Best Intel motherboards

Now that AMD Bulldozer and Intel Sandy Bridge E CPUs are out, we have a short break before next year's big refresh cycle kicks in with Trinity and Ivy Bridge.

That gives us time to sit back, take stock and figure out which are the best motherboards money can buy right now.

Your choice of platform between Intel and AMD is a somewhat personal one. While Intel has it all sewn up in terms of raw performance and power usage, AMD's still competing well on price largely and motherboards for its new FX chips are much cheaper.

If you just want a low power, cheap PC, AMD's Fusion CPU/GPU hybrids offer better graphics performance than the equivalent Core i3 or Atom chips from Intel.

As CPUs get more energy efficient, though, the days of the giant PC tower are clearly numbered – the real choice is less about which manufacturer you want, and more about size.

Which is why, for this revision to our motherboard buyer's guide, we've included a new category: small form factor boards.

With high end chipsets like the Z68 squeezed into mini-ITX packages, there's almost nothing a big PC can do that a tiny one can't – and they also come in a lot cheaper. Just think about it, OK?

1. Asus Sabertooth X79 - £259

If you want the best of the best, you'll be after one of Intel's new six core Sandy Bridge E processors. These enormous processors require a 2011 pin motherboard socket with quad channel memory support to get the most out of them, which is exactly what the Sabertooth delivers. Right along with most of the overclocking features and multi-GPU support that appears in ASUS' big money Republic of Gamers boards, but for a lot less cash.

Read our Asus Sabertooth X79 review

2. Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 - £77

A PC built around X79 and Sandy Bridge E probably won't need upgrading until the sun goes supernova. But if you're happy to settle for something a little more realistically priced that will merely outlive civilisation as we know it, then grab a socket 1155 Core i5 or Core i7 chip and Gigabyte's astoundingly cheap Z68 board. It's got all the added extras of Z68, including Hydra multi-card graphics support and Intel's brilliant SSD caching technology, for around half the cost of its rivals.

Read our Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 review

3. MSI Z68A-GD65 - £142

Any other full sized Intel board is going to struggle against the Gigabyte above, because it really is very cheap. But MSI comes closest with this fully featured Z68 board that has tons of overclocking options with its automated Genie II system, as well as two more SATA 6Gbps sockets for ultra fast hard drives.

Read our MSI Z68A-GD65 review

4. ASRock Z68 Pro Extreme 4 - £95

On the off chance you don't want to include a discrete graphics card in your next PC and yet aren't interested in a small form factor system, Asrock's Z68 Extreme 4 is the motherboard of choice thanks to a huge variety of video out ports for Sandy Bridge processors. Fortunately, that's not all it has to offer, mind, as it also boasts good passive cooling for all the onboard components and a fair amount of overclocking overhead too.

Read our ASRock Z68 Pro Extreme 4 review

5. Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3-ISSD - £164

Unless you're planning to go for massive overclocks, there's little to be gained by spending more than £100 on an Intel motherboard at the moment. Little, that is, apart from the inclusion of a small SSD drive specifically designed to make use of Intel's SRT smart caching technology. The 20GB drive fits into the special mSATA adaptor below the CPU socket, and intelligent algorithms keep your most commonly accessed files there for fast access.

Read our Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3-ISSD review

Best AMD motherboards

1. ASRock Fatli1ty 990FX Professional - £150

This AMD 990FX board is as fully featured as they come in terms of Crossfire X compatibility the ability to overclock and number of on board SATA 6Gbps ports (it has six). Apart from the fact it'll look good in a windowed case, though, there's also some added extras for gaming, like the dedicated USB port for mice, which can have its polling rate adjusted in a Windows app.

Read our ASRock Fatli1ty 990FX Professional review

2. ASUS M5A99X Evo - £98

If it's value you're after, then it's hard to argue with AMD's second tier 990X chipset which forms the core of the ASUS M5A99X Evo. You may lose out on a second full speed PCI Express port and a handful of SATA 6Gbps ports, but everything else about it is designed to eke out every bit of performance Bulldozer can offer. As far as overclocking and BIOS control goes, it's second to none.

Read our ASUS M5A99X Evo review

3. ASUS RoG Crosshair V Formula - £170

As much as we like ASUS' top of the line Republic of Gamer motherboards they're usually quite hard to recommend because they cost more than most PCs do. With the Crosshair V Formula, though, you get a full size motherboard, Bulldozer FX support and built in Creative X-Fi sound, all for a relatively reasonable price when pitched against its peers. It's almost endlessly tweakable even when it's not fully turned on: a Bluetooth link give you access to the BIOS from a mobile phone.

Read our ASUS RoG Crosshair V Formula review

4. Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7 - £196

Want an AMD processor but multi-card NVIDIA graphics? You're in luck, because the Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7 has everything rival high end 990FX boards do, and four way SLI support as well. Throw in a massive eight SATA 6Gbps connectors and you could build a formidable system around this – if you don't mind paying a bit more, that is.

Read our Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7 review

5. MSI 970A-G5 - £69

The real strength of AMD's current line up is the price. You can get a six core Bulldozer CPU for less the £140 at the moment, which means that with this motherboard you can build a lightning fast system for under £210. Currently retailing for under £70, the 970A-G5 from MSI could be the base of a low cost games machine, with support for two Radeon graphics cards in CrossFire mode and a decent amount of overclocking.

Read our MSI 970A-G5 review

Best Small Form Factor motherboards

1. ASRock Z68M-ITX/HT - £94.03

Mini-ITX is the smallest form factor of motherboard currently available, but thanks to the sterling work of some motherboard designers, there are plenty of options if you want the fastest CPUs possible in your media centre. ASRock's Z68 is a cut above most of the competition, thanks to room for a full size graphics card and THX sound built in.

Read our ASRock Z68M-ITX/HT review

2. Zotac A75-ITX WiFi - £105

Pair this tiny motherboard with one of AMD's Llano processors, and you've got a decent shoe box system that can do anything from office work to gaming. The on board graphics of a Llano hybrid make it a far more rounded chip that Intel's Sandy Bridge: you'll sacrifice a little raw CPU power for a lot of gaming grunt.

Read our Zotac A75-ITX WiFireview

3. MSI A75MA-G55 - £81

The drawback of mini-ITX systems is trying to get enough cooling inside the case to make the cut down size worthwhile. MSI's Llano compatible motherboard uses the slightly larger microATX form factor, which will still fit inside a small case but gives you extra room for a quieter heatsink and better all round airflow. Plus, it's good value too.

Read our MSI A75MA-G55 review

4. Zotac IONITX-P-E - £147

Can't be bothered choosing a chip to go with your motherboard? How about this mini-ITX system in a box which has absolutely everything you need ready assembled? CPU power is provided by the unusual Intel Celeron SU2300, which is paired with NVIDIA ION graphics of the type more commonly seen in netbooks. It doesn't come close to the performance of a Sandy Bridge or Llano PC, but for the size and price it's an unusual and worthwhile design for a HD media centre or living room machine.

Read our Zotac IONITX-P-E review

5. Zotac Z68-ITX WiFi - £130

All you need is a bargain basement Intel Core i3 and some memory, and you've got everything required for a very capable media centre or office machine with WiFi built in. Zotac is aware of the problems that Intel's on board graphics have with games, though, so has included a single PCI Express slot for a discrete graphics board, which means this could be the basis for an unusually small games machine too.

Read our Zotac Z68-ITX WiFi review

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This morning Intel launched its all-singing, all-number crunching Sandy Bridge E processors and brand-spanking new X79 motherboard chipset.

It's not messing around; these are the fastest desktop CPUs that have ever passed across our test benches.

The flagship CPU, the Intel Core i7 3960X, is right up there at the very top-end of processors, and all six-cores of its updated Sandy Bridge E architecture can be yours for nigh-on £750.

So it's no value proposition then.

There is not a little controversy surrounding it though as despite being sold as a straight six-core CPU the literature Intel has given reviewers clearly shows two dormant or dead CPU cores unused on the die.

We've gone into more depth about this in our full Intel Core i7 3960X review.

Still, it is a lightening-fast processor capable of the sort of raw computational prowess you wont see outside of the server environment. It's also no slouch in the overclocking department either, our review chip managed 4.8GHz in Asus's Sabertooth X79 motherboard.

It's not just the top chip that is an overclocking beast, and to demonstrate that we've been gleefully playing with YOYOTech's XDNA Platinum PC.

That's running the cheaper, mid-range Intel Core i7 3930K Sandy Bridge E running at 4.4GHz out of the box.

The other stand out feature of the new Sandy Bridge E processors and X79 chipset is the support for the next generation of memory; quad-channel DDR3.

Quite what improvements this gives, in real-world terms, over triple-channel DDR3 is rather intangible, and to be honest more indicative of the platform's server roots than any importance on the desktop.

If you want the full low-down on Intel's latest offerings, then look no further.

Check out our Sandy Bridge E reviews:

Intel Core i7 3960X:

If you want the fastest processor on the planet, look no further. Most impressive is the additional overclocking headroom Intel has delivered over the old six-core chip. Platform upgrades including more PCI-E lanes and SATA 6Gbps are welcome, too.

Asus Sabertooth X79:

Asus's RoG boards are all very well if money's no object. Back in the real world, the Sabertooth series offers a much more realistic compromise between performance, features and price. The chipset cooling and overclocking support look very solid. We certainly squeezed some great numbers out of the new Core i7-3960X.

YOYOTech XDNA Platinum:

With the XDNA Platinum sat on your desktop, purring away quietly as it does, with its cold-cathode tubes illuminating the clean lines of the immaculate interior, even £2,500 worth of buyer's remorse will have a hard job up against such an impressive machine.

Buying a motherboard: Fusion and Bulldozer

Simple but complicated. That's PC motherboards circa 2011.

On the one hand, there are fewer players in the motherboard chipset market than ever. With Nvidia pretty much out of the game and small time outfits such as Via long gone, you only have to worry about AMD and Intel chipsets.

If that's the simple bit, the complications come courtesy of a PC platform in tumult. There are three big trends at play. First, PCs are becoming ever more integrated. The end game a few years down the line will be PCs based on highly integrated system-on-a-chip devices.

In the meantime, things are getting very messy as some but not all features make their way onto the CPU itself. The most obvious example is on-die graphics.

This matters because the difference between CPUs is no longer a matter of clocks, core counts or cache sizes. There are fundamental functional contrasts and some of them mean new sockets and chipsets are required. It's not much good, for example, having an on-die graphics core or hardware video encoder if your motherboard isn't wired up to make it work.

The second major trend involves power efficiency. Put simply, PC architectures need to become much more power efficient to fend off that billions-strong swarm of tiny ARM-based processors. Intel's response is the Atom processor, not a chip that we've been remotely interested in for the desktop so far.

However, AMD's low-power Bobcat core is a little more compelling thanks to out-of-order processing and a half-decent graphics core.

Meanwhile, AMD's new Llano processors neatly combine both the integration and power efficiency trends in a single, intriguing quad-core design. Of course, just like integration, power efficiency shakes up the PC platform. Both Bobcat and Llano require new sockets and boards.

Finally, and somewhat contradicting the integration trend, remember that interesting new technologies often first appear courtesy of add-in chips. Think Nvidia's SLI-enhancing NF200 controller or Lucid's vendor-agnostic Hydra multi-GPU chip.

But there are other features, such as Intel's upcoming Thunderbolt that also fall into this category. All of which means choosing a motherboard is more challenging than ever. But don't sweat it. PCF is here to help.

What kind of PC do you want? That is the question. More than any other component, the motherboard sets the tone and defines the ultimate capabilities and limitations of your rig. This stuff matters.

Take the latest trend towards compact, power efficient and highly integrated PCs. If that tickles your fancy, you'll obviously need a low-power CPU. But you'll also need the right motherboard. Choose wisely and the result will be a snazzily-specced system with relatively few compromises compared to a full-fat PC.

A nice example involves systems based on AMD's new low-power Zacate CPUs. OK, the Bobcat CPU core design inside Zacate ain't exactly a powerhouse. But its 80-shader graphics core isn't too shabby and the whole shebang gets the job done for most things short of gaming.

Even better, if you pick up a Zacate motherboard for around £100, you'll actually get the CPU with integrated graphics thrown in, making for a very cost effective system.

To take just one example, Asus's AMD E35M1-M PRO Zacate board has everything from SATA 6Gbps to USB 3.0 and HDMI along with a dual-core processor and integrated graphics and all for around £110. Just add memory and an SSD and you've got yourself a multi-core PC with DX11 graphics.

The AMD Fusion family

The other low-power option from AMD is the new Llano chip, otherwise known as the A-Series processor. Like Zacate, Llano doesn't drop into AMD's family of mainstream AMx sockets. It has its own FM1 socket. Llano gives you four Phenom II-class cores and the most powerful integrated graphics the world has ever seen.

The result is not a truly high performance platform. But given the sub-£100 price of a Llano chip and another £80 for a decent FM1 board with USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps, you've got a very nice package for under £200.

In terms of motherboard chipsets for all of these AMD Fusion processors, there's not a great deal to worry about. Many key features are located on the CPU, making the chipset less critical. Essentially, you've a choice of two known as Hudson D1 and Hudson D3.

The latter is the one to go for thanks to support for dual PCI-e graphics and four native USB 3.0 lanes. It also supports two dual-link displays, which is essential if you're a high-resolution monitor junky.

Of course, the obvious downside to both Zacate and Llano is that you can't just drop in a more powerful CPU down the road. You're locked into a low-power platform with a proprietary socket. For us, that probably restricts AMD's current Fusion chips to duty in secondary systems and casual computing rather than primary PCs.

As for Intel's low power efforts: don't bother. The Atom processor has no place in any desktop. Its processor core architecture is too weedy and its chipsets with integrated graphics are worse. Third party chipsets from the likes of Nvidia are better but still not good enough.

In any case, Intel will soon give Atom graphics on-die and entirely cut third parties out in the process. Meanwhile, the low-powered version of Intel's Core CPUs are simply overpriced.

AMD Bulldozer

If that's the shizzle regarding the rage for all things low-power, what about pukka performance PCs? The big noise here is AMD's Bulldozer CPU. Or at least it would be if Bulldozer had been launched on time. But it hasn't and we're still waiting for it.

The interspaz scuttlebutt reckons AMD has been through B0, B1 and most recently B2 steppings trying to sort out Bulldozer's performance.

Meanwhile, leaked benchmarks purporting to reveal performance from the top quad-module Bulldozer processor put its performance somewhere between a quad-core Intel Core i7 2600K and Intel's top six-core Gulftown chips.

All we can say for sure is that launch events have been cancelled and the chip is clearly in some sort of trouble.

Given AMD's recent track record, we're not exactly dying of surprise. The first quad-core Phenom processor was a complete disaster, for instance, and its worth remembering AMD hasn't launched a new architecture since the Athlon in 2003.

But it is extremely frustrating, especially because Intel seems increasingly to be sand bagging at the top of its range.

The new high-end Sandy Bridge-E chips due out later this year will stick with six cores. We reckon Intel would be doing eight or even 12-core chips if AMD was putting up more of fight. So, the sooner AMD's pseudo oct-core Bullies can arrive, the sooner we can have one of those performance wars that invariably result in faster chips for less cash.

When Bulldozer does finally arrive, probably no sooner than October at this rate, the good news is that it will be mechanically compatible with all existing AM3 boards.

The first Bulldozer-based chip, code named Zambezi, slated to be sold under the AMD FX banner, doesn't have integrated graphics and it sticks with a dual-channel memory controller, so it doesn't need a radical new interface with lots of extra pins. The moderately bad news is that it will only be supported on AM3+ boards. Where things get a little complicated is chipset support.

Currently, you can buy AM3+ boards based on everything from the ancient 7 Series chipset through the 8 Series and now the spangly new 9 Series. In theory, all should be compatible with Zambezi, with 9 Series boards working out of the box and the older motherboards requiring a BIOS update from the manufacturer.

Up the Zambezi

What's not clear is whether there will be any benefit to be had from the new and supposedly Bulldozer-optimised 9 Series chipset. The facts as we know them pertaining to the top-rung 990FX go something like this: The 990FX and SB950 southbridge chips are literally the same silicon as the older 890FX and SB850 chips.

However, AMD has upped the HyperTransport specification from 3.0 to 3.1, delivering a bandwidth boost from 5.2Gtps to 6.4Gtps. The 9 Series will also be the first AMD chipset with full Nvidia SLI multi-GPU support and without the need for that silly NF200 controller chip.

Turbo Core 2.0 is another feature that may turn out to be chipset-dependent for full support. Similar to existing Turbo features from both AMD and Intel, it promises to maximise performance by clocking cores according to load.

AMD says that an eight-core Bulldozer chip will boost by as much as 1GHz when up to half the cores are active. That said, we were expecting the top Zambezi model to be rated nominally at 3.2GHz and top out at 3.9GHz with Turbo boost before the delays hit.

Time will tell, but Bulldozer can't come soon enough and we certainly wouldn't consider buying an AM3 board with AM3+ models now available for as little as £50.

Indeed, if you're planning on going with Bulldozer but need to build a rig now, you have the option of picking up an AM3+ board along with something like a £60 triple-core Athlon II chip. Then chuck the tripler on eBay when Bulldozer finally shows up.

But what about Intel? The big change coming from the biggest noise in processors arrives with Panther Point chipsets, otherwise known as the 7 Series. At the top end is the X79 chipset, taking over from the crusty old X58 chipset.

