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Tech Plus
Sandy Bridge processors certainly put the cat amongst the pigeons when Intel released them. Some of those metaphorical pigeons were their own loyal customers.
Those who had bought a Socket 1156 platform must have felt like they had received a slap round the chops, as barely 12 months after releasing the splendid Lynnfield, Intel had produced a CPU family that redefined the standard for performance and price.
Sandy Bridge's release is doubly harsh as the new processor uses a different socket, making for an expensive upgrade for anyone trying to stay up to date.
It seems odd that Intel couldn't work the new architecture into a package that would fit the existing LGA 1156 socket. After all, the package size is identical, and even though the LGA 1155 socket has a different pin layout (it isn't just a case of having one less pin) and orientation notch layout, is the move to a new socket really necessary?
To support Intel's Second Generation core architecture we have the new 6X Express (Cougar Point) series of chipsets. The two chipsets that were launched along with the new processors will also be the most visible in the channel; the performance P67 and the mainstream consumer H67.
Motherboards featuring these two chipsets already feature heavily in manufacturers' line-ups. But these two aren't the only ones supporting the new processors. Intel has already announced the Q67, B65 and H61, with varying differences in their feature sets for various other market sectors (more on these later).
Chipset overview
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The 6-series chipset architecture, built on 65nm process with a TDP of 6.1W, can be seen as a development of the popular 5-series chipsets with some key changes and improvements.
First and foremost is the upping of the bandwidth of the eight PCI-e 2.0 lanes from the current 2.5GT/s (max of 250MB/s per lane per direction) to a more respectable 5GT/s, which is more in line with what AMD chipsets currently support. This doubling of the transfer rate means that now there is up to 500MB/s of bandwidth in each direction.
Combining these 8 PCI-e lanes with the 16 lanes in the Sandy Bridge processors gives a total of just 24 PCI-e lanes, a hell of a lot less than Intel's X58 (40 lanes) or even AMD's 890FX (42 lanes) so it's something to consider if you are thinking about upgrading from your present system.
The DMI interface (linking the CPU and chipset) has also had a speed increase up to 20GB/s for both upstream and downstream lanes. The other new feature of the 6-series chipset is the native support of SATA 6Gb/s, albeit only by a maximum of two ports: the remaining maximum of four ports are SATA 3Gb/s.
The inclusion of native SATA 6Gb/s and an increase in bandwidth of the PCI-e interface reduces bottlenecks and allows for better performance of things such as USB 3.0, for which motherboard manufacturers will have to use a third-party controller(s), as Intel still hasn't got around to building this in natively.
Intel has been slow off the mark with this but it's rumoured to be one of the features of the next generation (Panther Point) chipset due out sometime in 2012.
The memory support is as the previous 5-series chipsets; two channels of up to DDR3-1333 with a maximum of 32GB (8GB dual sided DIMM modules) supported. Another of the old legacy parts disappears with the P67, H67 and H61 chipsets as there is no native support for that good old boy, the PCI slot.
If manufacturers want to put one on a board with these chipsets they're going have to add a third-party chip to control it, adding a few more bucks to the cost of the board. Up to 14 USB 2.0 ports are supported as well as integrated Gigabit Ethernet.
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At the present time Intel has five new chipsets in the 6 series: the mainstream P67 Express and H67 Express; the budget H61 Express; the B65 Express Chipset for the business sector; and the Q67 for the corporate boys. What's the difference?
P67 Express
Along with the H67, the P67 Express is the first of the new chipsets to see the light of day.
Aimed at the mainstream performance user, it supports the 16 PCI-E 2.0 lanes built into the Sandy Bridge CPUs with either a single x16 full speed slot or two slots running at x8/x8 speed supporting both SLI and CrossfireX – but not at full speed because of the limited amount of available PCI-e lanes.
It supports up to 14 USB 2.0 ports, two SATA 6Gb/s and four SATA 3GB/s ports and the latest version of Intel's Rapid Storage Technology.
