BIOS -
BIOS is an acronym that stands for Basic Input/Output System. It is meant to control your product at a very low level.  As of right now there are three regularly used BIOS formats (there are actually more than that but there are three common ones). These are the AMI (American Megatrends Incorporated), Award, and Phoenix.

MSI is using the EFI BIOS (Which MSI calls the ClickBIOS) on the Z68A-GD80 B3 it is very similar to the BIOS on the P67s in fact we could honestly not tell the difference between the two interfaces if you were to put them side by side. Although I am not a fan of the cartoonish look and the feel of the MSI BIOS is a little clunky I can admit that I like the direction it is going. When you hit the landing page you have five major categories to choose from. Each of these has an Icon to represent it on the screen. In the upper right hand corner there are two buttons; one lets you exit while the other allows you to choose the display language. We will kick things off in the “Green Power” section.

As you can imagine the Green Power section has the items that control your power subsystem. As you enter each sub system page you will notice that you have a read out of the current CPU speed and temp. There is not too much to talk about here so let’s move on.

Next up is the utilities section; here you get a few decent items like a memory tester, MSI’s Live Update, an image based backup utility, and a way to change the boot screen image. To use both the Live Update and Backup utilities you will need to have the drivers DVD in the drive.

In the middle of all of this we find the overclocking page. Here is where you go to push your CPU to its maximum potential. MSI has not gone light here so you should be able to get some decent clocks if you try.

Now the fourth section is just plain silly. I mean come on, games in the BIOS? And these are just plain cheesy too. To get any of them to even show up you have to have the drivers DVD in place again. For the most part I think you will not worry too much about this one section.

The last section here is the Settings section. This is where you find all of the ancillary sections of the BIOS that you used to ignore while you were busy trying to fry your CPU. I am talking about places like the Advanced Settings, On Board Peripherals, Boot Menu etc. They are handy to have but it is nice to have them all in one place and out of the way.

Like I said, the MSI Click BIOS is a little cartoonish and clunky but it is certainly heading in the right direction and we did not find anything that made us feel it would hinder our performance or overclocking.

Overclocking -
I was more than a little surprised at the overclocking potential in the MSI Z68A-GD80. We kicked things off at 5.1GHz but soon found that this speed was not going to be stable. We could get through a run of HyperPi, but even attempting to run Lightwave or Cinebench caused an instant blue screen and we were done.  After tinkering with 5.0GHz and a few voltages we found we had to back off to 4.888GHz (really 4.9 but CPUz kept reading it as 99.5MHz x49. This became our final clock and matches up to our record clock on this particular i7 2600k. I can honestly say that with some additional tweaking I feel we would be able to get at least 5.0GHz if not 5.1 out of this board.

Of course overclocking is a picky subject. I can buy to identical CPUs from the store and they will not always perform the same way under stress. This is the same with motherboards, RAM and GPUs.  So again it is important to keep in mind that our results represent a specific hardware configuration. Yours may be similar but will rarely be identical.

Overclocking Tools -
MSI’s overclocking utility is called Control Center and it does pretty much that. When you open up this utility you have options for controlling quite a bit of the board. One item to note, if you are going to use this to overclock you will want to make sure you enable adjusting the ratio in Windows. Otherwise if you play with the ratio it can reset it back to 34 (which can ruin a good OC run). Oddly enough even if you turn this setting on we saw a maximum ratio of 42 available in this software. So if you are looking to push past this you will want to stick with the BIOS.

Some of the other BIOS settings (besides the overclocking settings) are replicated here in Control Center; you also have some of the Green Power options along with a nice page that shows you how to use the OC Genie.

It really is not a bad tool, but for some reason on this board it was limited to a 42x ratio.

The Test System and Comments -

Our test system is built on an open bench. This has two effects on testing. First it allows us to see everything and also to setup and disassemble the test rigs quickly. Second it means that we cannot gauge the potential air flow found in a normal case. The air is pretty stagnant; some may say this is a great neutral testing method and it can be. However, it does mean that the temperature reading taken off of the components are not accurate to what an average consumer would see. This means that your thermal performance will vary from what we see here.