There's a new socket, too, boasting a scarcely credible 2,011 pins. Say hello to LGA 2011. It replaces LGA 1366 and needs so many pins because the new Sandy Bridge-E processor has no fewer than four memory channels.

Existing triple-channel Bloomfield and Gulftown processors aren't exactly memory-starved, so you're in good company if you can't quite understand why Intel is adding even more memory bandwidth.

The explanation, of course, is that the extra bandwidth is almost definitely redundant on the desktop. But the LGA 2011 socket is really designed for multi-socket workstations and servers. And when you have multiple sockets in the same system, bandwidth is king.

Buying a motherboard: 6 and 7 Series chipsets

Come in number 7

Other aspects of interest involving X79 and Sandy Bridge-E include PCI Express going on-die and upgrading to 3.0. What you don't get, however, is native USB 3.0 support in the chipset or integrated graphics.

The latter might not seem a great loss regarding a high-end CPU likely to be paired with a monster GPU on a discrete graphics card.

But it means you miss out on Intel's funky Quick Sync hardware video encode acceleration. Forking out well over £500 for a Sandy Bridge CPU only to find it lacks a trick feature found on older chips available for £100 doesn't sound too clever to us.

But then Intel's high end platforms of recent years have rarely withstood rational analysis. They're all about willy waving. And that means it's the lesser 7 Series chipsets and the CPUs that go with them that will really be interesting. The great news is that Intel is sticking with the LGA 1155 socket for mainstream 7 Series chipsets and in turn the new 22nm Ivy Bridge processors.

Belatedly, Intel will also bring native USB 3.0 support to mainstream 7 Series chipsets. Of all the new chipsets in the 7 Series, it's the Z77 and Z75 that look most interesting. The Z77 is effectively the replacement for the current Z68 while the Z75 offers a similar but slightly lower cost solution that only lacks Intel's Smart Response Technology SSD caching and three-way multi graphics support. No biggie, then.

That said, all of the new 7 Series LGA 1155 consumer chipsets support both integrated graphics and overclocking, so it looks like there won't be any really duff options. Likewise, you get native USB 3.0 support across the whole family of LGA 1155 7 Series. Intel, itseems, has finally learned some lessons from the debacle that was the P67 chipset.

The final major upgrade comes in the form of PCI Express 3.0. In the past, when PCI-e lanes were provided by the motherboard chipset, you had the option of going for a high-end board if you fancied hooking up several graphics cards. But now that mainstream Intel CPUs have integrated PCI Express controllers, that's not an option.

So,the boost from 500MB/s per lane to 1GB/s per lane that comes with PCI-e 3.0 is very welcome and ensures there's plenty of bandwidth for running multiple, next-generation graphics chips in parallel. Remember, of course, that the CPU must include a compatible PCI Express controller to get the full 3.0 experience.

Six is still sexy

Ironically, one of the more interesting aspects of the new 7 Series is what its carry-over LGA1155 socket means for older chipsets. The new Ivy Bridge processors will actually be compatible with some existing 6 Series motherboards. Shock, awe and horror, we know. But true. For once you won't actually have to buy a new motherboard to run the latest Intel processor.

Due out around March next year, Ivy Bridge is a 'Tick' in Intel speak, meaning it's a die shrink to 22nm rather than a brand new architecture. However, thanks to Intel's new triple-gated transistors, the new 22nm node is said to deliver a near two-node performance leap. Other hot new features include Quick Sync 2.0 and a revised graphics core likely to offer 16 rather than 12 execution units. On-die PCI Express 3.0 is also part of the mix but is one of the features that will not be available when hooking Ivy Bridge CPUs up to 6 Series chipsets.

All of which pretty much brings us up to date with the state of play in the world of motherboards today. There's lots of great new technology already available or coming soon. But here's the best bit.

Despite the flux, CPUs are experiencing, and this applies to what both Intel and AMD are delivering, a modicum of stability on the motherboard front. Later this year and early next, a slew of new processors with funky features are due. But at least some existing chipsets and motherboards are already compatible.

That's important because it means you can build a new system today confident that there's a simple drop-in CPU upgrade path available 12 months down the road. At least it does if you chose the right motherboard.

Retro computer enthusiast Amigakit has announced that its AmigaOne X1000 desktop will be with us for Christmas - with a whopping price tag of £2,000.

A labour of love for its creators, Trevor Dickinson, Anthony Moorley and Ben Hermans, it packs a custom-built motherboard running a semi-dual core processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, a 500GB hard drive and a Radeon HD4650 graphics card.

Those specs aren't all that alluring, especially given the whopping price tag, but it's still worth bearing in mind that the AmigaOne has been built from the ground up to run AmigaOS4. Which itself is an optional extra.

First-come only-served

The desktop will be built and sold on a first-come first-served basis, but we're not entirely sure who's going to buy it.

It's more intriguing as a proof of concept though - it shows that established chip architectures aren't the only way to go about building a PC, and that long-dead operating systems can still be resurrected.

We're interested in what AmigaKit does next, too - it's mentioned that the AmigaOS4 could be ported to netbooks.

Taiwan component and computer manufacturer Asus has launched its ROG Maximus IV Gene-Z/Gen3 and P8Z68/Gen3 series motherboards.

The motherboards are said by the company to be the first in the industry with "genuine compatibility for PCI Express 3.0 support."

PCI Express 3.0 is the latest upgrade to the popular add-in card format, and boosts performance from 16GB/s to 32GB/s via the same 16x physical connection.

This requires an upgraded set of components, such as PCI Express 3.0 switching integrated circuits.

The motherboards also pack future-proofed hardware and UEFI BIOS support for Intel's upcoming 22nm processors, while being backwards-compatible with PCI Express 2.0 hardware.

Quality Street

Asus says it's "committed itself" to a quality assurance process before shipping its motherboards, in order to ensure everything works as it should.

Asus' latest motherboards also include all the bells and whistles we'd expect, such as four SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports, eight-channel audio, Bluetooth 2.1 and 12 USB 2.0 ports.

In addition, Asus has announced that more than 80 of its current non-SLI motherboards can also take advantage of PCI Express 3.0 and Intel's 22nm processors - presumably in a more limited capacity - thanks to a BIOS update.

Best Sandy Bridge motherboard

Fact number one. Intel makes the finest PC processors on the planet and has done consistently ever since the first Core 2 chips rolled out way back in summer 2006.

Fact number two. It's still prone to occasional cock-ups. Look no further than the Sandy Bridge chipset debacle.

Funnily enough, we're not talking about the recall of the P67 chipset due to a broken SATA controller, though that was bad enough. Nor are we complaining once about Intel's addiction to pointless new CPU sockets.

Lest you've forgotten, the latest Sandy Bridge processors come a new socket that is different to its predecessor to tune of just one pin and exists, we believe, purely to force punters to upgrade their motherboards.

Nope, the real problems with the initial Sandy Bridge compatible chipsets: the P67 and H67, involve Intel's intriguing Quick Sync video feature and overclocking. In short, you could have support for one, but not the other.

Overclockers had to go with the P67 and discrete graphics, video encoders wanting to make use of Quick Sync needed H67 and had to give up on high-end 3D performance. Locking H67 owners out of most of the overclocking features we can just about understand. It's cynical as hell, but just makes commercial sense.

But not ensuring the Quick Sync transcoder hardware that's in every single Intel Sandy Bridge CPU is always enabled? Well, that's an utterly bizarre oversight.

Solving problems

Pretty soon after the release of the H67 and P67 chipsets, it became apparent Intel was painfully aware of the problems and details of a solution began to leak out. This new chipset was Z68 and on paper at least it brought together the best bits of P67 and H67 along with one or two extras.

The Z68 chipset has now been released, and offers support for both the unlocked CPU cores in the latest Sandy Bridge chips and the HD Graphics on-die GPU and with it Quick Sync video encode acceleration. Of course, none of this is much consolation if you already stumped up the cash for a P67 or H67 motherboard.

Likewise, Z68 boards come at a price premium. But then really good things don't come cheap from Intel. If the Z68 is the answer to all your Intel chipset needs, how exactly does it get the job done?

The most intriguing part of the Z68 package is how it fixes the Quick Sync problem. Quick Sync, of course, is the hardware 2D video acceleration engine found in the new 2000-series Core i3, i5 and i7 Sandy Bridge processors from Intel, the chips otherwise known as Sandy Bridge.

When it comes to number crunching, almost any job can be done quicker with some dedicated circuitry, so that's exactly what Intel has provided for transcoding video. The thing about Quick Sync, however, is that it uses both the dedicated hardware and the graphics processors in the integrated Intel HD Graphics integrated GPU to get the job done. That's important because it means the HD Graphics core must be enabled for Quick Sync to do its transcoding thing.

For the P67 chipset, that's out of the question. It doesn't support the on-die HD Graphics core at all. As for the H67, things are a little more complicated. As good as the HD Graphics 3000 is for an integrated graphics core, serious gaming requires a drop-in video card. Do that, however, and you lose the integrated graphics and in turn Quick Sync video. What a mess.

