Asrock Z68 Extreme4 (Intel Z68) Motherboard Review

Launched at the beginning of the year, Intel's 32nm Sandy Bridge processors arrived alongside the new socket LGA1155 and two accompanying 6-series chipsets, the P67 and H67. Each platform presented a different value perspective: the pricier P67 supported Intel's unlocked "K" series enthusiast processors with advanced overclocking options, while the cheaper H67 had access to Sandy Bridge's built-in graphics.

Neither chipset offered both features, ultimately forcing users to assess their priorities. However this hasn't been a major deal for the average system builder because someone who wants to overclock heavily probably has a discrete graphics card, while someone who's using Sandy Bridge's integrated graphics chip likely wouldn't want to be bothered with overclocking -- note the word "likely."

There exists a third, smaller group of individuals who want squeeze extra performance out of their processor and memory, but don't require the graphical muscle of a full-blown video card. To fill that void, Intel has released the Z68 chipset, which is somewhat of a hybrid of the P67 and H67: it allows you to overclock while simultaneously using the baked-in graphics engine. But there's more to it...

Along with combining the functionality of its previous chipsets, Intel has infused the Z68 with some impressive new features that should make it more appealing to a broader demographic. By cramming more features into the Z68, the company has effectively created a new enthusiast-grade chipset, while the P67 has been demoted to somewhat of a mid-range offering.

Intel's Smart Response Technology (SRT) is one of the more noteworthy additions as it boosts system performance by using a small solid state drive for caching purposes. SRT is to an extent similar to what the Seagate Momentus XT hybrid hard drives offer, except it's considerably more flexible. This is an attractive feature among hardware buffs, as full-fledged SSDs are still too expensive for widespread adoption. We'll be fully testing this capability on this review.

Intel is also shipping the Z68 with LucidLogix Virtu GPU virtualization software, which offers power savings by allowing your system to toggle between a discrete video card or Sandy Bridge's built-in graphics engine for a specific task -- think of Nvidia's Optimus technology on the desktop. Needless to say, we're eager to examine both features courtesy ofAsrock's latest Z68 Extreme4 motherboard, so let's get this show on the road.

Asrock Z68 Extreme4

For testing Intel's latest chipset Asrock provided us with their Z68 Extreme4 motherboard, which is currently retailing for $200, making it slightly more affordable than the P67 Extreme6 we tested in our recent P67 motherboard roundup. In fact, we considered the Extreme6 to be the best all-around value for enthusiast shoppers.

Besides the inclusion of Z68's new features, the Extreme4 appears to offer many of the same great features seen on the P67 Extreme6. The spec sheet includes 64Mb AMI UEFI Legal BIOS with GUI support, four USB 3.0 ports, four SATA 6Gb/s connectors, 8-channel audio, eSATA 6Gb/s and Gigabit LAN.

Asrock has added quite a bit of functionality to the stock Z68 chipset. Whereas all Z68 motherboards have six SATA 3Gb/s ports (two can work at 6Gb/s speeds) Asrock has expanded the storage capabilities of their Z68 Extreme4 by including the Marvell 88SE9120 controller, which supports a pair of 6Gb/s SATA ports each using a PCI Express 2.0 x1 (5.0Gb/s) lane.

While the Marvell chip doesn't offer any RAID functionality, it does support NCQ (Native Command Queuing) and it provides the Asrock Z68 Extreme4 with a grand total of SATA ports. Networking is covered by a Broadcom BCM57781 Gigabit Ethernet controller which supports Wake-On-LAN and Energy Efficient Ethernet 802.3az.

Etron EJ168A controllers also occupy one PCI Express 2.0 x1 (5.0Gb/s) lane each to provide a combined four USB 3.0 ports. One controller powers two rear USB 3.0 ports while the other feeds a pair of front mounted ports using the supplied onboard header.

Asrock has added quite a few PCI Express devices and that presents a problem as the Z68 features just eight PCIe 2.0 (5.0Gb/s) lanes. As a workaround, Asrock employs the PLX PEX 8608 switch to deliver eight more flexible ports -- though we suspect many have been used to connect the PLX switch to the Z68. This isn't an ideal solution, but it's the only way Asrock could strap on so much extra hardware.

