ASUS Official Z68 Poll

[Masonw@ASUS]

Hello fellow AnandTech members.

With the recent introduction of Intel's new Z68 chipset, we would like to gauge your overall reaction. I know a lot of you have had the chance to check out some of the P67 boards out there. For those of you who have spent some time with our P8P67 series boards, do you feel that its strong foundation and feature set including overclocking, SLI, dual slot spacing, USB 3.0, etc., are there reasons that you might consider a Z68 board?

For those of you interested in using an SSD, is it a must that you get the full maximum performance of the drive or are you interested in using SSD Caching or what Intel calls it, Smart Response Technology? Intel SRT allows you to combine a fast SSD with a slower (but higher capacity) mechanical HDD into one logical drive and receive the benefits of the drive performing much faster than an HDD but still having the storage capacity of the HDD.

Feel free to comment on the Z68 chipset and the features it offers and let us know why you are or why you aren't inclined to upgrade to Z68 if you are planning to upgrade your build. Thanks!~

 

[Thor86]

No reason to upgrade from p67, since I have no compelling need for either integrated gpu or ssd caching features.

 

[Zap]

I'm just waiting for a good mini ITX Z68 board.

I'm not going to upgrade any of my P67 systems to Z68. However, I will surely consider Z68 for any future socket 1155 motherboard needs.

 

[Mugenx]

NO .... 'If you already own the "fixed" batch of 1155 motherboards ....'

NO .... 'Z68 features "fix"/alternative: real SSD >>>> SSD Caching (max is 64GB SSD), nVidia's Synergy (free, *works with H67/H61 and Z68 only, P67 is not supported) = Lucid Virtu ....'

YES .... if you are an encoding "whore" 24/7/365 Quicksync (transcoding is equal, encoding will be faster) will benefit you ....'

YES .... 'If you have an H67/H61 motherboard with "K" procs and wanted to tinker with overlocking ....'

YES .... 'If you are currently in the market for your "first" 1155 motherboard ....'

YES .... 'If your pocket can afford it and money is no object ....'

YES or NO .... 'Whatever helps you sleep at night! ....'

 

[LtMikePowelll]

I don't need to use the IGP and P67 is enough for me

 

[Mem]

I'm waiting for Bulldozer before I decide on Z68 or Bulldozer for my new build.

 

[kittysox]

Just wish my p67 deluxe would decide to stop randomly hanging at the asus logo every now and then.

 

[Fallen Kell]

As I said in another thread, I would love to buy a Z68 today, but not a single one out there meets my requirements:

1) dual gigabit network adaptors which support teaming and have TCP offload engine, jumbo frame support (i.e. not the crap Realtek chips)
2) additional PCI-e bridge chip to support all PCI-e slots with enough lanes for full usage.
3) full ATX board
4) Virtu support
5) EFI bios

The first board that is out there with the above will most likely get my money. I have seen several boards that are close, but so far requirement #1 or requirement #2 is not there (they seem to be a choose 1 of those 2 at the moment, no choose both).

 

[abast]

Just ordered my P8Z68-V PRO today!

 

[Dark Shroud]

Undecided

Because I'm not happy with the current selection or with Gigabyte's choices.

What I need is enough ports to run two cards in crossfire with space between them, one 4x port for Thunderbolt, and then two 1x slots for my Killer 2100 & a sound card. Virtu support would be nice as well but I should be able to use AMD BACO after the fact without issue.

At this point I might as well swap out my mobo & CPU for Ivy Bridge.

 

[Patrick Wolf]

Interested, though Gigabyte is the only real option for me cause it offers DDL onboard. Which if fine, my UD3R has been great.

 

[Dark Shroud]

Most of Gigabyte's z68 boards don't have the video output. So it blocks the whole reason of having the z68 board.

 

[Dadofamunky]

Just wish my p67 deluxe would decide to stop randomly hanging at the asus logo every now and then.

Looks like a BIOS update is in order

 

[src1425]

Where's, "Option H: already upgraded after dealing with 4 months of headaches with P67"?

Z68, what P67 should have been.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Can I just share some basic thoughts?

I really liked your P8H67M-EVO board. Why?

1) It had the full 6 SATA slots. This made it nice to run a NAS server.

2) It also included 1 PATA slot. This was the ONLY mATX board to have this on P67. So I could put my legacy DVD drive in run all 6 drives for my NAS. Otherwise I'd have to sacrifice 1 SATA for an optical drive. Sure I can unplug when I'm done, but the hassle? I'm glad you guys stuck it in.

It seems that with your Z68 lineup so far, the most we have is 8 SATA ports. We're moving to ATX, so 8 should be the minimum. Those 6 SATA boards should be for budget users. With many people using a DVDRW drive from previous and tossing in a new BD player + DVD burner, lots of people do prefer a dual optical drive setup for on the fly burning capabilities and what not. Throw in new ATX cases that hold 6-8 3.5" drives, we're talking all the SATA ports get eaten up pretty quickly. This would be nice, but to me would just be bonus points. A lot of users like me who don't use BD can still use optical drives on PATA. Unfortunately this is gone on Z68. I understand the need to move forward, but even 2 of your P67 boards retained a PATA slot. While Z68 is a newer board, it's still in the same family as H67 and P67 for serving the current i3/i5/i7 Sandy Bridge Processors.

I'd like to see a 10 SATA board and not just for the insane Maximus boards. Even the "low end" Gigabyte X58A-UDR3 entry level X58 board gave us 10 SATA. Thus, with enthusiast Z68 boards running close to $200, I'd like to see 10 SATA too. Plus, does it make more sense for 10 SATA for people wanting home file servers for an X58 board where they run a power hungry i7, or is it more sensible on a low power sandy bridge? If it needs be, maybe a PCI-e bridge is necessary for additional lanes for an additional controller for another +2 SATA.