Enter, then, the angelic Z68 chipset, sent to save our computing souls. On paper, the Z68 does it all. It supports Sandy Bridge's integrated GPU but also has full access to the CPU multipliers that enable overclocking with Intel's latest chips.

However, what the Z68 doesn't immediately seem to deliver is a solution to the problem of keeping Quick Sync ticking over when using a dedicated graphics card.

Lucid answer

The answer, remarkably, comes not from Intel itself but from Lucid, a relatively little known outfit that specialises in multi-GPU technology. We've known Lucid for a while thanks to the Hydra chip.

Regular readers will know the Hydra chip allows GPUs from different vendors to work together for better gaming performance. It's a nice idea, not least because it means you no longer have to be locked down to either Nvidia's SLI platform or CrossFire from AMD. It puts the choice and power back where it should be, in the hands of gamers.

Fortunately, however, the solution to the Quick Sync problem isn't the Hydra chip. We say fortunately because adding complexity and cost is never a good idea, especially when the aim is merely to get something working as it should have done in the first place.

Instead, Lucid has come up with a new technology known as Virtu and it's pure software. As the name suggests, the idea here is GPU virtualisation. Just like Hydra, it works by intercepting graphics API calls before they reach the GPUs. With Hydra, the task was load balancing between two data-hungry, high-performance GPUs, hence the need for dedicated hardware.

Virtu is actually somewhat simpler. It aims to match whole applications with GPUs for the best performance. Early versions of Virtu required the PC monitor to be plugged into the motherboard's video socket, presenting problems for people with monitors capable of resolutions beyond 1080p HD (the limit for the motherboard's output).

Lucid has since nixed that restriction, allowing gamers to plug directly into their performance GPUs while keeping Quick Sync enabled. The result is a setup that allows you to seamlessly play games on a powerful video card and code video files on the integrated Intel HD graphics core. Frankly, it's how the platform should have worked in the first place.

Given that Virtu is a software feature, you might wonder whether there's any reason why it shouldn't work with the H67 and also the budget-orientated H61 chipset. The answer is that it does, but there is a problem of software licensing.

To cut a long story short, it's up to motherboard makers to decide exactly how to license Virtu. But one thing is clear. Virtu doesn't work with the P67 chipset.

Solid compromises

The Z68's other major new feature is SSD caching, known in Intel-speak as Smart Response Technology. Now, it's an absolute fact that solid state drives (SSDs) make for a faster and more responsive PC compared to ye olde hard drives with spinning magnetic platters. Of course, SSDs are still expensive and not terribly capacious.

But what if you could have the performance of an SSD and capacity of traditional drive for a much smaller premium?

Smart Response works by using a small SSD as a cache drive storing the most frequently accessed data. In theory, if you have all of the most performance-critical data accessible on a compact 20GB SSD, there's no need to pay full whack for a bigger drive. Instead you can plump for a dirt cheap magnetic hard drive for mass storage.

In practice, Smart Response does perform better than a conventional drive. But it's still significantly slower than a stand-alone SSD. So while Smart Response just about adds up with today's SSD pricing, it probably won't be too long before SSDs in the 60GB to 100GB range become affordable enough to make it redundant.

As it happens, Smart Response is also a little like Lucid's Virtu tech in so far as it's a software rather than hardware feature. But since Smart Response is a wholly owned Intel technology, it's not up to motherboard makers to decide which boards to bundle it with. Intel has decreed that it's reserved for Z68 boards regardless of the fact that it would work perfectly well with the existing P67, H67 and H61 chipsets.

All of which makes the Z68 a bit of a mixed bag. In simple hardware terms, it brings nothing new. It's effectively the same chipset as the H67. But courtesy of bringing P67's overclocking chops together with a little help from Lucid to get Quick Sync working properly, the Z68 is undoubtedly the best platform for Sandy Bridge chips.

It's the motherboard chipset Intel should have offered from the very beginning. Better late than never.

But what's the best Intel Sandy Bridge motherboard? We've put eight through their paces to find out.

Intel Z68 motherboard reviews

ASRock Z68 Extreme 4 - £120

ASRock has four Z68 boards in its mobo line-up from the all-singing, all-dancing flagship Fatal1ty Z68 Professional Gen3 to the quietly confident Z68 Pro3-M.

We've got two of ASRock's new boards based on this new chipset, the Z68 Pro3 and the fuller featured and newest edition to ASRock's extensive range of boards carrying the Extreme banner, the Z68 Extreme. This sits just under the Fatal1ty Z68 board in the family line-up.

Once everybody discovered the limitations of the Sandy Bridge's launch chipsets; namely the P67's lack of support for the new processor's integrated graphics but lots of overclocking potential and the H67's graphic support but no OC-ability, keen eyes were fixed on the Z68, the next enthusiast/mainstream 6 series chipset on Intel's roadmap.

The Z68 offers the best of both worlds with integrated graphics and overclocking support.

Read the full ASRock Z68 Extreme 4 review

ASRock Z68 Pro3 - £95

ASRock has built up a reputation for building bullet-proof mobos with very competitive price tags and the Z68 Pro 3 certainly isn't a board to let the company down on either score.

It's a bit of a surprise to see a fairly well-featured, mainstream motherboard carrying the latest Intel technology for just over a hundred quid. In our bargain-hunting terms it definitely warrants further investigation. It's so well-priced that it's worth getting if you want a no-nonsense board to try out the Z68 chipset.

It's a board that's pretty hard to look beyond too; the overclocking support of the P67 merged with the integrated graphics support of the H67, Intel's Smart Response Technology (SRT) and Lucid's Virtu software are impressive. The bundled Virtu software lets you use Intel's impressive QuickSync video encoding technology even if you have a discrete graphics card in place, and includes some healthy power-saving functions too.

One look at the board shows you where ASRock has cut the Z68 Pro 3's feature set to get it to this price and its mainstream audience: there's only a single, solitary x16 PCI-e slot. Yes, no CrossFire or SLI support.

Read the full ASRock Z68 Pro3 review

Asus RoG Maximus IV Extreme - £260

Should you see Foxconn's H61 as the Fiat 500 of this Sandy Bridge mobo group test then Asus's Maximus Extreme IV has to be the Bugatti Veyron. It's big, brash, crammed full of features and eyewateringly expensive. But then it also comes with blistering performance too.

To say the feature list of the Maximus IV Extreme is good is to do it a disservice. The list seems endless: dual channel DDR3 support up to 2,200MHz (OC), support for 3-way SLI and CrossFireX via four PCI-e slots, four SATA 6Gbps and four SATA 3Gbps and eight USB 3.0 ports on the rear panel – and that's just for starters.

You can run quad-SLI on this board if you fancy, but you'll have to pick up Asus' bizarre plug in daughter board.

Unfortunately, as the board uses the P67 chipset there's no way to access the integrated graphics of the Sandy Bridge processors but on the flip side it fully supports the overclocking capabilities of the K series Sandy Bridge CPU's. And that's what this board's all about: straight-line performance.

Read the full Asus RoG Maximus IV Extreme review

Asus P8Z68-V Pro - £147

One of the first Z68 boards to break cover was the P8Z68-V Pro and it's a typical Asus board, well-built and packed to the gills with features. Intel's Z68 is the missing link between the Integrated Graphics Processor (IGP) support of the H67 and the overclocking potential of the P67 chipsets, and is a neat hybrid of the two.

You'll still need a K series processor to do the overclocking bit, but you can now overclock and use Intel's rather good Quick Sync video encoding technology with a discrete GPU plugged in too.

It, therefore, seems a bit subdued of Asus to have only five board's based around the new chipset, with two of these being in the all-singing, all-dancing Republic Of Gamers family.

If you are familiar with Asus motherboard's you might be saying to yourself: "Hang on a minute, isn't that a P8P67 Pro?" Well, yes the boards are very similar in appearance but Asus has tweaked a few things here and there, and moved components around and bringing in new ones.

Read the full Asus P8Z68-V Pro review

Foxconn H61MX - £56

At the top end of the Intel 6 series, Sandy Bridge-supporting, chipset range there's the mighty Z68 which powers some of the most powerful and expensive motherboards around, while at the other of the scale sits the lowly, value-oriented H61.

It may be low in performance and support less built-in features compared to its flashier siblings, but in the eyes of the mobo manufacturers it is the real star of the chipset line-up as it's pitched at the end of the market where boards are made cheaply and sold by the boat load.

The H61 is a seriously pared- and cutdown version of the H67 chipset. With only the elder-statesmen of interfaces on offer: SATA 3Gbps and USB 2.0 port support, it's an ideal low-cost platform for entry level PCs.

Foxconn's H61MX doesn't add many other features over what's supplied by the chipset, and what it has added looks like it's mostly looking to the corporate market rather than the home user.

