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  • AnnihilatorX - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    I wonder when will MB makers start to support onboard multichannel LPCM HDMI audio ?
  • NeBlackCat - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    Would Anandech please remember that some of us care more about running our systems as energy sparingly as possible, and pay as much attention to underclocking/volting as you do to overclocking/volting.

    It's becoming quite the thing to do, you know. In mid 2011 I really shouldn't have to ask.
  • NeBlackCat - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    Oops I accidentally posted that as a reply.

    But since I'm back - any chance you would do a follow up review of the board from an energy saving viewpoint, and incorporate this IMPORTANT aspect into all further board/system reviews, Anandtech?
  • Dreamwalker - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    Seriusly, if you are after a low power consumption system go look elswhere (Atom, AMD E series, ITX boards...).

    This segment is made to get the maximum out of your rig and not vice versa.
  • xinaes - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    Surely these things needn't be polarized. It is not unreasonable to want to know what kind of balance of performance and power can be achieved with any given level of hardware. Also, why should someone interested in economising power not be interested in something like QuickSync, for example?
  • aegisofrime - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    I agree with NeBlackCat. Low power consumption doesn't necessary mean low performance. I for one, undervolt my Phenom II 955. It's a nice balance between performance and power consumption.

    That said, I have researched undervolting Sandy Bridges before and they seem to do that quite well.
  • vol7ron - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    I'd also like to know for HTPCs, but I feel if I went that route, I'd stick to an H67 and Core i3/i5 for the cost savings.

    Still, this is obviously not a complete review, but undervol7ing is something to keep in mind. :)
  • L. - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    2011
    HTPC
    H67 / Z68 / Intel in general

    The above three elements are incompatible.

    Today, HTPC = E350
    Tomorrow, HTPC = E350-likes

    For a technical sidenote, undervolting and underclocking are two practices that have been promoted by the lack of chips at every consumption level.

    However, again, this is 2011 and you have chips ranging from 1Watt to 125 Watts with steps of maximum 5Watts along the way.

    The important fact there is that a chip designed to run @ 18Watts (like an E350) will beat any chip running at that TDP but not designed for it (like an OC'd lower chip or a DC'd higher chip).

    As a summary, undervolting is a little fine-tuning you can apply in the end, but it is secondary to picking the correct chip to begin with.

    Sandy Bridge can undervolt decently, but seriously WTF.. if you don't need the power, don't pay for it ?

    If you're going to undervolt then there's a fairly high chance you're buying the wrong chip.
  • NeBlackCat - Friday, May 13, 2011 - link

    I completely disagree with that.

    The whole point is that Z68/Sandy Bridge is getting close to giving us the full spectrum of power/performance possibilities in one box (I suspect Ivy Bridge will finish the job), so you DONT have to pick one CPU with one particular profile, and then be restricted in what you can do.

    For example:

    I may want my HTPC to run at minimal power/noise when watching a movie, but there'll also be times when I want it to rip through an encode as quickly as possible, and don't care if it sounds like a helicopter and glows like hot coal in the process. How nice if i can have both at whim, just with a clock/volt change from a GUI.

    I may want my home server to run frugally when just firewalling and media streaming but, when I want to compile that Linux distro...

    ... and so on.

    Z68/Sandy Bridge is perfect for either of the above scenarios. But where hardware/BIOS/tool vendors give us ability to absolutely minimise power/thermals, reviewers don't cover it. Not even a mention of the specs (how low can that vcore go, etc).

    They should.
  • rmoan1 - Wednesday, May 18, 2011 - link

    This is silly to me.

    If you are not using the power then let it auto adjust down at the CPU level. Its like asking if you can fill a Ferrari with regular gas?

    Thou I understand why, there is no reason to spend time finding out, none that I can see anyway. If you want to run a media server, along with a browsing PC, etc etc... you can boot into the BIOS OS that comes with all ASUS Boards. You can get a media center ULV PC, etc.. etc... for $300. Or better yet get a tablet when you dont need the full power of your PC.

    At the end of the day, you arent getting WD Greens, low power cards, low power RAM, or a smaller PSU or the Green version of the motherboard.

    This a performance board that is used for OCing and will be used for OCing.

    If you are looking to save energy then stick to a Prius not a Ferrari.
  • Irakusa - Thursday, September 29, 2011 - link

    Not really, you're just limiting your thinking a bit. The whole reason I fill datacenters with blade servers and then oversubscribe every resource I can is exactly the same as what NeBlackCat is applying in smaller scale with this line of inquiry.

