[dimar]

My setup is Corsair perf3 128GB SSD that has windows and main program files + 1TB WD black which has the swap file, user folder profile with documents, pics, music..., windows and other apps temp folders/files, large program files, games, and other large files. Works great, and very very very fast. I think this can be done with 32GB SSD too, which is not expensive, and maybe 16GB also, with some careful management. What's the point of this caching again?

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]dimar[/nom]My setup is Corsair perf3 128GB SSD that has windows and main program files + 1TB WD black which has the swap file, user folder profile with documents, pics, music..., windows and other apps temp folders/files, large program files, games, and other large files. Works great, and very very very fast. I think this can be done with 32GB SSD too, which is not expensive, and maybe 16GB also, with some careful management. What's the point of this caching again?[/citation]Because it can't be. It can be done by most "power users" with a 120GB drive, some with an 80GB drive, and very few with a 60GB drive.

 

[Ten98]

If you "need" more than 80gb for your boot drive, you're doing it wrong.

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]Ten98[/nom]If you "need" more than 80gb for your boot drive, you're doing it wrong.[/citation]If you're reserving your SSD exclusively as a boot drive, you're not getting much benefit from it.

We could go back and forth on this, but basically Intel's technology speeds up programs that would otherwise be too large to fit on a small boot drive. In other words, its for people who can't afford an SSD "boot drive" that's large enough to store frequently-used programs.

 

[Ten98]

Beleive me I am getting the full benefit of it.

I have a full installation of windows 7 professional 64bit, all my apps and a couple of big games (at the moment dragon age 2 and bulletstorm) installed on my 60gb SSD. I have 20gb free, which is more than enough. All my movies, downloads, mp3s etc live on a magnetic spinner.

The only restriction I have is that I have to be careful about installing too many games at once, but that's it. Since installing and uninstalling games on the SSD takes about 1/10 the time as a spinner, it's not really a hardship to keep uninstalling games that I'm not playing right now.

When SSD prices come down I'll invest in a 256gb so I can install as many games as I want.

 

[cbass64]

[citation][nom]Ten98[/nom]Beleive me I am getting the full benefit of it.I have a full installation of windows 7 professional 64bit, all my apps and a couple of big games (at the moment dragon age 2 and bulletstorm) installed on my 60gb SSD. I have 20gb free, which is more than enough. All my movies, downloads, mp3s etc live on a magnetic spinner.The only restriction I have is that I have to be careful about installing too many games at once, but that's it. Since installing and uninstalling games on the SSD takes about 1/10 the time as a spinner, it's not really a hardship to keep uninstalling games that I'm not playing right now.When SSD prices come down I'll invest in a 256gb so I can install as many games as I want.[/citation]
And in the mean time, you could use SSD caching to install as many games as you want...like the author said, this is for folks who can't afford the really large SSD's.

 

[z06psi]

Don't know of I will jump on the Z train just yet.

 

[Noworldorder]

I guess I will stay with the P67 Board;
Other than mundane, everyday tasks, my PC's main job is encoding with X.264. And I don't see any of this speeding things up for me. Not SSDs, not z68, not SSD-Caching.

 

[HalfHuman]

pretty good setup. soem other user mentioned that the 120gb ssd seems too much. running window 7 x64 business with sp1 + visual studio, sql server and some other tools and i'm using 28,3gb out of a 64gb ssd. of course i'm not keep the swap file, hibernate file on the ssd. in my experience a win 7 x64 uses 10gb bare, without swap or hibernation file. users should learn to keep their systems clean.

don't get it why the boot is significantly slower than ssd. intel's solution is subpar. this can be easily done in software only and there are some 3rd party that do this a lot better.

 

[HalfHuman]

http://www.romexsoftware.com/en-us/fancy-cache/index.html
this seems like a much better solution. using ram as level one cache. actually windows does this well for reads but not so much for writes. also seems to be able to use a ssd as level 2 cache. if this is done right it could leave in the dust intel's half baked chipsets.

 

[sblantipodi]

no news VT-d on Z68?

 

[Ubrales]

Good article!

 

[galanmario]

How about those people that are running a couple of 10,000 RPM Raptors on RAID 0? how much will they gain by using SSD cashing?

 

[Guest]

How much RAM was in the test system?

 

[Guest]

How about to 500GB in RAID 0 And an SSD as caching?

 

[Guest]

So i have to run some crappy 3rd party software to use Quick Sync in my Z68 machine with a dedicated GPU?

 

[Crashman]

[citation][nom]greatwhitehunter[/nom]So i have to run some crappy 3rd party software to use Quick Sync in my Z68 machine with a dedicated GPU?[/citation]Bingo