This may explain why the board has the added cost of a header for a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) and a couple of straight PCI slots which need a third party controller (the chipset doesn't natively support PCI) rather than adding a couple more video outputs other than the VGA and DVI.

Read the full Foxconn H61MX review

Gigabyte H67MA-UD2H - £95

The H67 chipset may not have the overclocking capability of its performance sibling, the P67 but with its full support for the integrated graphics of Sandy Bridge processors it makes an ideal base to build a powerful home theatre PC. This hasn't gone unnoticed by mobo manufacturers as most, if not all, have H67-based microATX form factor board ranges; the format most used in HTPCs.

There once was a time when the microATX format was seen as the poor relation to full-sized ATX boards, but one one look at the feature-rich Gigabyte H67MA-UD2H tells you that those days are long gone. With its full HD and Blu-ray movie playback support, thanks to an integrated HMDI 1.4 video output, and support for Dolby Home Theater sound, the H67MA-UD2H is an ideal candidate for that powerful media PC.

On the performance side of things the H67MA-UD2H is stifled somewhat by the lack of overclocking support on the CPU side, and the chipset only supports DDR3 memory up to 1,333MHz. But then again no one would buy a H67-based board for performance; it's all about the multimedia support the boards bring thanks to the chipset.

Read the full Gigabyte H67MA-UD2H review

Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3-ISSD - £202

Gigabyte has wasted no time in producing boards using the new chipset, in fact you could say they have gone slightly overboard with the excitement of it all, as they have no less that 20 motherboards currently in their line-up.

That said it has almost entirely pulled out of the P67 platform, seeing the Z68 as its demise. The plan is to only produce one P67 mobo going forward.

Sitting amongst the awkwardly named Z68 line-up though are five boards (GA-Z68XP-UD3, GA-Z68XP-D3, GA-Z68AP-D3, GA-Z68P-DS3 GAZ68XP-UD3-iSSD) which all have one thing in common; they are the first desktop boards to be fitted with mSATA connections on the PCB.

This allows the mounting of a small form factor SSD to work alongside Intel's Smart Response Technology (SRT) and of the five, only the GA-Z68XP-UD3-iSSD comes with a drive already in place. The drive bundled with the board comes in the shape of one of Intel's new 20GB MLC 311 series SSDs.

Read the full Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3-ISSD review

MSI Z68A-GD65 - £150

No look at any new motherboard technology would be complete without at least one example from MSI. Strangely, when you look on MSI's global website there are seven boards using Z68 but on the UK site there's just this solitary example: the Z68A-GD65 (B3). It's just as well it's a well-featured board then.

Just like the Asus P8Z68-V Pro there is more than a passing resemblance to a previous MSI P67 board; in this case the P67A-GD65. It comes with all the goodies found on MSI's better equipped boards: OC Genie II, Military Class components in the power design, APS (Active Phase Switching) Click BIOS and MSI's UEFI BIOS with its large easy to use interface.

For the time being MSI has all its UK motherboard eggs in this one basket, so how's the weave? MSI defiantly had the enthusiast in mind when it designed Z68A-GD65.

It has some features on the board that only they could appreciate; for example there is a check point block to take direct measurements of various voltages the board is using via a probe. On the bottom edge of the board there are a couple of large power and reset buttons for use with an open case or test bench.

Read the full MSI Z68A-GD65 review

TechRadar Labs becnhmarks

With so much of the logic traditionally housed on the northbridge being shifting over to the CPU, the real-world performance differences between these motherboards can initially seem subtle.

Indeed, at stock speeds there's not a lot to separate them in gaming, video encoding or rendering. The devil, as ever, is in the details.

Take a look at the overclocking potential and power consumption and you'll see light between the best boards and those that are simply average.

And the best Intel Z68 motherboard is… ASRock Z68 Pro3

So was the Z68 worth waiting for? Well, in a word yes. In fact a very big yes. So much so that if the debacle over the SATA 3Gbps fault in the original P67 chipset was worth giving the last rites to the P67, then the Z68 has nailed the coffin firmly shut.

The new chipset is what the P67 should have been to start with: a high-end/performance chipset that supported both Intel's iGPU and some CPU overclocking chops too. The Z68 chipset though also brings with it a couple of interesting technologies.

Z is for za-za-zoom

As well as the Lucid Virtu tech there's Intel's Smart Response Technology (SRT) a fancy name for SSD caching. It's a great idea and it works well although it does take a while before the files get cached.

A bigger fly in the ointment is the availability of cheap, low-capacity SSDs which are pretty thin on the ground. That's where Gigabyte's Z68XP-UD3-iSSD settles into its own little niche outside of the rest of the boards in the test. Coming with a 20GB Intel SSD for just another £50, over equivalent Z68 boards makes it worth a look if the SRT tech floats your boat but the cost of SSDs doesn't.

Now with the arrival of the Z68 chipset the question is whether you should you even bother looking at a P67 board if you are in the market to upgrade? Unless you're a serious gamer then the answer is definitely no.

If you've been holding out against the switch to a Sandy Bridge board because of worries about the P67, then worry no more, go for Z68.

So which out the motherboards we've reviewed should stand on top of the podium?

Starting at the value end of things, the only thing we can say about the Foxconn H61MX is that it's a Sandy Bridge board for just £60. There's a good reason for that: it's very, very basic.

If you don't need overclocking then stretch the budget to get Gigabyte's H67MA-UD2H, which is £30 more but the user experience is much better.

If money is no object and integrated graphics aren't of interest but lots of overclocking options are and more features than you can shake a stick at then the mighty Maximus Extreme IV is the perfect choice. Until we get hold of Asus' RoG Z68 board this is still as good as it gets for the Sandy Bridge gamer.

All of which just leaves us with the Z68 boards. Gigabyte's Z68XP-UD3-iSSD is the most expensive but with a 20GB SSD built-in it's hardly surprising.

Both the MSI Z68A-GD65 and the Asus P8Z68-V Pro are well-featured, well-performing boards but we can't help but be drawn to the two ASRock offerings. The Extreme 4 has a decent feature list for not much money, but our bouquet winner is the ASRock Z68 Pro 3.

It may not be as feature-rich as some of the other motherboards, but if you want to try out Intel's new chipset, the Pro 3 will set you back just under a hundred quid. To show how good a deal that is, it's only a tenner more than Gigabyte's H67MA-UD2H.

How to overclock the Intel Z68

There's a lot to smile about when it comes to Intel's latest chipset; Z68 puts right the silly mistakes and arbitrary differences between P67 and H67 platforms, and one of the biggest improvements is overclocking.

If you've got a Z68 motherboard, you can increase your core multiplier, DDR3 memory ratios, boost your power and current limits - as you can on the P67 platform.

Where the Z68 differs from the P67 chipset, though, is in the processor graphics core of the Sandy Bridge chips. You can overclock that too, at the same time as CPU core multipliers. That means you can get faster frame rates if you're playing games with on-die graphics, and reap the general benefits of a quicker CPU, all at once.

So why should you overclock your system if you have a Z68 motherboard? Well, simply because you can. Because previous Sandy Bridge chipsets didn't allow this freedom, and because Sandy Bridge CPUs themselves have tons of overclocking potential. But first…

A word of warning though. Tweaking your CPU and graphics at the same time is nothing new, but when a discrete card's providing the grunt, power and current are increased over separate areas of your computer, and the same goes for temperature. When the graphics are on die though, all the extra performance you dial in comes from one rather delicate two centimetre slice of silicon. As a result, it's harder to keep temperatures in the safe zone.

Moreover, the benefits of tweaking the iGPU and CPU at the same time are dubious. We noticed that at times performances actually dropped when we boosted them both, likely due to all that heat and throttling. It's a balancing act boosting them to the right amount. Get it right though and you can boost the iGPU to produce frame rates that really make the difference between unplayable, playable, and infuriating.

Our test rig for this project is an Intel Core i7 2600K in an Asus P8Z68 V Pro, cooled by CoolIt's ECO ALC water cooler. We've seen very impressive numbers posted by that CPU, as high as 5.2 GHz on enthusiast mobos like the MSI Big Bang Marshal. With some diligent tweaking we squeezed a very stable 5.0 GHz out of it. Bearing in mind we used a relatively cheap cooler and motherboard, that ain't half bad.

Every CPU and motherboard has its own overclocking threshold though, and results can vary significantly between seemingly identical chips, particularly the amount of voltage they can hack. So this guide isn't about achieving a certain GHz, it's about getting the most from your particular system.

Right, now lets get elbow-deep into all the funky BIOS options your Z68 motherboard has to offer and see what we can get out of this chip.