The Z68-GB80 B3 was (as is very typical now) easy to set up. We did not encounter any difficulties with RAM or power. The OS installation was quick and painless as was the driver installation. The MSI drivers disk (in addition to having games for the BIOS) has a decent installer which can get you everything or just the items you want depending on what you click.  

The selection of utilities and tools was also pretty nice. There are some that we would never use, but I am sure that someone will find them handy and put them to good use.

Performance testing overview -
Our testing is a little different than most. We combine both synthetic and real-world applications to simulate the types of performance common to the individual products. For motherboards this means that we run roughly six synthetic tests and two real-world. We will be expanding the real-world testing in the near future.  But there is more to performance than just the raw numbers. As there are multiple components and sub-components on a motherboard there each item can have a distinct impact on the way the product will perform once you get it in your system. It is important to note not only the actual results but what they mean to you as a potential consumer. We will try to give this information to you.
But we do not just cover the performance aspects that are measurable. We also talk about the components that might not have a direct benchmark. These are items like Audio Quality, ease of use and installation.

Section 1 Subsystems
Memory -
Memory performance is very important on a motherboard, especially when you have a CPU with multiple cores and threads. If you have slow memory your cores and threads can become starved for data to execute. To test memory performance we run both Sisoft’s SANDRA and AIDA64. These two combine to not only give us accurate numbers but to validate each other. For testing at stock speeds the memory is hard set to 1333MHz while overclocking testing is done at the highest stable speed for the voltage of 1.65v this is due to the different memory dividers for each CPU. As such, the memory speeds will vary greatly. This means that the overclocked numbers are a little misleading and while they can show a trend are really only included to show if a board has a problem with memory performance at high clockspeeds.

The MSI Z68-GB80 is right where is should be in terms of memory performance. With some of the hype surrounding the Z68 chipset we honestly thought we would have seen a little bit more, but we have to be honest there is nothing wrong with this level of performance.

AIDA64 confirms our Sandra testing with a little more detail to back things up.

Drive performance -
Drive performance is also one of the major subsystems that goes to make up the performance of a motherboard.  For our testing we use Sandra and AIDA64 again.  We only test with single drives for each type of controller present on the motherboard (unless it is a professional product where we will use RIAD 5 and/or 10). We have also begun using a Seagate PS-110 USB 3 external HDD for our USB 3.0 performance.  As a side note, we include the overclocked numbers here to make sure  (again) that you are not going to see a major drop in performance due to minor instabilities at high clock speeds.

Now this is interesting; the Z68A-GD80 did not do so well with HDD performance. It was much slower than the rest of the pack when it came down to our SATA II testing (which is still what most people have).

As with our memory testing we use AIDA to back up our findings. What we are seeing is that the MCP on the board seems to drop off when we go into linear reads towards the end of the drive. This shows up on our SATA 3.0 testing as well. This issue could be fixed with nothing more than a BIOS tweak or a driver update as it seems to be more of a problem between the controller, the driver and the trim firmware on the drive.
HDD Performance

USB 3.0 Performance

Power -
Power efficiency is another of those misnomers that we get caught up in. We hear about idle states and power gates. But what does that mean to you and I?  On the surface having power management that reduces idle power sounds great and can be a benefit to someone that leaves their system on for long periods of time (and inactive) but how a system handles power under load and the delta between the two states is often more important than the idle power usage numbers. We use only P3 Kill A Watt instruments for measuring power.

The Z68-GB80 B3 does well on power draw even when we have an HD5870 in the system with the CPU running at 4.888GHz.

Cooling (Board Level) -
Board level cooling is an important factor in product performance and longevity. Components like the chipset, VRM modules and even capacitors need to be kept relatively cool to prevent failure. As these parts are made of silicon, they have a thermal breakdown threshold; or melting point. At that temperature the actual transistors built into chip will begin to deform and break down. Granted, the threshold is often very high, but you still need to make sure that components stay away from this level of heat for longer product life.  

These charts are interesting, although the legend says we take this at the Northbridge there really is not one of these anymore. We actually (as we say above) read this off of the Voltage regulation heatsinks. With the Z68A-GD80 we saw the heat buildup quickly once we dropped in the HD5870. This would seem to indicate that the power draw (current) increased across the board power system with this in play. We have to worry about how this board would handle multiple high-performance (read high current draw) GPUs.

