The Z68 has been touted as “cougar point done right” and many other things. I have been asked if the Z68 is going to replace the X58 and many other things beside that ever since it came onto the scene. We have taken a theoretical and design look at one Z68 and now we are going to take a look at another. This one is from Gigabyte; the Z68X-UD3H-B3 (we are getting back to the long names again). This board has a more than its share of selling points. It features the new TouchBIOS (also called Hybrid EFI), the usual compliment USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports and of course SLI and crossfire. But there is more to the Z68X-UD3H than just this. We also see that it comes complete with the new VirtuGPU technology from Lucid Driver MOSFETs, and much more. So let’s see what we can find digging into the design and features before we get to the performance numbers in part II.
Page 4 of 4
Features -
In the current market motherboard (and indeed almost all component) performance is very close. The days of a large performance advantage between boards using the same chipset are long gone. That is unless someone makes a HUGE mistake (like runs traces completely wrong). Now, the thing that differentiates different products is the features. These are things like power management, extra slots, better audio CODECs etc. It is these items that R&D teams work so hard to drop into what are really identical pieces of hardware at their most basic level.
Excellent -
Multiple Display options (including Displayport)
SLI/ Crossfire
3TB Drive support
108db SNR for high quality audio
Driver MOSFETS
Virtu GPU Virtualization
Intel Smart Response
Here we have a nice listing of features. The Virtu GPU should be very cool and will offer the best blend of having a high performance GPU (like our HD 5870) and the power of the Intel GPU built into the Sandy Bridge CPU for things like transcoding. The high quality audio CODEC will be important as the market moves towards more and more HD Audio and Video. The Intel Smart Response helps with HDD and overall system performance. The last item that we want to talk about are the Driver MOSFETS; these help by reducing heat output and also reducing the board space needed to place these. This also helps to reduce the complication of the board tracing. Not too shabby really.
In the middle (sort of good) -
Dual BIOS
Xpress Recovery2
EasyTune6
eXtreme Hard Drive (X.H.D)
Cloud OC
Now here is a nice set of features for out mid-range set. The one that I am still on the fence about is the Cloud OC. I am thinking that if this is aimed at the mid-range market then when is the Cloud OC feature going to be used and by who?
Floor Mats -
@BIOS
Q-Flash
Xpress BIOS Rescue
Download Center
Xpress Install
Dynamic Energy Saver™ 2
Smart 6™
Auto Green
ON/OFF Charge
Q-Share
These are very typical across almost the entire line of Giabyte motherboards. They are nice but as they are part of a general feature set they are not that enticing.
Conclusion Part I -
The Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 has my curiosity piqued. I like the design choices and some of the new features that they have put into the Z68X-UD3H while the look of the board is very compelling. I will be interested in seeing if we can overload this board with multiple peripherals, but really I am just very interested in seeing how fast the Z68 is. I will say that based on the design philosophy this will in no way be replacing the P67 series or the X58 series. It seems to more the upper mid-range crowd that is looking for a good blend of performance and features.
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Features -
In the current market motherboard (and indeed almost all component) performance is very close. The days of a large performance advantage between boards using the same chipset are long gone. That is unless someone makes a HUGE mistake (like runs traces completely wrong). Now, the thing that differentiates different products is the features. These are things like power management, extra slots, better audio CODECs etc. It is these items that R&D teams work so hard to drop into what are really identical pieces of hardware at their most basic level.
Excellent -
Multiple Display options (including Displayport)
SLI/ Crossfire
3TB Drive support
108db SNR for high quality audio
Driver MOSFETS
Virtu GPU Virtualization
Intel Smart Response
Here we have a nice listing of features. The Virtu GPU should be very cool and will offer the best blend of having a high performance GPU (like our HD 5870) and the power of the Intel GPU built into the Sandy Bridge CPU for things like transcoding. The high quality audio CODEC will be important as the market moves towards more and more HD Audio and Video. The Intel Smart Response helps with HDD and overall system performance. The last item that we want to talk about are the Driver MOSFETS; these help by reducing heat output and also reducing the board space needed to place these. This also helps to reduce the complication of the board tracing. Not too shabby really.
In the middle (sort of good) -
Dual BIOS
Xpress Recovery2
EasyTune6
eXtreme Hard Drive (X.H.D)
Cloud OC
Now here is a nice set of features for out mid-range set. The one that I am still on the fence about is the Cloud OC. I am thinking that if this is aimed at the mid-range market then when is the Cloud OC feature going to be used and by who?
Floor Mats -
@BIOS
Q-Flash
Xpress BIOS Rescue
Download Center
Xpress Install
Dynamic Energy Saver™ 2
Smart 6™
Auto Green
ON/OFF Charge
Q-Share
These are very typical across almost the entire line of Giabyte motherboards. They are nice but as they are part of a general feature set they are not that enticing.
Conclusion Part I
The Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 has my curiosity piqued. I like the design choices and some of the new features that they have put into the Z68X-UD3H while the look of the board is very compelling. I will be interested in seeing if we can overload this board with multiple peripherals, but really I am just very interested in seeing how fast the Z68 is. I will say that based on the design philosophy this will in no way be replacing the P67 series or the X58 series. It seems to more the upper mid-range crowd that is looking for a good blend of performance and features.