1. Let The BIOS do the work

The simplest overclocking method is to run an auto-overclock procedure like Asus' OC tuner. With one click you'll get a useful slice of extra performance auto adjusting CPU ratio, voltage and BCLK frequency. Your rig might restart a few times before it finds the best settings. The downside to this technique is that it doesn't absolutely push the boundaries the way you could by tweaking manually…

2. Know your settings

…and if you're going to get your hands dirty, the key settings to examine are CPU ratio and CPU Vcore. Ratio's going to ramp up your core clock frequencies and Vcore is the main source of power for your CPU. Most of your time is going to be spent tweaking these two settings. It's useful at this point to turn off SpeedStep and set Load Line Calibration to auto. This will avoid throttling at higher temps.

3. Learn your multiplication tables

CPU ratio (aka multiplier) will accept any number between 34 and 56, which would hypothetically give a stonking 5.6GHz. Tiny increments are the key: ramp up the multiplier in twos. If your system boots, load up a CPU-heavy benchmark like Cinebench 11.5 and run it a few times. If it passes the stress test, head back to the BIOS and increase the ratio by another 1 to 2.

4. Trial and error

Eventually you'll hit a wall and crash. Here's where Vcore comes in. You want to run with as little voltage as possible, so when you've maxed the ratio, increase the Vcore a little to give your CPU more juice. The sweet spot is around 1.44V to 1.55V, but again, increase slowly and stress test if it boots. Ignore CPU PLL and PCH-increasing these voltages won't give you any more overclocking room.

5. Push the limits

If you over-volt, you'll get a POST screen error message. Go back to your last good setting, then try increasing the ratio some more. When you max both ratio and Vcore, you can still squeeze a drop more from BCLK/PCI-e, so try adding 1 to the current value. Depending on your RAM speeds, you may need to actually clock it down to find an appropriate speed for your memory.

6. One-stop graphics boost

To boost processor graphics performance, iGPU max frequency is your man. As mentioned the benefits of clocking CPU and iGPU at the same time are questionable, but increasing the iGPU frequency by just 100MHz will give you higher frame rates. Stress test with a gaming benchmark then reboot and increase by another 50MHz or so. Voila. You've made full use of the overclocking features of Z68 gratis.

Sapphire has announced the latest addition to its motherboard range with the Pure Platinum Z68 bringing support for the latest SandyBridge processors from Intel.

The Sapphire Pure Platinum Z68 is a full ATX board with socket LGA1155 for the latest Core i3, i5 and i7 processors.

The mobo has four dual channel memory sockets, two USB 3.0 ports and four USB 2.0 ports (plus 8 on headers).

SATA overload

Also on offer is Gigabit LAN, Bluetooth, four SATA II 3G ports and two SATA III 6G ports.

Video output options include CPU-VGA, DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort – any two of which can be used at the same time.

For your graphics cards there are two PCI-E Gen3 x16 slots spaced to allow CrossFireX link up, and there is an additional PCI-E x16 slot and three standard PCI slots.

The Sapphire Pure Platinum Z68 is available now through the usual channels.

The Serial ATA International Organization has announced two new specifications for its humongously popular SATA interface - SATA Express and µSSD.

The SATA Express specification piggybacks the PCI Express interface to enable epic device speeds of 8Gb/s and 16GB/s - a marked increase on the current maximum of 6Gb/s.

The new specification is expected to be low-cost, and will support both current and new SATA devices.

"We expect the SATA Express specification to be completed by the end of 2011," said Mladen Luksic, the SATA-IO president.

Embed with Sandisk

The keyboard-challenging µSSD interface allows small SSD chips to be embedded directly on the motherboard itself.

By completely eliminating the standard SATA connector motherboards can be made more compact and far slimmer - a big advantage for the small motherboards that currently occupy laptops and tablets.

Memory manufacturer Sandisk has already started making its postage stamp-size iSSD chips in 8GB to 128GB flavours.

What's not clear is whether or not the chips will be consumer-upgradeable - we're guessing that they'll be soldered directly onto the motherboard itself.

This could make the µSSDs very appealing to certain console manufacturers, who'd rather their consumers didn't swap their tiny hard drives for far bigger ones.

Taiwan component manufacturer Cooler Master has announced the Hyper 612S CPU cooling solution, which is compatible with Intel and AMD processors.

The cooler features a modular design, which means an additional 120mm fan can be added to the heatsink, which results in an extra-chilly processor.

Cooler Master reckons that the cooler is nice and quiet, too, thanks to six copper heat pipes. This layout crosses the CPU's "hot spots", effectively results 12 "virtual" heat pipes. It also includes a "silent mode adapter", which makes the 612S even quieter without sacrificing too much cooling.

Quick removal

In addition, the 612S includes a bracket which clips over your processor and means the fan and heatsink can be removed "within seconds". This makes the annual removal of matted clods of dust from your cooler far easier.

The aluminium fins have also been optimised, resulting in a massive surface area. The fan's life is estimated at 40,000 hours, and the whole thing weighs a whopping 806 grams.

It's interesting that Cooler Master hasn't taken the completely fanless approach of NoFan, of which we're big fans. However, the Hyper 612S could be a good option for overclockers, or people simply wanting to build a PC that doesn't sound like a 747 taking off.

The Hyper 612S has a UK release date of September, and will be priced at £39.95.

Hong Kong-based Sapphire Technology has announced its latest A-series Fusion APU-based mainboard, with the Pure Platinum A75 taking advantage of AMD's latest chip.

It combines a quad core CPU, the northbridge and DirectX11 graphics in one handy package.

The full ATX board naturally includes HD, Blu-Ray and stereoscopic 3D support, and outputs via DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort. Noises are provided via the standard configuration on board HD 7.1 audio.

Storage connectivity comes in the shapely form of four onboard USB 3.0 ports, four USB 2.0 ports and five SATA 6G ports with AHCI and RAID support. An eSATA connector features on the rear panel.

Compatability

One of the big advantages of the A-series APU is its graphics compatibility. Plug in a Sapphire HD6600 or HD 6500 graphics card and the performance is combined with the onboard graphics to give a maximum 175% graphics boost.

Up to 16GB of DDR3 memory is currently supported, but this can be expanded to 32GB when suitable technology becomes available. Gigabit LAN and Bluetooth are also present and correct, so you'll have no problems connecting to the net or slowly transferring music and photos to your phone.

Overclocking fiends will find a digital debug display and push button BIOS reset, as well as a dual BIOS for "experimentation".

Sapphire's proprietary Mainboard TriXX software is provided for performance optimisation. The whole thing's finished with a black multilayer printed circuit board and gold plated connectors for the USB 3.0 and LAN ports.

The Sapphire Pure Platinum A75 is in production now, and will be available through the usual retailers. Pricing and release date are yet to be confirmed.

Intel has announced another quarter of record profit, with CEO Paul Otellini pointing to the growth of mobile devices as a key factor in the chip giant's growth.

Intel surpassed $13.1 billion (£8.1bn) in revenue for the second quarter of 2011, with servers, strong demand for high-end Core chips and the continued growth of mobile devices all cited.

"We achieved a significant new milestone in the second quarter, surpassing $13.0 billion in revenue for the first time," said Paul Otellini, Intel president and CEO.

Advanced tech

"Strong corporate demand for our most advanced technology, the surge of mobile devices and Internet traffic fueling data centre growth, and the rapid rise of computing in emerging markets drove record results.

"Intel's 23 percent revenue growth in the first half and our increasing confidence in the second half of 2011 position us to grow annual revenue in the mid-20 percent range."

Interestingly, Intel stated that newly acquired McAfee and Inineon Wireless Solutions (not Intel Mobile Communications) contributed $1 billion in their first full-quarter of results.

Breaking the results down further, Intel's PC client group had revenue up 11 per cent year on year, its Data Server group reported a 15 percent increase and Embedded & Communications Group saw a 25 per cent increase.

One sour note was the waning impact of the mobile Atom processor and chipsets, which saw revenues drop by 15 per cent.

Fresh from launching the laptop variants of the AMD A-Series chips, the AMD Fusion-based platform has officially been announced for the desktop.

Primarily these will be quad-core chips, though dual-core variants are expected both for the desktop and laptops in due course.

The company also announced the A55 and A75 chipsets that will be available in motherboards from partners including Asus, Foxconn, ECS, Gigabyte, MSI and Sapphire.

AMD says it is targeting low to mid-range desktops with the new chips which feature processing and DirectX 11 graphics on a single die – the latter branded as Radeon HD 6530D and HD 6550D depending on which of the four available processor variants used.

This means mainstream and casual PC gamers are the key target audience for the new chips since high-end desktop gamers will still go for extra power with discrete graphics cards.

The parts have a TDP or 65 (A6-3600 and A8-3800) or 100W (A6-3650 and A8-3850) and boast 320 or 400 Radeon cores.

If you have discrete graphics card also installed, you can use AMD's dual-graphics tech and take advantage of both graphics chips.

This morning at Computex 2011, AMD announced the launch of it's 9-series motherboards. But there was something missing - the advanced CPU component of its new platform.

We've got a slew of reviews of AMD's latest boards on their way, so hold tight for the first few very soon.