Audio -
Audio is highly subjective. What we find pleasing may sound “off” to you. That is always going to the problem with testing audio; results will vary too widely depending on the tastes of the listener. However, there are ways of measuring the audio output with an objective ear. There is also the issue of audio causing performance issues in gaming and video playback. The reason this is a potential source of concern is that all onboard audio CODECs (Compression/Decompression) are CPU controlled. This means that while the audio chip controls the audio levels and effects of the audio the actual work is done on the CPU. Usually this will not be a problem with today’s powerful CPUs. Even the lower and consumer level products can handle high-end audio these days. But again there is the chance that a bad design or software will hinder your system and performance. On the other side the limits of board space, cost, etc will also prevent the level of audio quality you can get from an add-in board.  We test all audio parts with three media types, Movie (DVD), MP3 Music, and Gaming. These are pushed to our Tec On model 55 Tube Amp to see if we can detect any signal issues in the reproduction.

The audio on the MSI Z68A-GD80 was good. It was not what I would call great, even with the installation of the THX software. There was something that was just off about the sound. If I had to put my fingers on it I would say that is sounded over processed. There was an artificial quality about it that, while not unpleasant, did not make it as good as is possibly could have been. We also ran into a few very minor stutters while gaming. The two that we saw were during the school clearing in Modern Warfare 2 and in Farcry2 as you escape the hotel you are in and the barrel blows up near the window you exit.  We were able to repeat these during our testing and feel it could be due to the way the system resources are allocated to the audio CODEC.

Networking -
This one is something that is a requirement anymore. If you have a computer, the chances are good (like 99%) that you are also connected to high-speed internet.  With this you need a good and solid LAN chip to make sure that your data flows properly out and back.

The dual network controllers on the Z68A-GD80 do a great job when running as individual LAN controllers or when you team them on the right equipment and with the right profile.  We did not have any issues with these two and the MSI teaming utility is a snap to get setup. Of course it is important to note that with many residential routers setting up teaming is not going to do you much good as the router will not link the ports into a single trunk. This means that you will not really get 2Gbs but 1Gps + 1Gbps. Each one will operate independently of the other (in the best cases as one up one down) and can cause disconnected if your router or switch does not have the proper support.

Section II - Performance Tests,
Synthetic -
In this section of testing we cover the synthetics. These are tests that run a scripted sequence of internal APIs or that use another installed application to perform a series of scripted events. They are great in that they can provide reproducible results across various platforms. On the down side, synthetic tests can be fooled with driver tweaks and optimizations. In some cases it is necessary to rename the .exe file to something generic to discover if this is the case. In any event when this is needed (when a test shows a drastic difference in performance over the renamed exe) we will note this and show both results for comparison.  

PCMark7 -
PCMark7 is the latest general performance test from FutureMark. As each generation of this benchmark has evolved and developed we have watched them add more and more realistic tests to this suite. With this generation we find more media tests, (audio and video transcoding) moving of large files, multiple web page rendering, and much more (the even added DX10 gaming). We use the Overall Performance and Common Usage suites in our testing.

Here we find that thee Z68 falls sharply behind the P67 in general performance testing.  If we assume that the PCMark 7 suite is a good indicator of real world general usage then the Z68 and the MSI Z68A-GD80 could be in trouble in some of our later tests.

3DMark 11 -
3DMark 11 is the other Futuremark test that we run on our motherboards. This test simulates the typical tasks that a GPU (and system) would have to perform to provide you with a good gaming experience. It is based on the DX9, DX10 and DX11 engines but can only be installed on Windows Vista or later. The suite of tests covers DX9, DX10, and of course DX11 rendering; it also covers AI computations and physics. That’s right I said Physics the latest version of 3DMark uses a Havok physics engine. This removes the advantage that nVidia had with 3DMark Vantage.

As the i7 2600k’s GPU cannot run DX11 we were not able to test the built in GPU with 3DMark11. We did run it with the HD 5870 V2 from Asus and were able to get some very impressive numbers.