    Servers big enough to run hundreds of VMs on demand, but also able to dynamically adjust power, cooling, cost, and wear and tear on components. It's a good thing.

    What do you think Intuit does at tax time, build a few thousand new web servers (hoping they have enough) and then leave them sitting around afterward waiting for next year's tax season? No, the reallocate resources where they're needed.
  • HaryHr - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    Thinking like this you could also say no point in overclocking, just buy Extreme Edition CPU... but that's just not the same.
  • L. - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    No.

    Overclocking = more power for the same mullah
    Downclocking = less power for the same mullah
    Downclocking = less power/watts
    Buying another chip = less mullah, less power, less watts

    Basically downclocking is a practice that should disappear shortly as the spectrum of power consumption on available chips has become wide enough, along with low power chips being more than enough for everyone's tasks excluding gaming and extremely rare computational tasks.
  • shawngmc - Friday, May 13, 2011 - link

    Absolutely untrue. I repurpose my hardware - though I buy a new core (CPU/MB/RAM) yearly, I reuse my parts, cycling them through my desktop, HTPC, server, and project PCs or for family members.

    When I move parts from one usage to another, my demands change. My HTPC should have decent performance but be cool and quiet. My server needs good CPU performance (I run services in VMs) but I prefer energy efficiency there as well. Only my main desktop should be a power-hungry monster.

    I'm about to move my i7-930 to my home server. Even with the copious VMs, I probably don't need full clock speed from it. So, since it'll be on 24/7, I want it to be energy efficient. Underclocking? Say, not a bad idea!
  • NeBlackCat - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    In your opinion. I thought it was supposed to be a general review of the board. This isn't a teenage gamer site - plenty of people are interested in Sandy Bridge/Z68 as a powerful, yet power efficient, platform. And, for many of them, it's useful to know how much you can undervolt while maintaining stock clock, and so on. Some of us like our HTPCs to run as cool and quietly as possible most of the time, for example. It doesn't hurt to cover both sides - a couple of paras covering this is all that's needed.
  • L. - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    HTPC Sandy Bridge ?

    Seriously, if you don't understand hardware and it's use, please just avoid spreading your convictions.

    There is no reason for an HTPC to sport anything even remotely as powerful as 1/4th of a Sandy Bridge chip.

    We have reached a level in IT equipment where the chip in your mobile phone can almost cater for all of your HTPC / NAS needs so just face it, spend $300 less and get what you need instead of a 99.999999% idle overpowered CPU. Save the planet, green stuff, whatever !
  • NeBlackCat - Friday, May 13, 2011 - link

    Perhaps you don't understand that an HTPC is a 3W Sigma/Realtec media streamer to some, an occasional media encoding powerhouse (as well) to others, and something close to both for an increasing number of people.

    Vendors increasingly provide idle frugality but performance on tap - in the OS/BIOS, in the chipset (eg. simultaneous clock override/IGP) , in the CPU (eg. turbo boost), in the graphics susbsystem (eg. Virtu, Optimus, etc) and so on.

    And these features ARE there in Z68/Sandy Bridge. The question is why they ARE NOT all there in reviews.

    PS - that phone able to do HTPC/NAS duties (HD high profile H264, simultaneous transcoding/streaming/recording/multichannel, etc) for $300 less than an entry level Sandy Bridge sounds extremely interesting.

    Can you tell me where to by one? Because the tiny TrimSlice Tegra 2 box I've had sitting here for a week (at a cost of $330, which is not $300 short of Sandy Bridge territory) doesn't even get close. Not that I expected it to.
  • shawngmc - Friday, May 13, 2011 - link

    Exactly. I should be able to play games on my HTPC on occasion! Hell, Lucid Vertu theoretically sounds like a great solution - stick a decent GPU in and play modern games - Crysis 2, Portal 2, etc - on my 55" screen? Yes, please.

    Hell, I'll get some use out of my 3DTV with Nvidia 3DTV Play, now that it's FINALLY available.
  • xinaes - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    "This segment is made to get the maximum out of your rig and not vice versa."

    In Soviet Russia, your rig gets the most out of you.

    Sorry, couldn't resist.

