14 DAY TRIAL // Together with the B3 revision of the P67 and H67 chipsets, Intel has also started the production of the Z68 PCH, latest reports suggesting this is expected to arrive in the first week of May.
The chipset was previously slated for an April release, but, it seems like Intel decided to slightly delay its launch to fulfill the huge demand existent for B3 stepping motherboard controllers.
The Z68 chipset comes as a hybrid between the P67 and the H67 and was designed so as to allow for overclocking Sandy Bridge CPUs while using the integrated graphics (as well as Intel's Quick Sync transcoding technology).
Right now, this isn't supported by either 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.
In addition, the Z68 will also add an SSD caching function that uses the installed solid state disk as a high-speed cache for the HDD, greatly improving the speed of the system, and allows for the 16 PCI Express lanes provided by the CPU to be split into two PCI Express x8 slots.
SSD caching, however, won't become available right of the bat as it has to wait for Intel to release the 10.5 version of the Rapid Storage Technology driver.
According to VR-Zone, Intel sells the Z68 for about $8 US higher than the P67, so motherboard prices should differ just slightly.
As the Z68 is based on the B3 stepping of Cougar Point, the chipset will be free of the SATA problems that have plagued earlier revisions of Sandy Bridge motherboards.
In the second half of the year, Intel will also launch two Z68-based motherboards, the multimedia-oriented DZ68DB and the high-end DZ68BC.