GIGABYTE 6 Series Motherboards - Images & Specifications

[anit77]

In retrospect I guess I phrased my earlier question wrong. I have no interest in a P65/67, or a X68 for that matter, with a 1366 socket. What I would like to see is the incorporation of the new ICH11R with the X58. I would think that it should be possible the question is do the motherboard manufacturers believe there will be a market?

Right now there's only Crucial's C300 SSD on the market (with rumors of a C600) but with Sanforce's SF-2500/2600 chip being in drives within the next 6 months there will be quite a few new vendors in the mix, Muskin may even have one out by year end January at the latest.

[Psycho101]

Sorry if it was info over load. I started typing and just couldn't stop... I blame the Redbull.

I'm just speculating, but I expect that the X68 (if they don't change their minds on the name) will feature the same amount of native SATA3 as these P65/67 examples. There definitely won't be any native USB3 until boards and/or add in cards with LightPeek have been given a chance to take root. Unfortunately, as it's Intel in house tech, they have a vested interest.

I agree that native SATA3 would be very desirable indeed, and if the ICH11 uses DMI rather than PCIe, like current Marvel solutions do, we'll all be laughing. That will mean no silly restrictions for dual GPU users, meaning they're not forced to go ultra high end just because they have two mid-end cards. It should also mean that as drives with the controllers you mention start to push the upper limits of the SATA3 spec, they will be able to do so and not be botlenecked by restrictions in PCIe lanes available. Even the very capable ICH10R topped out at a shade under 600MB/s combined, meaning that any more than three 200MB/s SSD's in RAID was a waste and gains were only seen in write speeds when adding more drives.

This kind of thing is definitely more crucial than constantly evolving CPU speeds/architectures at the minute. We've finally had FSB replaced with DMI and QPI, dual and tripple channel RAM can now actually be utilized better (compare Intel i5 RAM bandwidth of ~16GB/s to AMD's offerings that top out in some benchmarks at a mere 9GB/s). Now is the time to help along the evolution of non volatile memory. HDD's have been constantly evolving, advances including perpendicular recording have helped boost data density and speed, but IMO they are still a weak link. Not saying everyone should rush out and buy a SSD, but many under-estimate the difference it makes.

I liken the debate for and against SSD's to the one for and against copy protections in games; things like StarForce and SecureROM. We see a hell of a lot of people repeating what they hear/read without testing/analysing for themselves. Starforce for example is now only used ni Russia after being trashed by every man and his dog. It was called a "root kit", a "Virus", "malware" etc, etc with next to zero evidence. It was bashed for it's root kit like Ring0 access, however it NEEDED Ring0 access because it's common for emulation software to use it. StarForce needed to fight on the same level. Any time a copy protection becomes difficult to crack, it gets attacked. The misimformation artists pull the pin, toss the info into random forums and blogs, then run for cover. SSD's do make a big difference to the over all feel of a PC, smoothness and response is of course objective, but I challenge any one not to notice the difference. The only question that needs asking is "Does what I do justify me paying so much for one", if the hoonest answer to that is "No", then fair enough.

Any hoo, I digress. I'm sure both chipset groups for the new socvkets wil come with all the goodies (except native USB3) that we expect. Even those with Marvel SATA3 and NEC USB3.0 won't be too bad off, as long as they don't want to run more than a couple of SSD's in RAID0 and hit a bandwidth limit. NEC USB3 is actually pretty good for a first attempt.

[wazza300]

60gb ocz vertex 2e on ebuyer for £89 with discount code,not bad but id like them to be cheaper,maybe newer sata3 drives are coming out hence price drop?

[anit77]

Newegg has a few 90GB drives for $159.99 (£99) w/discount and free or very cheap shipping. I know the shipping to GB would be much higher but maybe there are similar deals over there.

Needless to say the prices are defiantly dropping.

Phsyco's comments reminded me of an article I read in Wired about 10 years ago about molecular electronics. If I remember correctly professors at Rice & Yale were very close to some major advancements with the technology and I expected to see the first products hitting the market by know. If I had to guess I bet they are having problems with interconnects at that level.

*Edit: I found the article, I can't believe it's still posted on their site.

"Molecular microchips, populated with transistors that can be produced cheaply in astronomical numbers, will compute faster, remember longer without needing to be refreshed, and consume power at a mere trickle. More immediately, moletronics will transcend the limitations of magnetic and optical storage technologies, providing memory systems so powerful, small, and inexpensive that the entire Internet could be cached on a single desktop. Or, as Tour's associate Thomas Mallouk puts it, "Imagine a computer that remembers every keystroke you've ever made, with more storage capacity than you could ever need."

Here's a link. Very interesting stuff.

[sin0822]

i would like to see native sata6g too. Those sandforce sata6g ssds when they come out will cost so much because they will be enterprise, but in the future i plan to raid my c300 with another and I would like a good controller for it, that is much more important to me than a faster cpu.

[Octopuss]

I think I will upgrade anyway, because I still have my P45-based PC and while it is okay performance-wise, changing anything about it is total waste of money. And waiting another year is a no go for me :P

[wazza300]

seemslike they have tied all the mb bus clocks together making overclocking very limited unless you buy an intel k series chip with an unlocked multiplier,socket 2011 seems to follow the current mb's as in not tying the bus's together

ram speeds have increased too according to reports,claiming 2133mhz

"Information provided by Intel in its own presentations about its upcoming mainstream LGA1155 Sandy Bridge CPUs appears to confirm the company has designed the CPUs to deliberately limit overclocking.

A video leaked to HKEPC and posted on YouTube (see from 2mins onwards) confirms the fact that only a 2-3 per cent OC via Base Clock adjustments will be possible. This is because Intel has tied the speed of every bus (USB, SATA, PCI, PCI-E, CPU cores, Uncore, memory etc) to a single internal clock generator issuing the basic 100MHz Base Clock.

This clock gen is integrated into the P67 motherboard chipset and transmits the clock signal to the CPU via the DMI bus. This means there's no need for an external clock generator that used to allow completely separate control of all the individual hardware."

[Octopuss]

Hm, even with unlocked multiplier we will be quite limited. But better than nothing I guess.

[anit77]

It also looks like there will be no ICH11R either. They're tying everything up on one chip.

[Lsdmeasap]

the h67's colour schemes look alot better imo,nice to see more usb/sata3 ports too,i wonder if theyve done away with robbing bandwidth from the pci-e slots when usb3/sata3 enabled?

Solved it seems now, at least with the UD7 variant. See below link

So does the P67A-UD7 have a NF200 chip since it can do 2x16? The UD5 can only do 2x8.

By the way, I love the black/gold/silver color scheme. If EK comes out with a 1156 mount for their Supreme HF, my gold block will blend in quite nicely. :)

It does have NF200, here is a nice new look at UD7 with tons of images and IC information - I see an ICS Clock Gen. on there
GIGABYTE P67A-UD7 Preview | lab501

That is Romanian if anyone needs to know what language to choose for translation