PCH - The Platform Controller Hub Chipsets
PCH - The Platform Controller Hub Chipsets
With the Skylake for desktop processors comes yet again a new motherboard chipset. You cannot stick to the Series 9 Chipset from Intel. For end consumers like you and me the H170 chipset will be less performance targeted and comes with better support for HTPC monitor connectivity. The Z170 chipset is, however, targeted at mainstream performance and enthusiast end users allowing much more tweaking and providing performance features.
Z170 offers a wider range of features, you will see support for up-to six SATA3 devices, support for M.2, U2 but also USB 3.1 is going to be a common thing you will see with these motherboards. Z170 will be the platform used by you guys, you can expect PCI Express 3.0 with 16 links controlled by the processor and another 8 to 4 links through the PCH. Interesting to know is that the processor will drive 16 PCI-Express gen 3.0 lanes and then the PCH will drive another 20 PCI-Express gen 3.0 lanes. So your SATA / M.2 devices will not hog valuable PCI-Express lanes from the processor for graphics.
Next to the increase in PCI-Express lanes (16+20) a pretty big thing is DDR4 memory support, albeit that is linked through the processor's memory controllers, not the PCH. Later this year we expect the B150, Q150 and H110 business and value chipsets as well.
