If you have to ask these questions you are in a world of trouble.
The ASUS P67 Z68 mobo rollout are not just build and use happily ever after. There is a whole lot of homework to be done, even for expert users. As a matter of fact, this is the most difficult series so far to get working right, trouble free. Never seen anything like it before.
Bankster, I don't need to tell YOU that you're 110% abso-freakin'-lutely posi-freakin'-tively correct. I need to tell Soliloquist.
Mr. Soliloquist: You got an absolutely great motherboard. And . . . probably . . . you can slap together your parts (if you've ever done this sort of thing before) -- keep the default settings, and it will work.
The board has three features that would seem to conflict if used together, but they don't.
The TPU is a special processor onboard which has a switch you can flip. The board will then go through several starts, stops or reboots until it finds the best "Turbo" settings for the system -- I think the default would be 3.8 Ghz or a multiplier of 38, maybe a bCLCK setting of 103 instead of 100. [[EDIT: I should mention this refers to the i7-2600K Sandy Bridge, which I have, so check specs on other SB processors. ]] It will not run at that speed after bootup at idle; it will appear to run at the stock processor speed. But when you load up the processor with stress-testing software or intensive gaming programs or whatever -- the new system will scale automatically -- the VCORE for the processor and the speed -- by pushing the multiplier up to the "Turbo" setting and running full bore -- stable.
I said -- "three." You can go into the UEFI-BIOS, set "Turbo mode" to "Manual," and tweak the mutliplier and bCLCK yourself. The last setting, whether through flipping the switch or just saving and resetting the BIOS -- will be the setting next attempted at bootup. It seems that the TPU still operates to find the optimal "auto" settings for the fixed parameters you entered.
You can then select the "OC Tuner" item in the AI Tweaker BIOS menu, and the machine will go "do its thing" that way, confusing you for a few minutes while it boots and reboots until it posts. Whatever settings you enter, if you fix certain things and leave other thngs at auto, it will find the right combination of unspecified settings and get you the best most stable OC. This completely reverses the old strategy of setting VCORE manually. We would never have thought about doing otherwise just a couple years ago. But it is a good idea -- on this motherboard -- to leave VCORE at "Auto," setting the other peripheral (but no less important) voltages to safe levels, and as we used to do -- choosing modest, expected-stable OC settings as you get started. In the case of this motherboard, the automatic VCORE feature is good for TURBO over-clocks up to about 4.3GHZ.
Third, you can tune it with the AI Suite "Turbo-EVO" software. And again -- the last setting saved is the operable setting at the next boot-time.
BUT -- Mr. Soliloquist -- IF you don't know what you're doing beyond leaving the BIOS alone with default "auto" settings and flipping that TPU switch, you could be in a world of hurt, as Bankster insinuates.
Based on what you've said, you have a pile of reading to do, and how much of a pile depends on how much of a quick study you are and how much over-clocking experience you have under your belt. For instance, here are some links from those I found, with some insights:
http://www.overclock.net/intel-cpus/908782-sandy-bridge-overclocking-guide-ocn-members.html
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?264300-Sandy-bridge-OC-Guide
http://www.asusrog.com/forums/showthread.php?2453-P67-Z68-BIOS-Guide-BASIC-Intermediate-Overclocking
http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/overclocking/39184-p67-sandy-bridge-overclocking-guide-beginners.html
THERE IS NO GUARANTEE THAT THESE GUIDES ARE TOTALLY AUTHORITATIVE. FOR INSTANCE, "sxs112" WHO POSTS THE GUIDE FROM XTREMESYSTEMS.ORG, WANTS YOU TO BOOST THE VCORE IMMEDIATELY TO 1.45v AND FOLLOW HER/HIS FLOWCHART (LOOKS LIKE A HER!) I DISAGREE WITH THIS APPROACH, SINCE I BELIEVE THAT SETTING IS OUTSIDE THE "SAFE" RANGE ON THESE PROCESSORS.
YOU SHOULD READ THE "i7- Nehalem Overclocking" sticky here at Anandtech, just to familiarize yourself with the basic voltages, concepts like QPI, bCLCK, multiplier, etc.
With this board, and given what you've said, I'd take several weeks to do the reading -- and re-reading -- until the concepts sink in. You could still run the system at stock under auto settings during that time. And I would approach -- even the "auto" or artifically-"intelligent" overclocking cautiously.
If somebody gave you the keys to a robotic automobile, and told you if you punch in GPS coordinates, it would get you to your destination while you crawled into the back seat or the cargo-bay of an SUV and went to sleep -- would you do it? Hell, No, you wouldn't! So get familiar with the basic concepts before fiddling with either the BIOS or the software. And I would stay way, way AWAY from the AI-Suite "TurboEVO" software until you feel knowledgeable enough just to approach it cautiously. The only exception is the "Monitoring" software in Ai Suite. Apparently, even recent revisions of other monitoring programs (e.g., CPU_Z, or Core Temp) are not caught up to give accurate readings for other than temperature or VCORE through this Z68 chipset. Only the ASUS software will track your processor speed when "Turbo" over-clocking.
THE INTEL SMART RESPONSE TECHNOLOGY.
This allows you to pair an appropriately sized, appropriately fast SSD with any mainstream inexpensive hard disk -- even the terabyte drives no less -- so the SSD acts as an invisible cache to speed up the HDD to as much as 80% the speed of the SSD. You MUST install the Intel RAID drivers at OS installation; you must install the OS on only the hard disk without the SSD running; you before installing the OS, you MUST enable the HDD as "RAID" in the BIOS. The procedures for doing this can be found in review articles -- look for step-by-step guidelines from the reviewers. I believe you can also find the procedural advice at Intel's web-site.
After the OS is installed, you install the ISRT software and management software. And the technology will only work on INTEL drive controllers -- not Marvel or JBMicron.
Finally, as much as I hate to say it, the ASUS manual sucks, as all ASUS manuals have sucked from generation to generation and back through time. But -- READ THE MANUAL, "look stuff up" on the web like "ISRT" and "UEFI-BIOS."
Sit back, and contemplate how thorough your research and reading should be before you start d***ing around with the motherboard, its BIOS and software. Think of yourself as attempting to get an A+ in a difficult course, with nobody to teach you but yourself, and a library of information you should cross-check for accuracy, and re-read for comprehension.
Sorry for my tone, but I feel compelled to get you pointed in the right direction so you take care with this absolutely marvelous motherboard.