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.
The Box and Goodies -Gigabyte has made some great strides in changing their style. It was not that long ago that they were putting out boring old boxes with that terrible reflective coating on it. Now they are making boxes that, if not good looking, are at least easy to look at and read. They have gone a little overboard on the marketing on the front of this box though. The largest logo on the box is the TouchBIOS logo; this is what they are calling the newest version of the EFI BIOS these days. Oddly enough though, the one thing I would have expected to be prominent on the box is almost hidden. This is the Virtu GPU Virtualization technology from Lucid. We saw a demo of this at CES and it was quite impressive. But that is not the only feature that is almost hidden; there is the Intel Smart Response technology, an audio CODEC that is capable of 108db signal to noise ratio for Blu-Ray playback, and support for three terabyte and above hard drives.
The back of the box is even more detailed (pronounce that chaotic) than the front. It has a lot to take in (be happy there is no reflective coating). We have already covered most of the high lights on the front of the box but there are a couple of items that we want to point out. Up at the top of the box there is a small logo showing off the Intersil VRD12 power controller along with a Display Port logo down towards the bottom. Of course there is more, but we will let you have the joy of hunting around the box to find it all.
When we open the box up things look rather empty. I mean you get the things you need to get going; four SATA cables, an SLI bridge, I/O shield, drivers/utility DVD and the usual manuals (don’t forget the stickers).