It's also the only one of the new chipsets that presently supports Intel's Performance Tuning (overclocking to you and me). But on the flip side it's also the only one of the line-up that doesn't support Intel's FDI (flexible display interface) and as such it cannot access the integrated graphics of the Sandy Bridge cores.
So it only uses dedicated graphics and as a result doesn't support Protected Audio Video Path content protection technology, Intel's InTru 3D or Clear Video technologies.
H67 Express
If you want to use all the loveliness of the integrated HD2000/3000 graphics capability of the Sandy Bridge processors then the mainstream consumer H67 Express is definitely the option to go for. It supports a variety of outputs: DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort – as well as Protected Audio Video Path and Intel's InTru 3D technology.
Protected Audio Video Path (PAVP) is Intel's content protection technology, which enables the Sandy Bridge graphics core to decode encrypted video purely in hardware. It comes in two flavours.
First is Paranoid, where the video stream is encrypted and the decoding accelerated by the graphics core, with PAVP reserving 96MB of system memory for its own use. It's used mainly for streaming lossless audio formats such as DTS-HS MA or Dolby TrueHD. Using this setting not only uses system memory it also disables the Aero interface in Windows.
The Lite setting does much the same thing as Paranoid but without reserving any system memory and is ideal for playing HDCP-protected content, the core only accessing system memory when it is needed and returning it back when it's finished.
Officially the H67 has had the ability to support dual graphics removed, as the 16 PCI-e lanes provided by the Sandy Bridge core are not split 8/8 so it only supports a single x16 PCI-e slot running at full speed. That's not to say you won't see any H67-based boards with two slots. It's just that because of the lack of PCI-E lanes the second slot is reduced to running at x4 speed.
Here's one thing to look out for if you buy a motherboard with the H-series chipset, which has a graphics card slot: as soon as you drop in a discrete graphics card, the integrated graphics are automatically switched off.
While the H67 doesn't support Intel's Performance Tuning technology and has a locked memory multiplier, it does allow some overclocking to be done to the graphics core. Just like the P67, it supports Intel's Rapid Storage Technology.
H61 Express Chipset
The H61 is aimed squarely at the budget end of the spectrum. With just six PCI-e 2.0 lanes and a single x16 PCI-e lane, it supports only two DIMM slots and only has 3Gb/s SATA support. And although it can look after four ports, it has no built-in RAID support (though that should come as no real shock looking at where it's aimed at).
As with its bigger sibling the H67, it also supports the integrated graphics of the SandyBridge core but like the P67 it doesn't support Intel's Clear Video technology. It will only support 10 USB 2 ports.
The B65 Express
The B65 is aimed at the SMB market. It has a feature set similar to the H67, with eight PCI-e lanes and support for the graphics core of the Sandy Bridge processors, but with subtle differences.
It only supports up to 12 USB 2.0 ports and its six SATA ports are split between a single SATA 6Gb/s and five SATA 3Gb/s ones. It also brings back support for PCI slots, which is understandable for this market segment.
Intel Q67 Express
This chipset is probably one you won't come across much, if at all, in the consumer space as it's aimed at the corporate boys. It's also expected to be joined by the Q65 at some stage, which is very much the same but with support for only a single SATA 6Gb/s and hardware and software ACHI instead of Intel's Rapid Storage Technology.
As can be expected for a chipset aimed at this part of the market it comes with a whole bucketful of Intel technologies aimed at protecting both the system and the data stored on it, as well as a few others not in the other chipsets; Intel Virtualization Technology for Directed I/O (VT-d), Intel® Anti-Theft Technology, AMT Version 7, Active Management Technology, vPro Technology and Intel Trusted Execution Technology.
Like the B65, the Q67 retains the PCI slot, which is understandable given where systems built with motherboards using either of these chipsets are going to end up, where the use of PCI expansion cards is a lot healthier than in the consumer space.
On the horizon
If you're looking to overclock, it's the P67 and no integrated graphics support. If you want that, then it's the H67, but you can't overclock. What's really needed is a hybrid of the two chipsets.
