14 DAY TRIAL // Even though Intel hasn't made any official announcements regarding the release date of the Z68 Express chipset, everybody expected the new PCH to arrive on May 8, but recent reports suggest that its launch has now been pushed back to May 11.
Sadly, we don't know what made Intel change its mind, but this sort of delays are pretty common in the semiconductor industry.
The Z68 chipset comes as a hybrid between the P67 and the H67 platform controller hubs (PCHs) and was designed to allow overclocking Sandy Bridge CPUs while using the integrated graphics.
Presently, this isn't supported by the P67 or H67 chipsets as the first one lacks the flexible display interface (FDI) that is required in order to use the on-die GPU while the latter doesn't allow for CPU multiplier adjustment.
Although most enthusiasts won't be interested in running the Sandy Bridge integrated GPU, opting for the Z68 could allow them to use the Quick Sync media accelerators packed inside Intel's second-generation Core architecture.
This will significantly speed up the transcoding process without affecting the image quality of the resulting video, and only requires a Lucidlogix Virtu driver which enables on-the-fly GPU switching.
In addition, the chipset, also supports an SSD caching technology, called Smart Response by Intel, which allows users to speed up their storage system by pairing together a solid state disk with an HDD and using the former as a fast cache memory for the hard drive.
The rest of chipset features mimic those of the P67 as it features DDR3-1333 support, 14 USB 2.0 ports, a pair of SATA 6Gbps connectors, four SATA 3Gbps ports, HD audio support, and the ability to route the 16 PCI Express lanes available in Sandy Bridge CPUs to a pair of PCIe x8 slots. (via HardwareLuxx)