The X99 chipset is a major improvement over X79 adding native USB 3.0 support, more SATA 6Gb/s ports, DDR4 support, and plenty of other little updates. Haswell-E also adds a lot of improvements, but has an overall drop in core frequency that makes it not as clearly better than Ivy Bridge-E.
Z97 vs H97 – What is the Difference?
The Z97 and H97 chipset have recently been added to Intel’s line of chipsets, replacing the previous Z87 and H87 chipsets. In this article we will take a look at the specifications for the Z97 and H97 chipsets to see what differences there are between them.
What is new in Z97 and H97
The Z97 and H97 chipset have recently been added to Intel’s line of chipsets, replacing the previous Z87 and H87 chipsets. These new chipsets are really more of an incremental update, but still add a little bit in terms of new features.
Z87, H87, H81, Q87, Q85, B85 – What is the difference?
With the release of Intel’s fourth-generation Haswell CPUs, there are also a whole new line of motherboard chipsets available. Initially there are six different chipsets that are divided into two separate categories: consumer and business. In this article, we will examine the features of each of the new chipset to help you determine which is right for you.
Product Review: MSI FM2-A75IA-E53 Motherboard
AMD’s FM2 platform is a great choice when you want decent graphical performance but either do not have the space or do not want to spend the money on a discrete video card. Unfortunately, there are only two mini-ITX boards currently on the market: the ASRock FM2A75M-ITX and the MSI FM2-A75IA-E53. Today we will be looking at the MSI FM2-A75IA-E53 to determine if it is a board we would like to carry in our product line; specifically to update our Echo line of systems.
Product Review: Asus P8C WS
The Asus P8C WS is a workstation class motherboard that includes many features sought after by businesses and home users alike. Most notably, it supports Intel E3 Xeon processors and ECC memory, making it a very stable platform. The varied types of ports and headers also makes it great for machines where backwards compatibility with older devices is critical.
How it Works: Intel SSD Caching
SSD caching is not new, but is something we have not inspected closely since its introduction with the Z68 chipset. In this article, we will be answering the questions: What is SSD caching? How do you set up and configure SSD caching? And what kind of performance improvements you should expect by using it.
Product Review: Intel DH77DF
With the launch of the new 7-series chipsets, we spent the last few weeks looking at numerous Mini-ITX motherboards in order to update our Echo line of systems. There are many boards available from various manufactures, but the motherboard that immediately caught our attention was the Intel DH77DF.
Product Review: Intel S2600COE
The Intel S2600COE is a part of the recently launched Romley platform and is intended exclusively for use in server systems. This motherboard includes onboard video and four integrated Intel Gigabit LAN ports, but is very limited in the number of USB ports available. Because of the strong server focus of this board, however, there are many desktop features (namely S3 sleep and fan throttling) that are not supported.
Technology Primer: Intel Ivy Bridge
Intel’s new 22nm CPUs – codenamed Ivy Bridge – has finally launched. When combined with one of the recently released 7-series chipsets, this new CPU/Chipset combination provides support for PCIe 3.0 and USB 3.0 as well as allowing RAM up to speeds of 1600MHz to be used natively. The onboard graphics has also received a nice upgrade allowing for the use of onboard graphics in a much wider variety of applications.