    Glad to see so many other people on the side of not wantonly burning power and still considering the idea of having a reasonably powerful machine.
  • NeBlackCat - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    I want to get the maximum performance at the maximum power saving out of my rig. ;-)
  • tomoyo - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    Haha I love russia lines.
    But I do think a number of us want a system that is the fastest, lowest power, and quietest. Conflicting options, but options I always go for in every system. Also cheapest is nice also. It seems like a much better challenge than the lame boring crap of fastest o/c. Only the truly awesome can mix everything together :)
  • xinaes - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    Conflicting, like anything else in life. We want to know what options are available and to find the best balance / compromise for our needs.
  • L. - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    Again, you want the greenest solution ?

    Undervolting is NOT it.
    Sandy Bridge != reasonably powerful.
  • tomoyo - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    Uh what? Hello sandy bridge is amazingly low power consumption AND fast. Nobody wants a piece of @#$% atom or e series when you can get something fast AND low power consumption.
  • L. - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    Errr .. you might want to go back to school and learn how to compare numbers ...

    There is NO comparison between an e-350 and a Sandy Bridge in terms of power consumption - besides said chip is not really a piece of crap if you don't play modern games.
  • NeBlackCat - Friday, May 13, 2011 - link

    Which do you think wins in power efficiency, for the widest range of tasks from nothing to re-encoding a BlueRay?
  • Stuka87 - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    It would be cool to see a review done that way to see what kind of power savings there are. My guess they will be very little since just about every modern chips declocks itself constantly.

    But this motherboard is NOT for that segment. This is a top end performance board. NOT the board to use if you want yo conserve energy.
  • vol7ron - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    The procs go into a low-power/normal state when not in use and they jump in clocks when workloads demand, but that low-power state is probably spec defined, and not the min that you could get. Just like, if you were to OC the chip yourself, you'd get more jump than the max boost.

    For these reasons, if a person wanted to manually set an undervol7ed/underclocked configuration, it'd be nice to know before a purchase. I don't think it's a fair assumption to say that same user would always use that configuration. They might do video/photo editing or gaming very sparingly and just want to conserve power when and where they can.
  • cyklonman - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    Sandy bridge undervolt it self to rougly 4W in idle, undervolting at load will gain more but there is no real reason.
  • NeBlackCat - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    But when you're not at idle...
  • L. - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    What you are searching for is not undervolting and underclocking, its called advanced, manually-defined "speedstep".

    Haven't heard of it available commercially but some guy did that for his old AMD XP and it was pretty interesting - although that chip slowed down to almost a standstill on the lowest setting.
  • Sunsmasher - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    A board that performs well under the higher stresses of overclocking/overvolting will of course perform well in an undervolting situation. It's then up to the user (you) to find undervolting settings that work well with your particular processor.
    Also, it would be silly to buy a motherboard in this class (3 gpu capable, etc.), if your intention were to save as much power in your system as possible. An H67 board would probably make more sense for an undervolted "green' system. Most Anandtech readers who read reviews of boards in this class are, I sure, interested in the maximum performance available in their systems as opposed to saving energy. (Saving energy is an admirable goal, of course, just not the main priority of people who want maximum possible performance.) That's why undervolting testing is not done here, I'm sure.
  • gevorg - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    Good point! Even when you seek high performance, low power and energy saving are still very important because your might leave your computer idle or use it for simple tasks, and its important for it to dynamically change to your needs without being an energy hog when it doesn't need to be.
  • tomoyo - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    I'd just be happy with the following data on each motherboard to make sure you have something low power and silent:
    1) What voltage selections you have for both under and overvolting
    2) What fan speed choices you can choose.
    3) What the power consumption with said motherboard is compared to similar ones at idle and load.
    (It seems intel generally wins in this category at idle)
    This will make it clear if you have something that is a champ for low power.
  • Rajinder Gill - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    Looking at the core voltage scale in the spec table in the article - it starts at 0.8V and also that you've got multiplier control. That means underclocking is possible.

    One thing that many of you are probably aware of (but some aren't) is that if you have C1E and SpeedStep active, light loading power savings due to reduced VID are so small that it's hard to measure them - certainly not with a standard plug-in AC level meter. The measurements need to be done at DC and may show that some of the potential savings may be nullified by the VRM efficiency curve if some form of load dependant phase control isn't supported by the system.

    As for full loading scenarios, you can set the idle threshold percentage in Windows 7 to a higher level, thus ensuring the processor only goes into full load state under the most arduous loads. This way you get to keep the performance advantage of a higher clock freqeuncy (if and where needed), while still having the ultra low consumption courtesy of power gating through all major sections of the processor including cache (in C6 state).