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If the rumour mill is to believed then this may well happen, with a sixth chipset joining the party in Q2 2011. That's the rumoured Z68, which could be the most interesting of them all, bringing together the P67 native dual graphics and OC functions, plus the H67's support for FDI.
Another technology rumoured to be part of the Z68 is RST (Rapid Storage Technology) SSD Caching, this could mean that it enables an SSD drive to be used as a cache drive while using a hard drive for storage, and the driver build that accompanies it will also allow for RAID support for drives over 2.2TB. There's still no native USB 3.0 support on offer though.
Variations on a theme
Of course, there are no hard and fast rules as to what these chipsets are used for – there never is, and motherboard manufacturers will always pick and choose which market segment they think a chipset would be good for and even which chipset features they want to use, regardless of where Intel or AMD may think they should be aimed at.
For instance, Gigabyte has the GA-P65A-UD3, which is built around the B65 chipset but is being used as an entry-level board in the consumer space, and the quite frankly bizarre PH67 chipset, which is the H67 with the display connectivity removed. Yes, we were scratching our heads at this one too.
Intel may have aimed the P67 Express at the performance end of the mainstream market but there's a problem with the amount of PCI-e lanes that the chipset combined with the processor can provide for the graphic cards slots.
The only real way around it is to use a third-party chip to provide more lanes, either with Lucid's Hydralogix chip as Sapphire has done with its Pure Black P67 Hydra, or as Gigabyte and Asus have done with their flagship P67 boards (GA-P67A-UD7 and Maximus IV Extreme respectively).
Nvidia's NF200 chip allows for two full x16 speed slots in CrossFire or SLI modes and for 3-way SLI. MSI, which leads the way with using Lucid's original version of the Hydralogix, has a new version of the chip in its bonkers new P67 board, the Big Bang Marshal. It has eight, yes eight PCI-e slots and no, they don't all run at x16 speed, only four of them do. If for some unimaginable reason you want to stick eight cards in it, they'll only run at x8 speed.
Details are scare but it seems that this version of the chip is more like a bridging chip than one that allows mix and matching of graphics cards.
Manufacturers have been quick to pick up what the H67 can offer for small motherboards and while many of the board makers have been quick to stick the H67 in a Mini ATX format. This an ideal format for it because of its support for integrated graphics, some have been even more inventive and gone for an even smaller format – mini- ITX, which for those unfamiliar with the concept is a motherboard built on a PCB that's just 17.1cm square.
Whether all these tiny boards from Asus (P8H67-I Deluxe), ECS (H67H2-I), Foxconn (H67S), Gigabyte (GA-67NUSB3) or Zotac (H67-ITX WiFi) make it to these shores is an unknown, but even Intel itself has got into the act with the DH67CF. Rumours abound that Gigabyte even has a P67-based mini-ITX board in the pipeline.
Even in this niche market, mobo makers are keen to outshine the opposition. So we have the Asus board offering Bluetooth and SO-DIMM memory support; the Zotac H67-ITX WiFi with built-in 802.11b/g/n wireless networking; and Gigabyte's GA-67NUSB3 providing dual HDMI output.
By combining one of these boards with one of the forthcoming low-voltage Sandy Bridge CPUs you can build some pretty impressive and feature-rich small format systems such as a media centres or HTPCs. And with notebook drives now reaching 1TB, storage space in one of these wee boxes is no longer the problem it once was.
Although Intel has announced the budget H61 chipset, no official release date has been set at time of going to press. But that hasn't stopped Jetway, Foxconn and MSI from producing boards built around it.
Asus P8P67M-Pro - £110
P67 Chipset
Riffing on the 'small, but perfectly formed' design ethos, Asus' P8P67M-Pro is packing a lot into it's teeny, tiny footprint.
If you cast your mind back to a few years ago, micro ATX (mATX) boards were seen very much as the poor relations of the motherboard world; they didn't support the latest processors or chipset technologies and weren't exactly overly blessed in the features department either.
One look at the P8P67M-Pro from Asus though shows exactly where the small format motherboard is now in the consumer, and more importantly the manufacturer's, consciousness.