We found that the 8-channel audio is delivered by a rather traditional choice in the Realtek ALC892 codec which supports THX TruStudio Pro. Despite seeing this chipset on numerous Asrock boards before, we were unable to dig up any real info on it. The Realtek website only lists 8-channel codecs from the ALC861 to the ALC889

Intel Smart Response Technology

Flash-based storage represents a massive leap forward in performance when compared to traditional hard drives, largely due to its zero millisecond access time. Unfortunately, that speed still comes at an with exorbitant premium, with most mainstream SSDs costing around $2.00 per gigabyte while conventional HDD technology costs roughly five cents per gigabyte.

While most of us can't afford to transition entirely to flash storage, it's increasingly common for enthusiasts to house their operating system and certain programs on a relatively inexpensive low-capacity SSD. The obvious drawback is that you're still forced to rely on an HDD for large applications and media, which won't enjoy the same performance benefits.

Seagate first demonstrated SSD caching technology with their Seagate Momentus XT series. The hybrid drives utilize "Adaptive Memory" to automatically move frequently accessed data to a 4GB NAND flash module. The performance and price of these drives make them a reasonable compromise for pricey full-sized SSDs, but they do leave quite a bit to be desired.

Intel has developed its own solution called "Smart Response Technology," which takes a slightly different approach. Instead of having a small NAND flash buffer on your hard drive, SRT lets you separate both storage mediums, creating a more flexible solution -- and a potentially faster one at that.

You can select any SSD as long as it is at least 20GB in capacity and pair it with any HDD. The SSD is used as a cache for commonly used data blocks while the Z68 chipset monitors the HDDs usage patterns and transfers the most frequently accessed bits of data from the HDD to the SSD.

Data stored on the HDD must be accessed multiple times before it's transferred to the SSD, so data that is infrequently accessed or new will not take advantage of the speed bump provided by the SSD. In other words, you are unlikely to witness an immediate performance boost in freshly installed programs or while transferring large files.

Where SRT really surpasses the Seagate Momentus XT is in its ability to utilize much larger SSDs. You can dedicate just 18.4GB of an SSD for caching purposes or you can use the entire drive -- though limiting the use to just 20GB makes more sense as larger 64GB+ drives would probably work better if they were used solely as the boot drive.

Intel plans to launch a drive specifically for use with SRT. We expect the upcoming 20GB Larsen Creek SSD to cost around $50 and it should present a fantastic value when paired with a 2TB HDD. Although we don't have a 20GB Larsen Creek SSD yet, we used the Kingston SSDNow V+ 180 64GB for testing purposes which should provide similar

Gaming Performance

We used Fraps to measure StarCraft II's frame rates, recording five minutes of gameplay and using a replay of an 8-player online battle.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was tested using Fraps to record 60 seconds of gameplay from the level "Cold War" with the best quality settings and 4xAA/16xAF enabled.

We tested Civ V with a saved file that's more 300 turns into a game, offering a good representation of gameplay. Using Fraps, we measured the performance at various zoom levels while scrolling around the map.

Unsurprisingly, we didn't record any noteworthy fps discrepancies between the Z68 and P67.

Intel SRT - Atto Disk Benchmark

SRT increased read performance quite a bit in Atto Disk Benchmark, once again putting the Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000.C 1TB in the same league as entry-level SSDs.

Atto Disk Benchmark write performance was also greatly improved with the SRT results similar to that of the Kingston SSDNow V+ 180, which we chose for our cache drive.

Intel SRT - AS SSD Benchmark

As you're probably used to hearing by now, Intel's SRT boosted performance in AS SSD by a significant degree: sequential reads soared from 86.4MB/s to 135.3MB/s, while writes climbed from 100.3MB/s to 125.6MB/s.

The 4K-64 thread performance is also drastically improved, matching budget flash drives such as the Kingston SSDNow V+.

Oddly, while Intel's Smart Response Technology offered massive gains in AS SSD write access times, read access times were actually slower when using the SSD cache.