    In truth, to educate the masses, this properly this probably needs a separate article and followed up by a two line blurb when reviewing a motherboard to state whether the BIOS allows underclocking. That's about all there is to it in my opinion, I don't think too much time needs to be spent on the subject in subsequent reviews with the groundwork out of the way.

    Regards
  • NeBlackCat - Friday, May 13, 2011 - link

    Great post, thanks for that information.
  • Sabresiberian - Friday, May 13, 2011 - link

    Frankly, I want a high end mainboard to have no expense allocated for audio at all; I'll buy a decent solution for my sound thank you very much, please save me a few bucks to put toward that end! Or, put the money into figuring out how I can add a sound card AND have triple SLI/Crossfire. Build in a Killer NIC so I don't have to use an addon card there.

    Mid and low-end cards should have mid or low-end sound solutions.

    ;)
  • xinaes - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    "graphics card manufacturers are pretty good on low power states"... unless you connect more than one display, in which case they apparently push cards into 3d clock speeds constantly:
    http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php...

    I'd like to know if boards such as this will let me run two displays off the IGP with Virtu in i-mode, how much power that would consume, also what the hit would be on performance under different circumstances. I'm hopeful that the IGP might be able to drive both displays without using substantial amounts of power for basic tasks, and that the performance cost in more demanding situations while appreciable would not be crippling.
  • Krenn - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    That's an excellent question - I'd love to see the same thing. I usually use two monitors for basic tasks and only one for gaming, but would like to save power without having to unplug & switch the monitor cables. Also, I had no idea running two monitors from the same video card was using more power than it should; that could definitely make a difference.

    I assume you can't mix and match and connect one monitor to the integrated and the other to the discrete and use both monitors at the same time.
  • xinaes - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    I'm not sure exactly what mixing and matching is possible. Something that was posited as a workaround in the thread I linked (in the context of systems where IGP is not available) is using a second low power GPU to drive the secondary display. It may well be that the IGP could fill a similar role with a Z68 board, but it's hard to be sure.

    For me it would be irritating as I don't only use the graphics for gaming on a single screen; I'd want at times to run 3d apps with resources shared by windows on both screens etc. Still, I'd like to at least have the option of such a workaround if it meant saving power, even if it was irritating in certain circumstances.
  • L. - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    IGP Intel = Ouch.
    I believe that if you need multiple displays you'll be far better off waiting for amd llano or the next gen of intel fail-gpu.
  • sylar365 - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    Right now I am using an Asrock P67 Extreme 4, i5-2500k, OCZ Vertex 2 64GB with Windows and a couple frequently used apps and a WD 640GB Black SATA 2 for bulk storage. I only use one graphics card in the form of a GTX 560 ti and I appreciate it's performance but am in love with it's power usage. As far as I can tell it seems like upgrading to the Z68 platform would not provide much gain in gaming FPS, SSD longevity or overclocking ability. Those issues aside would I see ANY decrease in my monthly electric bill after partially using my CPU's on chip GPU? Even while assuming that I have some disposable income it still seems that jumping from P67 to Z68 would be like throwing money into the wind unless I plan on ... nope, nevermind ... even adding a second 560 ti would be faster on my current board. As far as investments go (for me anyway) making it rain at the local strip club is looking to be a more responsible path than upgrading to Z68.
  • AnnihilatorX - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    Or if you are like me who hold out onto my B2 P67 until it died 2 weeks ago and get a refund and buy Z68 :P
  • Sunsmasher - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    Upgrade doesn't make sense for you because you apparently don't do much transcoding....
  • L. - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    Like most people ;)

    Otherwise, this motherboard looks like a piece of trash for 210 bucks, very limited pciE, etc.. who would want it.

    There is a fair chance you will see Z68 boards that are much more convincing.
  • Tylanner - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    Man would I be upset if I held out for Z68 all these months.

    I was expecting an improvement in Multi-GPU Scaling(2-way Sli)
  • AnnihilatorX - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    No. Z68 is still limited by number of PCI-E. The main reason is CPU really. You'd have to go for Z79 and Sandybridge-E for higher PCI-e lanes count.
  • AnnihilatorX - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    Actually disregard me, bandwidth should be sufficient for 2-way SLI
  • rbusch - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    On page two if the review it says....