Read the full Asus P8P67M-Pro review
ECS P67H2-A Black Extreme - £150
P67 Chipset
Everybody's doing it and so is ECS, releasing its top-end Sandy Bridge motherboard, the P67H2-A Black Extreme. ECS may not be as well known as some of their rivals but it does seem to come out with some interesting boards, especially its Black Extreme series for the enthusiasts.
And the latest addition to this line is no exception. It combines Intel's Sandy Bridge combination of the Socket 1155 CPU support and the P67 chipset with Lucid's Hydra graphics technology. That extra chip allows the board to support mix and match combinations of graphics cards.
Read the full ECS P67H2-A Black Extreme review
Foxconn H61MX - £60
H61 Chipset
While all the flashy high-end motherboards make the news, win awards and make many a geek swoon, the real bread 'n' butter end of the market is down at the other end of the coal face in the value market segment.
Here making boards that don't cost that much to build and shifting them in huge numbers is the name of the game.
Although you may find some mobo manufacturers using the B65 business-orientated chipset in this market segment, Intel's de-facto chipset for the value end of the market is the H61 Express, which is basically a cut down version of the H67, with only SATA 3Gbps support and offers 10 USB 2.0 ports instead of 14, making it an ideal platform for entry level PCs.
Read the full Foxconn H61MX review
Foxconn H67S - £65
H67 Chipset
The new Sandy Bridge processors are stupidly, impossibly, hilariously quick. By some metrics, they're the most impressive new CPUs in memory. However, one of the downsides is the requirement for a new motherboard.
Still, if you're going to make the migration to a new Sandy Bridge system, why not consider a small-form factor board such as the H67S?
As the name suggests, it's based on the H67 chipset and supports the heavily revised integrated graphics core that appears in each and every Sandy Bridge CPU. The new core is available with either six or 12-execution units, respectively known as the Intel HD Graphics 2000 and 3000 models.
Read the full Foxconn H67S review
MSI H61MU-E35 - £60
H61 Chipset
There are a couple of routes to take if you are designing a motherboard for the value end of the market, do you just give the basics at a good price or do you add features you think people will want and, indeed, pay extra for in a board in this market segment.
While Foxconn has taken one route with Intel's H61 value chipset with the H61MX, MSI has taken the polar opposite with the H61MU-E35. They might be both built around Intel's value chipset and both built on a Micro ATX PCB, but there the similarity ends.
Read the full MSI H61MU-E35 review
MSI P67A-GD65 - £140
P67 Chipset
This here P67 board from MSI represents something very different from the it's top-end Big Bang board. This isn't necessarily aimed at the high-end enthusiast segment, this is a board for people wishing to build up their new platform with a reasonable feature-set and at a reasonable price.
The bonus of having so much move over to the CPU is that actually manufacturing motherboards is a little cheaper and so you get a lot for your £140.
There's full SLI and CrossFire licensing, the latest line in USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps storage interfaces and the 'Military Class' components that make these MSI boards rather robust.
Read the full MSI P67A-GD65 review
Sapphire Pure P67 Hydra - £160
P67 Chipset
We've already taken a look at Sapphire's first Intel-based motherboard: the Pure Black X58, which together with the AMD based White Fusion announced Sapphire's re-emergence into the motherboard market.
Hot on its heels comes the second high-end Intel based board, the Pure Black P67 Hydra, which, as you might gather from the name, not only uses Intel's current flagship chipset for the Sandy Bridge CPU's, the P67 Express, but also makes use of Lucid's HydraLogic graphics technology.
Read the full Sapphire Pure P67 Hydra review
Zotac H67-ITX WI-FI - £120
H67 Chipset
Back in the mists of time (Okay, October 2001) when VIA released its first ITX EPIA motherboards, my how people laughed. A tiny little motherboard they all said, why it's just a toy!
But a few people understood the concept and could see the possibilities, and from time to time the format would peek above the parapet to see if anybody was still interested.
Fast forward to today and maybe, just maybe, Intel's H67 chipset could be the making of the concept. And if Zotac's H67-ITX WiFi is any indication of where were heading, then we're in for some interesting times ahead.
