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Intel Smart Response Technology is included with the Z68 motherboard. This means a user can add a small solid state drive to a system already configured running a larger mechanical disk with the target goal of speeding up the read performance of data which is cached to the SSD. For people who can’t afford a larger SSD but who still need high levels of storage it seems like a handy workaround. This story we wrote last June might be an interesting read.
To take advantage of this you have to enable RAID on the Z68 chipset. When an operating system is installed on a mechanical drive a blank SSD can be used. The chipset drivers are installed and then the new Rapid Storage Technology 10.5 suite. An accelerate tab will be an option if this criteria is met, which then enables acceleration. The system is not limited to Intel drives, but they have to be 64GB or smaller.
Two options are given. Enhanced and Maximised. Enhanced will write data to the mechanical and solid state drive at the same time, limiting the write speed but offering additional power failure data recovery support. Maximised mode moves data from the mechanical drive to the Solid State Drive less frequently but in the case of failure the array needs to be moved to a new system as a pair. Data is stored in a similar manner as a RAID 0 configuration.
The technology really does work and it might suit some people who have a small SSD and don't want to deal with a tiny boot drive.
Lucid Hydra is not one of our favourite technologies. We looked at it recently when we reviewed the new Sapphire P67 Pure Black motherboard back in March and left with mainly negative impressions. Paying extra for this technology was (and is) basically a waste of money. We feel there is a lot of work still to be done before this is a viable platform, as we said on March 17th when analysing the Lucid Hydra platform on the Sapphire Motherboard.
Z68 brings Optimus technology to the desktop market. This allows the user to use both discrete and Intel's onboard GPU without the requirement of making physical system changes to the configuration. There are two modes – ‘D' and ‘I'. D is access via the discrete card and I means Integrated. Three display applications have to be installed to use this. Intel drivers are first, followed by the AMD or Nvidia driver. Finally the Lucid Virtu software is installed which supports GTX 450/Radeon 5700 series and better. Additionally, the technology allows access to the GPU computing technology to assist in tasks such as media encoding when in discrete mode.
While in theory this sounds great, in reality, anyone who has a modern graphics card already has access to this technology via Nvidia CUDA or AMD Stream. Quick tests indicate that as expected , the discrete card outperforms the Intel CPU and Virtu configuration. No shock really.
The software falls flat on its face, yet again, due to the demand on software profiles. None of the leading games we tried worked, such as Dragon Age 2 or Shogun 2. The HD6990 isn't supported and some of the titles that did work, take a very long time to load.
I really have to say it, but this technology really is such a waste of time, resources and effort – just like we said in the Sapphire P67 Pure Black motherboard review, several months ago in March. This particular product was more expensive than similar P67 motherboards available on the market at the time, so it is clear it may add some cost.
Thats a great product, ive read a few reviews lately on various sites and they seem to score well. Arent they owned by ASUS ?
I haven’t even got my P67 changed yet to B3 revision. might just sell it on ebay and buy one of these.
The B3 revision was overhyped. there was no big deal about the sata problems anyway. just a lot of nonsense. Intel lost a billion over basically very little.
The SSD caching technology is a great idea, but I think it might end up in no mans land.
why? well the people who are educated enough to know about it, will already have an SSD as a boot drive. a mechanical drive for storage. therefore useless.
Those people who have a simple system with say a 500GB HD and nothing else, they wont rush out to get an SSD to take their system apart to set it up for caching. Its not that easy to do all that, and joe public wont even understand the differences. its a mid way no mans land approach imo. cool idea mind you.
Come on, why not spend some time fixing teh bandwidth issues with two cards? rather than spend such a long time on bloody SSD caching 10 people will use.
Its too close to p67, its confusing people. I think they are trying to lose the P67 flawed concerns, I know people who arent buying Intel atm, even though P67 is fixed and wouldnt even affect 99% of people buying one.
How much is it?
Its only marginally more expensive that P67, but I wonder if its cause of that sh**ty lucid nonsense they put on it. who the f*** wants that? eh?
Im not interested in these products. Its such a dumb release IMHO.
How often do ASRock update their bios. their website is slow as all hell for me to find out. I heard it was terrible.
I like the CPU slot area, its free of crap. really helps with some fitting.s I just opted for a D14 last month. No interest in Z68 for the time being. I use a 128GB SSD already. seems about the only thing worth moving for. Lucid? seriously?
Shame you didnt use the 2500k. no one uses it anymore for reviews. you used it for the verification too ! im gutted 🙁
this can take 8GB DDR3 modules? are they even out yet?
I wouldnt touch ASROCK with a 50 foot stick. I bought a board from them last year and it died installing windows. POS.
I think ASROCK should make one with a dedicated sound card like ASUS, realtek onboard is crap.
long time reader, but I hate this recapthca nonsense so I never post.
If this goes through, can I make a request? Can you include temperature results from your review? placing diodes on the heatsinks? I really would like to know how hot the heatsinks get. no one does this and its so impotrant.
ASRock will have a tough time in the UK. ASUS really dominate. and @Fred, no they arent a part of ASUS
Umm, not to be disrespectful, but isn’t the point of virtu that it will save you power on i mode, though GPUs these days tend to have very capable power-scaling capabilities – shouldn’t you have looked into the this?
@Tommyboy and @Victor, Lucid Virtue is actually an excellent feature when setup in discrete mode (screen connected to the GC instead of on the motherboard towards the Intel HD Graphics on the CPU) : whenever I need to transcode a video from one format to another, Virtue will automatically switch processes to the CPU’s GPU instead of the graphics card, the later being much MUCH more efficient than any Graphic cards on the market (about 40% gain). A must have for any serious video transcoding job. The only thing is that not many software vendors had the time to implement routines specifically coded with Intel’s HD “libraries” in mind – Media Espresso deos this, but I don’t know about others like Adobe or Autodesk, however they should implement Intel’s HD capabilities, it’s so much more efficient! In short, Virtue will switch between your GC and Intel’s HD depending on the task at hand and choosing the most proficient GPU for the job.