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Compatibility Assured: ASUS P8Z68/GEN3 series motherboards are pre-tested for
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ASUS P8Z68/GEN3 series is the first motherboard range with genuine compatibility for PCI Express 3.0 support. Lab-tested to confirm quality, reliability and performance for users wishing to upgrade to PCI Express 3.0 in the future, the new motherboards ship with upgraded hardware and native BIOS support for next generation Intel 22nm processors. These motherboards are not only primed for today’s PCs that use PCI Express 2.0 graphics cards, but all future upgrades as well. |
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Technological Requirements to Run PCI Express 3.0 |
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PCI Express 3.0 is the next generation specification that boosts performance 2x from 16GB/s to 32GB/s over the same 16x physical connection. However this requires an upgraded set of components; including a motherboard with PCI Express 3.0 switching IC that has completed compatibility testing for the physical layout to measure performance quality and link reliability, a next generation Intel 22nm CPU and a compatible BIOS. At the moment, only ASUS has committed itself to this assured QA process before shipping its motherboards, in order to guarantee consumer confidence in its products. |
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PCI-Express 3.0 Performance Comparison |
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The test comparison was conducted with an ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 motherboard, next generation CPU with PCIe 3.0 controller and a ASUS designed PCIe 3.0 bridge card containing a PLX PCIe 3.0 chipset. The PLX bridge chip was limited in data-throughput width to x1, and plugged into the first PCIe x16 slot on the ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 motherboard. It was converted between PCIe 2.0 and 3.0 specifications via a simple switch; no driver changes were applied. The performance throughput was tested using an OCZ Revo drive (PCIe 1.0 x4), where using PCIe 3.0 (8GT/s data-rate) gave a drive bandwidth of 547.1 MB/s, versus PCIe 2.0 (5GT/s data-rate), which provided the drive bandwidth of only 400.6 MB/s. This 36% performance improvement proves ASUS has a genuine PCIe 3.0 data-rate capability on its new P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 motherboards. In addition to the future-proofing of P8Z68/GEN3 with PCIe 3.0 support, and the industry acclaimed features of Dual Intelligent Processors 2 with DIGI+ VRM and UEFI BIOS with EZ Mode, the introduction of new USB 3.0 Boost is another motherboard world first. This is the first implementation of the new UAS protocol for USB 3.0, which boosts throughput performance up to 170%. ASUS has worked to make sure its USB 3.0 Boost technology is compatible across a wide range of USB devices, in order to take advantage of this cutting-edge feature. |
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Upgraded BIOS are also available for existing ASUS motherboards to support future |
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Current non-SLI LGA1155 motherboards from ASUS can also take advantage of PCI Express 3.0. The list below details the minimum BIOS version that adds support for next generation Intel 22nm processors. |
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