Benchmark analysis
It's demonstrative of just how much important goodness has been moved from the motherboard to the CPU itself that the benchmark results below are so damned close. In performance terms there is relatively little that manufacturers can do to separate their boards from the fierce competition.
That said the MATX P8P67M-Pro does a reasonably good job of putting some distance between it and the other boards in a few of our benchmarks at least. Most specifically in the gaming benchmarks where Asus boards traditionally do well.
It's also interesting to note that the new H61 boards give a pretty good showing in performance terms, demonstrating that there's little sacrifice in speeds, despite the loss of key parts of the feature set compared to the similarly-priced H67.
The performance of the two mini-ITX boards has likewise been impressive and the Sandy Bridge platform could well give rise to some frankly awesome, tiny gaming machines. Just look at the discrete card performance the likes of Zotac's H67-ITX WiFi.
The best Sandy Bridge motherboard is...
Trying to find an out and out winner in a range of Sandy Bridge motherboards that you'd actually buy is surprisingly tricky. With so much functionality being removed from the motherboards themselves there's very little between any of these boards in performance terms.
Where the different boards do differentiate themselves though is in assessing the feature set that they offer: Can they give you decent multi-GPU options? Do you have the latest in SATA and USB I/O technology? And how fully-featured is the relevant BIOS?
Of course, in this test we've been looking at the affordable end of the Sandy Bridge motherboard lineup, and if you were really interested in getting the most out of your second gen Intel Core CPU, whatever the cost, this isn't where you'd be looking.
At the £300 mark you can see the difference in performance. Just look at the Asus Maximus IV Extreme or the MSI Big Bang Marshal boards, those pricey, chunky fellows offer far more in the way of processing and overclocking grunt. But those boards cater for a relatively small percentage of users.
These mid-price to low-end boards here represent the bulk of Sandy Bridge motherboards that us normal folk are likely to buy. So which one should you pick up then?
To us the obvious winner is the excellent mATX P8P67M-Pro from Asus. It's got a huge range of features from SATA 6Gbps and USB 3.0 to fully fledged SLI and CrossFire support. That's a lot of functionality to pack into a small form factor motherboard.
It's not the fastest mobo in all of our tests, indeed some of the H61 boards post better Cinebench R11.5 scores, but it's a great all-round package. And it's also got Asus' great gaming pedigree too, which means that it's more than capable of offering great frame rates.
We reviewed the CyberPower Gamecube, an excellent little gaming machine, and with this wee mobo we 're looking at the basis for another small giant of the gaming PC market for sure. Being able to have a serious gaming system clothed in a small chassis, without having to make a compromise, is a very attractive proposition. After all you don't want to have a behemoth of a chassis bulging out from beneath your desk if there's no need for it to be that size.
Interestingly, the even smaller mini- ITX boards were almost as impressive. The Foxconn H67S and the pricier Zotac ITX WiFi offer decent performance figures in a frankly ridiculous form factor. Of course they don't have anywhere near the feature set of even their slightly bigger brethren, but for a fixed function they're worth a look.
The only issue with the Zotac board, as packed as it is, is that huge price tag. You may get USB 3.0 and a HDMI socket, but it's tough to say whether that's really worth paying twice as much as the almost-as-good Foxconn H67S.
It's still worth mentioning our personal bug bear with the make up of the desktop Sandy Bridge – the lack of processor graphics access when a discrete card is used. In a H67, or even H61 setup, losing access to the QuickSync transcode core is a disappointment if you want to have the opportunity to game with your rig too.
Lucid's Virtu GPU virtualisation tech should be ready soon, and ought to just be a simple update for the relevant boards. And that could end up being the death knell for the P67 platform. It will give you simultaneous access to both the Sandy Bridge graphics core and a discrete PCI-e card depending on which is better suited to a particular task.
There's also the spectre of the as yet unconfirmed Z68 chipset on the horizon, offering P67 performance with a processor graphics connection to boot. At the moment though if you're after a decent, feature-rich P67, then the bargainous P8P67M-Pro will serve pretty much all your needs.
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