The real "key component" of the Scorpius platform, however, are those Zambezi, Bulldozer-based CPUs and they're still a way away from being released AMD confirmed today.

So the jury is out about whether we should be excited about this new chipset.

Especially when we haven't seen a new CPU architecture from AMD essentially since the Hammer architecture made its debut around 2003.

The waiting game

For a long time the buzz was the brand new Bulldozer CPUs would be unveiled here at this year's Computex. They are a bold new step in the way high-end processors are put together.

Sadly we found out before the show this wasn't the case. Sources in the industry speculated that we would in fact be waiting another three months for the new processors.

Yesterday that was confirmed by AMD to one of its partners and now today AMD has gone public with the fact that around ninety days from today we ought to see the first Zambezi CPUs hitting our 990 motherboards.

AMD is apparently moving directly to a B1 stepping of its architecture, one source told us on the show floor, though we don't know exactly what happened to the B0.

That though was quickly skipped over by Rick Bergman, Senior Vice President and General Manager of AMD, at this morning's press conference.

Instead he was talking up the incoming high-end accelerated processing units (APUs) in the shape of the new A-series Llano and Trinity chips.

Unsurprisingly he also skipped over the fact that, without a CPU, manufacturers and experts all agree: the only interesting thing about the new AMD 9-series motherboards is the fact that for the first time you can natively run Nvidia SLI on its chipsets.

Though Nvidia cards don't currently operate at their fullest with AMD CPUs, we may still be waiting for the launch of the Zambezi CPU for that to be truly relevant too.

The Zambezi CPU, to give it its due, is AMD's first eight-core beastie on the desktop and should make a splash when it finally debuts.

Though actually they're not really cores as we know it. Each of the Bulldozer modules will be almost analogous to a dual-core CPU, so effectively this quad-module (can we coin 'quad-mod' now?) CPU will be almost equivalent to an eight-threaded CPU from Intel.

The Sandy Bridge Core i7 2600K should look out then. But then maybe that's why we're having to wait...

We spoke to a representative from ECS on the trade show floor at Computex today who revealed that it sees no real future in Intel's latest chipset, the Z68.

It did, of course, have its own Z68 board, the ECS Z68H2-M, on display on its stand. However, despite this, ECS said that it was not planning on building many of the boards as it was expecting them to only have a very limited shelf-life.

So what does ECS think is the next big thing from Intel then?

Well, it's putting all its Intel eggs in the forthcoming X79 platform, the spiritual successor to the still dominant X58 chipset.

This quad-channel memory toting varmint is set to be the perfect home for the new Intel Sandy Bridge-E CPUs that are inbound around the end of the year. These chips will need a new socket, the LGA 2,011 shown here.

It's not just a clever name; that is a bigger socket with a whopping 2,011 pins in it.

We've seen a few samples, mostly pre-production ones, of Intel's next motherboard chipset on the stands of the major motherboard manufacturers (like Asus' C1X79-EVO shown here in all its pin-heavy glory), but none are being so bold as ECS to state the Z68 is all but dead in the water.

Motherboard upgrade guide

Upgrading certain components can give your PC a boost in specific areas. This is fine if there's a certain Achilles' heel that's making your computer hobble along when it should be sprinting, but if you want to give your machine an upgrade that offers the most performance enhancing possibilities - both now and in the future - then a new motherboard is essential.

In many ways, your PC is only as fast as its motherboard will allow. Sure, you might be able to upgrade bits and pieces every so often to prevent your computer becoming obsolete, but if the motherboard is too old to support the latest technology then it's always going to hold your PC's performance back.

Replacing your old motherboard with a new one opens up a whole world of possibilities for your computer. Faster processors and more powerful graphics cards that were once off limits due to an archaic motherboard are now excitingly realistic prospects.

• 15 best PC upgrades for gamers

What's more, if you choose the right future-proof model then you'll be able to keep your computer up to date with the latest technology. No longer will you have to greet tidings of new technology with the grim resignation of another missed opportunity - instead, you could be looking at an exciting potential upgrade.

The motherboard's relationship with the rest of the PC means there are lots of factors to consider before upgrading. For starters, you should think about whether you want to freshen up a number of other components in your computer at the same time, or whether you want to keep your existing parts.

Swapping the motherboard might not mean you need to buy a new graphics card, but if you want to keep using an older processor then it will limit your options when choosing another motherboard.

Choice of motherboard doesn't just determine the vintage of your processor, but also the type. AMD and Intel processors require different CPU sockets, so if you're tempted to try out Intel's new Sandy Bridge technology or are more a fan of AMD's Phenom offerings then you'll need to choose a motherboard that's going to allow you to use your preferred processor.

While the vast array of options might seem daunting, the benefits of upgrading the motherboard far outweigh any fears you might have.

Choosing a new motherboard

Your motherboard has a truly symbiotic relationship with the rest of your PC's components. Technological advances in one spur on new developments in the other, and the year ahead should have a lot of exciting innovations in store for both areas.

The big news so far has been the launch of Intel's new Sandy Bridge technology. Although Intel processors that use it continue to use the familiar Core i5 and i7 branding, the processors themselves have a new chipset, so if you want one in your computer, you'll need to upgrade your motherboard.

This new breed of board brings support for the SATA 6Gbps ports. These offer up to twice the speed of current SATA II ports. While no existing hard drives - and certainly no optical media drives - have yet used the full bandwidth of SATA II, solid state drives are beginning to feel constrained by the older technology.

In the future, SSDs that take full advantage of the SATA 6Gbps ports in new motherboards will become commonplace, and this new standard will make our PCs run faster than ever.

The time it takes for our computers to boot has long been a nuisance, and the BIOS that resides on the motherboards is one of the main culprits. Now more than 25 years old, it's long overdue for retirement.

The good news is that an excellent replacement is on the horizon, and is beginning to be shipped with new motherboards over the next 12 months. The Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) will bring many improvements over BIOS when it's introduced.

The headline advantage is the decrease in boot times - a recent test displayed a boot-up time of just 1.37 seconds.

Other advances that will be ushered in with the arrival of the UEFI might not be as flashy on paper, but could prove to be just as revolutionary. For a start, it brings support for hard drives that are more than 2.2TB.

When BIOS was introduced back in the 1980s, it seemed impossible that drives would ever reach such a capacity. This resulted in the Master Boot Record partitioning scheme using 32-bit values that limited the maximum disk size to 2.2TB, and allowed only four primary partitions to be created.

UEFI will support the GUID Partition Table scheme, which uses 64-bit values to handle disks of up to 9.4 zettabytes. We might not need that kind of space now, but in 20 years' time, hard drives boasting that capacity might be as commonplace as 2TB and 3TB drives are now.

Motherboard choices

Three Intel motherboards to choose from

Asus Maximus IV Extreme
Performance
Intel
Price: £300
Info: http://rog.asus.com

When it comes to new PC components, odes to awesomeness are often overwrought. But take it from us, Intel's new Sandy Bridge desktop processors proved worthy of our finest prose. The Intel Core i5-2500K and Intel Core i7-2600K chips are preposterously quick. Of course, to get the best out of them what you need is a damn fine motherboard. For example, the Asus Maximus IV Extreme RoG.

At least, that's what Asus would have you think.

This latest board from the enthusiast-class Republic of Gamers line is based on the new Intel P67 chipset, one of two consumer-oriented platforms for the new Sandy Bridge chips. The P67 is the discrete graphics alternative to the integrated graphics H67 chipset.

On the downside, that means you can't use the integrated graphics core that comes with all 14 of the new Sandy Bridge desktop CPUs. Normally, we wouldn't class that as a major disappointment. After all, the history of integrated graphics has been one of awful performance. However, Intel's latest effort is the best we've seen by miles.

Verdict: 4/5

Read the full Asus Maximus IV Extreme review

MSI H55M-E23
Budget
Intel
Price: £50
Info: http://uk.msi.com

This isn't for those who want to cram in the most powerful parts out there and overclock them like mad. It's for creating a stable and dependable system.

It supports the first generation of Intel Core processors, not the second, but if you're looking to upgrade your old Pentium processor, the leap to a Core processor will still give a huge performance boost.

While performance isn't the H55M-E23's raison d'être, stability and reliability are. The use of aluminium-core solid capacitors helps keep the operating temperature down, as well as providing a stable power supply to the processor. This gives a longer lifespan for the motherboard - MSI claims 10 years at full capacity.

If you're just using it for word processing, this stretches to 40 years. You won't want it for that long - its lack of support for the most recent technology makes it far from future-proof - but it's good to know you have a dependable motherboard that won't fail while you're in the middle of some important work.

Verdict: 3.5/5

Zotac H67-ITX Wi-Fi
All round
Intel
Price: £119
Info: www.zotac.com

A tiny motherboard capable of keeping pace with the big boys? That'll be the Zotac H67-ITX Wi-Fi then.

Back in the mists of time (well, October 2001) when VIA released its first ITX EPIA motherboards, my how people laughed.

