At the request of some of our readers we are going to start splitting up the way we do our reviews. However, instead of the normal “unboxings” that we find out on the Internet we are going to break up our normal review into two distinct parts. There will be the first part that will cover design choices, board layout, and features. This will be followed up with our normal performance section. We feel that this will give everyone the pieces and parts they are looking for. You can still read both (they will be crosslinked) and also discuss them on our new forum, but this way we can cover things quicker and in a more complete fashion without making each review too long. For our first dive into this new style we have the MSI Z68A-GD80B3 up on the test bench and behind the camera lens. This board follows the same trend as most of MIS’s recent product, but now they are into their second generation; you get Military Class II and OC Genie II. So let’s dive into the more theoretical part of our review and take a look at the packaging, board layout and the features for the MSI Z68A-GD80B3.
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 -Hi-c CapsSuper Ferrite ChokesMilitary Class II components3.0 eSATA portOC GenieThe components choices MSI has made on the Z68-GD80 are a great feature. They truly will allow you either great product longevity or excellent overclocking. The OC Genie is another good feature although putting it in the Excellent slot was a little bit of a stretch for us until we thought about the potential of this feature with the components on the board and the new Sandy Bridge CPUs. In the middle (sort of good) -Dual BIOSClick BIOSVoltage Monitor PointsMultiple 4-pin Fan headersnVidia SLI and AMD CrossfireThese are nice extras but are not items that are going to push things over the edge for a buying decision. The Dual BIOS is on almost every board in this class on the market.Floor Mats -Phase LEDsUSB 3.0Super Charger for USBWinki 3This list rounds out the product but let’s face it LEDs are pretty common now and while cool are not going to improve your performance any. USB 3.0 is becoming more and more common so really it is something that realistically should be in just about any board these days. Conclusion Part I -The MSI Z68-GD80 B3 has some good and bad design choices. The biggest one that I can see is the lack of a bridge chip to allow all of the components on the board to keep running when all of the PCIe slots are populated. This is something of a shame as MSI has put in a good deal of work and thought into the other components on the board. This lack takes away from what should be a great board design. We will be taking a look into these choices to see if they impact performance at all in the second half of our review.Discuss this in our Forum
