Z68 Caching Nooby Question

zack1uk · 24 May 2011 at 09:36

I'm just about to upgrade to sandybridge and have decided to buy an SSD while I'm at it. The features of the Z68 (particularly the video encoding gubbins) will be useful to me, so would prefer that over the P67.

1, I have googled, but can't find a clear answer. Does the SSD caching function on the Z68, mean that I would be better off buying a faster smaller SSD as a secondary drive, or would I still be better off ignoring the caching functions and getting a bigger but slower (I'm cost limited) SSD as the boot drive?

2, I noticed that the Z68 gigabyte boards don't have a second graphics port as their GPU functions are disabled (not included). Does this mean that they won't improve encoding times like the Asus and MSI boards.

I always used to swear by Asus boards, but after the last 3 (5 if you include the Geforce6 board that was replaced twice) boards have all failed or been unreliable, I don't want another.

kevpuk · 24 May 2011 at 10:11

Just jumped into Z68 myself.....
My understanding is that the SRT technology in Z68 allows a decent performance hike by pairing a small(ish) SSD with a boot HDD - perhaps a 20-30GB SSD is all one would need; in fact, Intel themselves have such beasts arriving imminently for this purpose.
Performance gains over a regular boot HDD will be notable, albeit after a couple of hours use (i.e. software running and the cache 'building up').......but, a dedicated SSD boot drive will be quicker still.
The idea is that, as large(r) SSDs are still relatively expensive £ for GB, this SRT allows a decent compromise.....

As for the comments on the Gigabyte boards, I would assume that the graphics software options are indeed more limited.....but don't really know ! I have had Gigabyte boards before and have always found them to be decent, but been an Asus guy for some time now.....that said, for my Z68 setup I went for the AsRock Extreme4 due to an excellent set of reviews, decent price/bundle and featureset.

Can't help much more just yet, as only just got Windows installed

lrlcr · 24 May 2011 at 11:43

I'd get a larger ssd, the caching thing doesn't really make much sense to me as an idea.

Just like the hybrid ssd/platter drives.

zack1uk · 24 May 2011 at 12:32

lrlcr said:
I'd get a larger ssd, the caching thing doesn't really make much sense to me as an idea.

Just like the hybrid ssd/platter drives.

Thats kind of where I was coming from as a small ssd is much cheaper than a large one and the one hybrid drive review I saw indicated that the hybrid drives performance was much closer to ssd speeds than it was to normal drive speeds.

Edit: Thanks both for the replies

zack1uk · 24 May 2011 at 12:39

kevpuk said:
Just jumped into Z68 myself.....
My understanding is that the SRT technology in Z68 allows a decent performance hike by pairing a small(ish) SSD with a boot HDD - perhaps a 20-30GB SSD is all one would need; in fact, Intel themselves have such beasts arriving imminently for this purpose.
Performance gains over a regular boot HDD will be notable, albeit after a couple of hours use (i.e. software running and the cache 'building up').......but, a dedicated SSD boot drive will be quicker still.
The idea is that, as large(r) SSDs are still relatively expensive £ for GB, this SRT allows a decent compromise.....

As for the comments on the Gigabyte boards, I would assume that the graphics software options are indeed more limited.....but don't really know ! I have had Gigabyte boards before and have always found them to be decent, but been an Asus guy for some time now.....that said, for my Z68 setup I went for the AsRock Extreme4 due to an excellent set of reviews, decent price/bundle and featureset.

Can't help much more just yet, as only just got Windows installed

I'm quite interested in the ASRock board as it seems to do everything I want for a decent price. However, the last Asrock board I had was utter sh*&e though, which is holding me back. It was ages ago when they were a proper budget mobo manufacturer (think "PC chips") and I understand that they are a different firm, under different ownership (Asus???) these days; once bitten twice shy, though....

Duke · 24 May 2011 at 13:40

zack1uk said:
I'm quite interested in the ASRock board as it seems to do everything I want for a decent price. However, the last Asrock board I had was utter sh*&e though, which is holding me back. It was ages ago when they were a proper budget mobo manufacturer (think "PC chips") and I understand that they are a different firm, under different ownership (Asus???) these days; once bitten twice shy, though....

Asrock have always been part of Asus. I've used quite a few of their general boards over the years and found them to be fine. When I first used them maybe 4-5 years ago I thought they would be a "PC Chips" as you said, but they are okay. The only manufacturer around at the moment which I would completely avoid would be ECS.

weird_dave · 24 May 2011 at 14:10

I have an Asrock P67 Pro3, I have to say I'm impressed with it.

kevpuk · 24 May 2011 at 14:30

I have never personally used an AsRock board before, either, and accept that in years gone by they were generally only around the lower price part of the market - that said, they have often been very innovative, also, and now - with glowing reviews from everywhere (it seems !) - AsRock really seem to be hitting the mark (see TechSpot, Tweaktown, TomsHardware for starters...)

Back on topic, mind.....

..... I think that the whole SRT thing really can be beneficial if one cannot stretch do a larger size SSD to use as Boot/applications drive. As things stand, you are kinda limited to 60GB for a nominal £100 budget (I know there are exceptions.....) and this can be a little 'tight' for Win7, Office, couple of games and other key applications. What the tech offers is the ability to chuck in, say, a 1TB HDD, and pair it with a 20GB SSD for a pretty nice performance boost. This is never gonna consistently match a pure SSD setup, but then a pure SSD setup has its own limitations.

I guess 'tis 6 of one, half a dozen of another.....for me, I have a trusty 74Gb Raptor as my boot drive, and am thinking a cheap(~ish !) small(~ish !) SSD might give me a mighty potent setup...or, better still, can ditch the Raptor and use my F1 1Tb as primary HDD with said SSD......all of this, of course, after I get over the expense of the new mobo and cpu :rolleyes: