PCIe & SATA-3 on Intel DH67CL board?

[wpcoe]

In researching Sandy Bridge motherboards, I noticed the Intel DH67CL. Since sales web sites sometimes don't get the specifications/features correct (especially here in Thailand), I went to the Intel web site for The Truth.

On the Intel product information page it says that the DH67CL uses the H67 Express Chipset.

On the H67 Express Chipset web page is a chart showing that the chipset includes 8 PCI Express 2.0 lanes and 6 Serial ATA ports (with footnote saying "All SATA ports capable of 3Gb/s, 2 ports capable of 6Gb/s"):

However on an "interactive diagram" for the board, it shows:

&

Does the DH67CL use the H67 chipset? If so, why are the SATA-3 ports on a Marvell controller and why are the PCIe 1x slots only PCIE 1.1?

 

[wpcoe]

To continue this monolog, I think whoever designed that "interactive diagram" was a little misinformed. I downloaded a .pdf file of Technical Product Specs from the Intel site and it says:

That makes a whole lot more sense than using two Marvell SATA ports and PCIe 1.1 connectors.

 

[greenhawk]

the PCI-E is proberly due to the chipset's PCI-E lanes going through a PCI-E multiplexer to allow better use of the attached lanes.

The sata issue I was thinking it might be a left over design consideration from when the intel chipsets where recalled but on refreshing my knowledge, that was effecting sata 3Gb/s ports, not the sata 6Gb/s connections.

Personally, you have been looking into the board for nearly 3 months, I would have gone for a different board if something sounded fishy to begin with long ago.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

The first build of this system that I had was running the Intel Desktop board DH67CL and it was a H67 chipset board. When the DH67CL was release the Intel SATA III controller hadn't been released yet. So in order to provide the H67 chipset with SATA III support we used the Marvell controller.This is how the SATA III ports were outside of the B2 problem. I think it was about June/July that the release of our Intel SATA III happened with the release of the Z68 chipset. I know that we started to tranfer over to the Intel SATA III on the P67 chipset based boards but I haven't looked into the H67.

 

[=Wendy=]

Native SATA 3 support launched with Sandy Bridge and P67/H67 in Jan 2011.
The original P67/H67 chipset stepping at launch was B2, which was replaced by B3 when Intel discovered the SATA2 bug in the B2 revision.

I'm not sure which SATA3 controller the HD67CL has, or had, but Intel native SATA3 has been available since SB launch (Jan 2011).

 

[wpcoe]

Personally, you have been looking into the board for nearly 3 months, I would have gone for a different board if something sounded fishy to begin with long ago.

Actually, I've only been mulling over motherboard options for about a month, I think? I'm planning on a Ivy Bridge processor, probably an i3 if they don't take forever to be released, and am trying to decide whether to get a good quality H67 or Z68 mobo if I see a good price. I've seen them less than $100 here in Thaliand, and wonder if they'll drop further when Series 7's are released.

Still not clear on the advantages of the Series 7 motherboards.

 

[wpcoe]

@Christian/Wendy: thanks for the history lesson! Explains the confusion.