Intel plans to release a new Sandy Bridge motherboard chipset, dubbed the Z68, that will bring improved overclocking to the platform, enabling users to raise the operating frequency of the CPU while using the on-die integrated graphics.
Long before the Sandy Bridge launch, a mysterious slide depicting what was referred to as the
Intel Z68 chipset made its way onto the Web.
A strange appearance at that time, the slide cased a lot of speculations about its implications, some even suggesting this could allow for BCLK adjustment, fully unlocking the chip's overclocking potential.
However, as it turned out, the explanation is a lot simpler, the new chipset being designed in order to surpass the limitations imposed by the current P67 and H67 PCH chips.
According to
AnandTech, when designing the 6-series motherboards,
Intel wanted to reduce the risks as much as possible, so it reused a wide part of the hardware logic found in the Lynnfield 5-series platform.
As a result, the company left a hole in its motherboard lineup, as the P67 chipset supports overclocking, but lacks the flexible display interface needed in order to use the on-die GPU, while the H67 is capable of running the integrated graphics but it doesn't allow for CPU overclocking.
This means that users who want to run an overclocked
Sandy Bridge CPU have to give up on using the on-die GPU and are forced to use an add-in graphics card.
In order to resolve the issue a new member had to be added to the 6-series chipset family, the so called Z68, that is going to be launched in Q2 2011.
Unlike the P67, the Z68 will feature the required flexible display interface while also retaining its overclocking capabilities.
Furthermore, there is a strong chance that the new chipset supports SSD caching, although this is not yet certain at this point.
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