    "here are a couple of negative points however - the iGPU frequency requires a reboot after every selection, and the changes you do make to the CPU frequency aren't written to BIOS (and thus aren't permanent) nor are they initialised on reboot, requiring a manual adjust on every boot."

    Does this (the CPU bit) differ from the P8P67 PRO board? Am I understanding correctly that any CPU overclock done in windows (as opposed to UEFI) disappears every single time the machine is rebooted?
  • rbusch - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    And forgive me if this is a obvious and stupid question but at (nearly) the same price point, would there be any advantages of choosing the P8P67 Pro over the P8Z68-V PRO?

    Thanks
  • AnnihilatorX - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    Short answer, no...
  • mczak - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    IMHO doesn't make a whole lot of sense overclocking the IGP but not the memory. The IGP could potentially benefit quite a bit.
  • Markstar - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    Great review - makes me wish Anandtech had more of these (along with reviews low-capacity SSDs). :p
  • Shadowmaster625 - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    You guys need to stop giving Asus a free pass on their horrible website that you cant even download drivers from. And their horrible bios flashing tools that do not work. Never ever buy asus.
  • sor - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    I'm actually kind of pissed at them myself. my P8P67Pro is a good board, but it has problems with SAS cards. They updated the BIOS to fix some compatibility issues, but my LSI card still does not work. It's a pretty well documented issue, and I think it's sort of ridiculous. I will consider buying a new Z68 of a different brand so I can use my LSI card if they don't have a BIOS fix soon.

    I didn't have any trouble flashing to the latest ASUS BIOS with a DOS boot cd.
  • The_Assimilator - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    You're using a piece of server hardware in a desktop board and you don't understand why it doesn't work? Did you perhaps think about that, or about verifying compatibility between the board and the card before purchasing?

    Don't blame the manufacturer for your own ignorance.
  • sor - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    Give me a break. That's the most ridiculous comment I've heard in a long while. You're the one showing your ignorance now.
  • sor - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    Sorry, I can't let this go. I'm not sure why you decided to take an antagonstic tone, but apparently hardware is mysterious to you? What makes you think this is a server part? What makes you think it's unreasonable to believe that a card that adheres to the PCIe standard should be able to work in a PCIe slot? Why is it unreasonable to think that a card that worked in an old P35 desktop and my wife's older Q965 should work in my new P67 desktop? I can only imagine you read "SAS" and thought "ooh scary, that's the shiny server stuff, what is this guy thinking? I need to belittle him". Nevermind that they make windows XP drivers for it. Nevermind that I've installed over 300 LSI SAS cards in various hardware over the last year at work.

    Compatibility lists are not exhaustive, and are usually 6-12 months out of date. I still maintain that it's a reasonable expectation that a PCIe card shipping with desktop OS drivers, that works in every other motherboard I can get a hold of, should work in the PCIe slot of my new motherboard, and if not, it's the motherboard's fault.
  • L. - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    I would say, let's blame the manufacturers ... So many inconsistencies should not be tolerated, like for example some sticks not working on some boards etc.. or ridiculous PCB design leading to not being able to put a 'standard' modern cooler / ridiculous cooler design the other way around etc. etc.
  • Pneumothorax - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    Does overclocking the IGP help Quicksync speeds? I don't think I've seen testing done on this so far.
  • BernardP - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    A practical question: If one wants to use i-mode or d-mode, is it necessary to install both the Intel video driver and the AMD or Nvidia video driver?

    Could this be a source of conflicts or other problems?
  • AnnihilatorX - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    Yes you need to install both. Not really on Vista and Windows 7, new driver models mean you can install multiple GPU drivers. I don't think Virtu supports older OS.
  • BernardP - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    Thanks for the reply. Noted for future. After taking everything into consideration, including my usage pattern, I would simply deactivate intel IGP, not install Virtu and add an entry-level Nvidia videocard, such as the fanless Asus GT 520.

    The noteworthy other Z68 feature is SSD cache, but after reading the detailed article about this, I would prefer to go with a 120 GB SDD plus mirroring HDDs.

    For me the single plus of the Z68 platform is that I would have Intel IGP as a temporary backup in case of failure of the discrete GPU. This is only worth a very small premium over P67.
  • vol7ron - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    When you refer to BIOS, do you mean the UEFI BIOS Utility, or is there a dual BIOS/UEFI boot option?
  • risa2000 - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    I noticed in test setup description three different memory modules. Did you do some tests on memory throughput? Was there any difference?

    I wonder if it makes sense to go for faster memory beyond DDR3-1600.
  • AnnihilatorX - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    You are looking at about 2-5% performance increase from going DDR 1600 to DDR 2133
    No point buying expensive RAM unless you spot a bargain
  • L. - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    "expensive RAM" -- on the other hand there's quite a lot of relatively cheap around 2k mhz -- sticking to 1600 isn't that great nowadays.
  • cyklonman - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    P67 Asus looks much better, why did I wait for this one?
  • fr500 - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    Will this work?

    Hook up a monitor with two inputs and connecting a spare input to the motherboard's connector? As far as I know all you need is a display hooked up to one of the motherboard connectors, so if you have a display with 2+ inputs you could get one to your IGP, one to your GPU and switch to the IGP input when you want to do transcoding.

    Best of both worlds, intact GPU performance and Quicksync.

    Even if Virtu works 100% it still won't let you use your GPU control panel and any crashes might be harder to diagnose (ie: who should I blame, Lucid or NVidia/AMD)
  • Ryan Smith - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    Sure, that should work. Windows may or may not have quirks though, based on past experience.

    As for the control panel thing, I have not used Virtu in dGPU mode, but based on how Hydra works I'm sure the AMD/NV control panels work in dGPU mode. I wouldn't expect any crashes in that mode either since Virtu isn't intercepting the dGPU, but again I classify that with the fact that I haven't used dGPU mode yet.
  • fr500 - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    Not any new crashes but there are crashes now and them with certain nvidia driver versions on TF2 for instance. With an aditional layer on top it makes it worse I guess...

    Also I said that about control panels because of techreport's review but it seems they didn't know about d mode
  • AnnihilatorX - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    Anand noted that Intel said (when virtu didn't exist), to use QuickSync in Z68, one needs to use 2 monitors.

    So basically you can have 2 separate monitors, one connection from discrete and one from onboard.
  • L. - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    I'm pretty sure you can come up with more complex and useless examples of using relatively bad technology, namely Lucid.

    As long as you have a real gpu, you should not be using the IGP at all, that is not going to change anytime soon as 7% of a real GPU >>> anything Intel ever made.

    Not to worry though, Virtu will be gone very soon, like Hydra.

    "Normally", you should be able to send the transcoding to your GPU and have 3d / screen input at the same time.

    In other words : intel IGP bad except if you don't have anything else, virtu bad always unless your GPU is really bad too (wtf?).

    This will become more interesting when AMD starts selling Llano, as llano's gpu will be much stronger than Intel's IGP and using both ressources efficiently (discrete+igp) will make a real difference.
  • fr500 - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    The whole deal with this is QuickSync is really fast for transcoding.

    I don't like the idea of Hydra either so I think using a spare input from your monitor could work, it would still be detected even if the input is not the current active one and even if it doesn't get detected you could just select the other input, do your transcoding and be done with it.
  • cbgoding - Wednesday, May 11, 2011 - link

    So 1.42V was your safe limit, but under load it jumped to 1.544 V?

    What the hell?
  • AnnihilatorX - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    He wrote 'but'. He's suggesting a bug in the TurboV software
  • cbgoding - Friday, May 13, 2011 - link

    alright, makes sense. Guess I'll never use TurboV, I'd shit a brick if i had a .124V spike.
  • L. - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    My mobo does that ... although I went a bit hard on the pencilmod on purpose - which gives me a vload > vidle (although very close, it's about .025 more).
  • DBissett - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    Sorry for grammar policing but some grammar is so bad it makes reading otherwise good articles impossible. "Asus" and "Intel" are companies, singular nouns, and require singular verbs. To say "Asus have" and "Intel have" is not only technical incorrect but just plain reads very badly. "Asus has...." and "Intel has...." is the correct grammatical form. Or if you have to use plural verbs then try "People at Asus have..." for example, and now you've got a plural subject.

    Dave
  • IanCutress - Friday, May 13, 2011 - link

    Hi Dave,

    This is one of the (many) differences between British and American English. I attempt to write in an American style for AnandTech, but as I am British, a few things scrape through the net.