"A tiny little motherboard?" They all said, "why it's but 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.

Firstly through AOpen, but even Mr Jobs couldn't make that much of an impact with the mini Mac, and others released their own mini PCs but still they can't be said to have set the world alight.

Fast forward to today and 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.

Read the full Zotac H67-ITX Wi-Fi review

Three AMD motherboards to choose from

Asus Crosshair IV Extreme
Performance
AMD
Price: £233
Info: http://rog.asus.com

Another week brings with it another motherboard toting Lucid's HydraLogix 200 (nee Hydra 200) mix-and-match graphics technology. This time, however, it comes not from MSI, but from archrivals Asus.

It's taken Asus a while to launch a board based on the technology, but one's now a reality in the form of the Asus Crosshair IV Extreme.

The Crosshair IV Extreme is the latest addition to the AMD branch of Asus's RoG (Republic of Gamers) family and - just like the rest of the RoG motherboard lineup - has all the bells and whistles you expect from a top-end Asus motherboard. Like its brethren, it also comes in a box that's pretty much crammed with hardware.

It's worth noting that the Crosshair IV Extreme is the new flagship of the Crosshair range and hence is aimed at the higher end of the market, carrying a price tag to match.

Verdict: 4.5/5

Read the full Asus Crosshair IV Extreme review

Asus M4A785TD-V EVO
Budget
AMD
Price: £73
Info: www.asus.com

This may be another motherboard from Asus, but it couldn't be more different to the Crosshair.

There's no fancy name or headline-grabbing features. This is a motherboard designed to do the job reliably, safely and above all, well. Function is the name of the game here.

What you will find is a sturdy motherboard for a low price that can handle some of the latest tech without a problem. You can fit a quad-core AMD Phenom II processor and DDR3 RAM to give your PC a big performance boost. What you can't do is have two graphics cards for high-end gaming.

The M4A785TD-V EVO has two PCI Express slots, but it doesn't have the power. It does have perfectly good on-board graphics, so if you're building a low-cost PC for movies and playing the odd casual game, you don't need to buy a separate graphics card.

This motherboard isn't going to change the world, but it's solid and dependable. It'll let you use some great components to make a decent PC very cheaply.

Verdict: 3/5

Asus Crosshair IV Formula
All round
AMD
Price: £155
Info: http://rog.asus.com

There's defnitely no coincidence in AMD sending out the review chips of its hex-core processor snugly secured in Asus' Crosshair IV Formula board.

It's the finest current example of the 890 chipset. And this is what we've come to expect from its lineup of Republic of Gamers motherboards.

What we've also come to expect is pricing so far out of the reach of most mere mortals as to render them out of range of all but the serious overclocker and the money-no-object buyers.

But not on the AMD side. Sure, they're at the top end of AMD mobos, but not astronomically out of reach. More importantly, though, the Crosshair IV Formula actually enables the hex-core Phenom II X6 1090T to compete with the current mid-range Core i7 platforms out there.

This is its raison d'etre, to provide a platform for this latest chip to launch from.

It's actually going above and beyond what AMD was looking for, too. Aside from the extra couple of cores tacked on to the traditional quad-core Deneb chip, AMD has introduced its own take on Intel's Turbo Mode: cunningly entitled Turbo CORE.

Read the full Asus Crosshair IV Formula review

How to fit a new motherboard

Your motherboard is at the heart of your PC - logically and physically - so installing one can be tricky. How tricky depends a lot on the size of the PC case.

If it's a large case then installation is simple - just align the holes in the motherboard with the holes on the metal plate inside the case.

Before you screw the motherboard in, make sure the plugs on the back of the motherboard (where the VGA, USB, LAN and sound ports are located) are accessible from the rear of the case. There should be a rectangle cut out of the case that gives you access to these ports.

The motherboard will come with a small plate that you can use to cover the rectangle from the inside and slot the ports through, which helps to keep dust out of the PC. Once everything is aligned, screw the motherboard onto the plate.

If you have a small PC case and motherboard, it's a good idea to install some of the components in the motherboard before you insert it into the case. The processor, fan and RAM are good choices to install whilst the motherboard is on the outside. Connecting the bulk of the cables to the motherboard before you fit it will also save time and frustration later. Although you can install the graphics card too, doing so can make it tricky to align the motherboard within the case.

Once the motherboard is installed and everything is connected to it, you can begin tweaking it to get the best performance.

A lot of the motherboard tweaks can be performed inside BIOS. One of the easiest and most effective tweaks you can perform here is cutting down the time it takes for your computer to boot.

Once in BIOS, go to 'Advanced BIOS features' and select 'Hard disk boot priority'. Make sure the hard drive that contains your operating system is at the top. Under the 'Boot priority' option, make sure 'Hard disk' is first, followed by 'CD-ROM'. This saves BIOS searching your other drives for an operating system.If you ever need to boot from a recovery disk, go back into BIOS and change the boot priority accordingly.

There should be an option called 'Quick power on self test'. Select this and make sure it's enabled. When your PC is first turned on, it runs a number of tests to make sure everything is running properly. Some of these tests are more important than others. Enabling 'Quick power on self test' means your PC skips some of the less important tests, cutting your boot times.

Create a bootable USB to flash your BIOS

1. Get the files

There aren't many reasons to mourn the loss of floppy disks, but the ability to boot into DOS quickly and safely is one of them. Thankfully it's not too difficult to create a USB drive that performs the same function.

To get started, you'll need the files 'command.com', 'IO.sys' and 'MSDOS.sys'. These can be found on an old Windows 98 disc. Put the files into one folder on your computer.

2. Format your USB stick

To make your USB memory stick bootable, you'll need to format it. The HP Drive Key Boot Utility is a great free tool that will format your USB device and make it bootable. You can download it from here.

Although it claims to be for HP USB drives, you can use it for most other makes as well. Once downloaded, insert a USB drive into your computer and make sure any important files have been backed up.

3. Add the files to the stick

Make sure your USB stick is selected under 'Device' and select 'FAT32' from the list under 'File system'.

Under 'Format options' select 'Create a DOS startup disk', then select 'Using DOS system files located at' and browse to the folder where you saved the files. Click 'Start'.

Once the disk has been created, you can restart and boot into DOS. You may need to go into BIOS first and change the boot priority so 'USB' is before 'Hard drive'.

Gigabyte has stated that it is not 100 per cent halting production of its Intel Sandy Bridge P67 motherboards, but is removing it from the company's high-end, enthusiast strategy.

On Saturday morning components site KitGuru announced that, according to its sources, Gigabyte is going to completely stop any future production of its current P67 motherboards.

Such a cull sounded a little extreme, even for such an issue-ridden chipset like the P67.But a little digging uncovered a wee blog purporting to be "a group of motherboard enthusiasts working for Gigabyte."

This morning it printed an unattributed official statement claiming the report that it was stopping P67 production was "misleading and unfounded."

Both right

Determined to get to the bottom of all this we spoke to the UK marketing arm of Gigabyte, and wouldn't you know, the real story is a little bit from Box A and a little from Box B.

With the imminent launch of the upcoming Z68 chipset from Intel Gigabyte is making a change to its current P67 lineup, but that does not mean it's made its last ever P67 motherboard.

With the chipset pricing difference between the Z68 and P67 platforms being relatively small Gigabyte has decided to focus its high-end, enthusiast-class motherboards on the Z68 platform leaving the lower-end boards to the P67 chipset.

That means anything up to its GA-P67-UD3P motherboard will remain on the P67 platform with the higher-end, and more expensive, boards switching over to Z68 when they launch.

While a wholesale slaughter of it P67 lineup would've been rather over-zealous to say the least, this more-focused approach makes a lot of sense.

After all, you wouldn't pay through the nose for a high-end P67 board when similarly-priced, more feature-rich, Z68 mobos would make a more fitting home for your Core i7 2600K.

Would you?

There's not a lot out in the wild about this new Intel platform, but it's looking like a combination of the best bits of the H67 and P67 chipsets, with some nice new tricks thrown in for good measure.

Rest assured we'll keep you posted as soon as we're allowed to give you the full lowdown.

And it will be soon…

Best Sandy Bridge motherboards

Sandy Bridge processors certainly put the cat among 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

DIRT 3: If Sandy Bridge was an 80's car rendered in DiRT 3, then it'd be the Audi Quattro...

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.

USB 3.0: NEC chips can be found offering up USB 3.0 support on the latest mobos

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 Sandy Bridge 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.

BUILDING THE FOUNDATIONS: Sandy Bridge is a great basis for a gaming machine. Don't you agree?

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 Wi-Fi) 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 Wi-Fi 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.

Sandy Bridge motherboard reviews

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 Wi-Fi is any indication of where were heading, then we're in for some interesting times ahead.

Read the full review

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 Wi-Fi.

The best Sandy Bridge motherboard is...

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 Wi-Fi 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.