    All the best,
    Ian
  • cybersans - Saturday, June 4, 2011 - link

    if you need us to write a proper english language to reply a posts, i think you reach at the wrong place, because this is not a classroom or english language test at the school ;)

    as long as a people around the world understand the message, thats fine for me.
  • BaCh - Thursday, May 12, 2011 - link

    Is ASUS P8Z68-V PRO compatible with Intel Xeon E3-1275 processor?
  • cybersans - Saturday, June 4, 2011 - link

    xeon e3-1275 is based on socket 1155, so yes, it is compatible. but why you want to use server processor into workstation motherboard since it is lack of some features?
  • mattmc61 - Friday, May 13, 2011 - link

    I 'm sorry if this sounds like nit-picking, but after the fifth gramatical error on the first page of this article, I feel it necessary to point out the poor grammer, model number mistakes, and what seems like a lack of editing. I would think an article on such a high caliber tech site would be more careful.
  • austonia - Saturday, May 14, 2011 - link

    Anandtech, I am disappoint. You didn't even benchmark the Quick Sync video transcode function, which is the main reason I'm getting a Z68. Trading in my P67 (recall) for it.

    I know Anand has covered this feature before in a previous article (Jan. 31) but it would be reassuring to see the results of tests run on retail hardware. As did Tom's:

    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-z68-expr...
  • Googer - Wednesday, May 18, 2011 - link

    Looks like my favoritism for ASUS has just swung in the favor of Gigabyte.

    As a die hard keyboard fanatic, the complete lack of PS/2 support is a complete deal killer for me. I have tried USB PS/2 adapters and find they are loaded with problems, input latency, and incompatibilities (keystroke combinations, stops working after holding W down for 15 seconds, etc). I can sort of understand dropping PS/2 mouse support (even though I prefer a PS2 mouse). but keyboards just work much better on PS2 since its using dedicated hardware vs software for USB keys and mice.

    -Long Live PS2 and Good OLD Quality Clicky Keyboards.
  • Googer - Wednesday, May 18, 2011 - link

    *I've tried nearly all PS/2 to USB keyboard adapters, including the expensive ones from PI Engineering.
  • cybersans - Saturday, June 4, 2011 - link

    agree, switching to this motherboard from previous p8p67 caused me to get ps2 - usb converter. seems like the conversion give some problem, when i type seems like some words is mistype, not because of my broken fingers, but i suspect because of the conversion. another thing when i play a game for example need for speed undercover, the up arrow use to accelerate the car is not continously accelerating. when i press the up button on the keyboard, the car accelerate until several seconds, it stops. seems like i press the fuel paddle and several seconds the fuel stops.
  • ruzveh - Thursday, May 19, 2011 - link

    When these motherboard builders will wakeup and understand? We dont want to see those VGA ports on motherboards. AIt is of no use for anyone. Today whoever is buying a $150+ boards have monitors which support HDMI DVI or DP. We actually dont want to see limited resolution VGA port which is now really outdated like ur brains. If you want to provide with VGA option then do so via a DVI to VGA connector accessory. Dont waste the unnecessary space on the mdb. It can be used to provide us with that extra space for USB ports or eSATA.
  • Googer - Sunday, May 22, 2011 - link

    Many gamers and photoshoppers out there still use Analog CRT monitors. As far as connectivity goes, the VGA port is the most common denominator and almost any monitor can accept it's input.

    If you are a system builder, a board like this would be a good basis for a value added system and vga is ideal for that situation.
  • cybersans - Saturday, June 4, 2011 - link

    thats the idea of z68, to give you onboard graphic ports because sandy bridge processor has on-die GPU and asus give you that. not like gigabyte, using z68 because of "ssd caching", but not provide on-board vga ports. so how the user can take advantage of on-die GPU inside sandy bridge chips?!?!?!
  • mikekieran - Friday, May 20, 2011 - link

    Will the HDMI on the Z68 enable me to run my TV on the integrated graphics, while plugging 2 monitors onto the discrete GPU ? I want to run three monitors without going to ATI and without having to go SLI.

    Sorry if this is a stupid question.
  • henhaohenhao - Wednesday, July 13, 2011 - link


    Come go and see, will not regret it Oh look

    http://www.ifancyshop.com
  • emilmuliadi - Friday, October 14, 2011 - link

    hi dear, my my new computer to replace my old motherboard p8z68 pro-v ... with i7 processor, I work one transfer film ... I need a connection to the fire wire (camera input), is there a facility that ... if I need information where to connect the fire wire cable ... I beg ya info .. thank you
  • ggathagan - Sunday, October 16, 2011 - link

    The p8z68 pro-v has a firewire header on the motherboard, but does not come with the bracket you need.

    You need to buy a bracket like this:
    http://www.cablestogo.com/product.asp?cat_id=605&a...

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