HyperPi 0.99b -
HyperPi is a front end application that allows you to easily run multiple instances of the SuperPi application. SuperPi, for those that are not familiar with it, is an application that measures the time it takes to calculate the number Pi out to as many as 32 million places. This calculation is then checked and run multiple times (up to 24 for a 32M run).  This test stresses the CPU, Memory and HDD as data is handed off between the three. If there is a weak link, HyperPi will show it. For our testing we run the 32M test on as many cores (and threads) as the CPU has available.  The slowest CPU time is then recorded.

For our HyperPi testing; we unfortunately find the Z68 back at the bottom with only the built in GPU and only marginally better with the HD5870 V2 installed. Even when overclocked it is still lower than we would have liked. This could come back and bite us during our rendering tests and in any application where you need raw computing power across more than one CPU core.

Cinebench R11.5 -
Cinebench R11.5 is the 11th release of Maxon’s rendering test. This test is based off of the Cinema 4D engine, which is one of the industry standard tools for digital animation. It is a powerful product with many different modules that can be “plugged” into it to increase its effectiveness. With Cinebench you get to see how your computer would do using this application. There are two tests; one tests the CPU’s ability to render an image across multiple cores or threads. The other tests your systems ability to handle OpenGL based rendering.

Now here is an interesting sight. The Z68A-GD80 does better without the HD5870 in it for CPU based rendering. For OpenGL,…we  let’s just say that if you are rendering in OpenGL you will want a discrete GPU.

Section III - Performance Tests,
Real-World -
Here we have two tests that are designed to put the performance of the motherboard and its subsystems to the test. Both require good CPU, Memory, HDD and even to a lesser extent audio and network performance. The two tests we chose were Lightwave 3D 9.6 and AutoGK 2.55. We will be adding at least one more real-world test to this battery in the near future, but for now these two cover quite a bit.

Lightwave 3D 9.6 x64 -
Lightwave is another industry standard application for 3D animation and rendering. It has a large tool base and the rendering engine is highly threaded (when using the right render model). This application is also capable of expanding to 4k resolutions as well as ray tracing for rending the light sources. For our testing we use frame 470 of the Pinball scene found in the LW 9 Content folder.  This uses the newer perspective camera that is better suited to a multi-CPU/Core environment. This camera style also uses ray tracing and a much improved anti-aliasing method. Settings are shown below in the attached screen shot.  Of course these are single frame renders and they are not a complete picture; for that you have to take into account the number of frames an average project would have. In a typical 30 second commercial you will have around 840 to 960 frames (at 28 – 32 FPS) this means that you have to multiply the time of a single frame by that number just to get a vague idea of how long that 30 seconds would take. This is because each frame will have a different render time based on complexity.

Once again we see the Z68A-GD80 do better without the added HD5870 in the system. This is very interesting as we would have expected the opposite due to the added memory burden from the on-die GPU. However, this did not happen... Puzzling but in a good way.

Our estimated 30-second project times illustrate how important even one second can be when you are rendering.



AutoGK 2.55 Transcoding -
AutoGK is a transcoding software that is really multiple parts combined to make an easy to use whole. It combines, items like FDD Show, Xvid encoder, Virtual Dub and others for use in converting one media format to another (usually Xvid AVI). It will not transcode copy protected DVDs or Bluray discs yet (you still need a decrypter for that). But it does an excellent job on everything else.  For our testing we use a 2 hour movie that has been placed onto a standard definition DVD for playback; we then transcode this DVD to a 100% quality AVI with the original audio intact.  This puts a strain on the CPU, Memory, HDD and the attached DVD ROM drive.

Wow, here the Z68A-GD80 without the HD5870 is over 45 seconds faster (actually right at 51 Seconds) for the same transcode. If it were not for the fact that AutoGK does not support the new decryption algorithms in the Sandy Bridge CPUs I would complement Intel’s design. However, here I think we are seeing the board struggling under the strain of the x16 PCIe lanes demanded by the HD5870. I hope I am wrong about this and all we need is a BIOS update or a driver fix, but it does seem to fit the circumstances.

Section IV Performance,
Gaming -
Gaming as a test of motherboard performance is sort of a joke these days. The big player in the gaming arena is the GPU. Everyone but a few hardcore PR teams know this. However, it is important to run at least a few (one from each current DX version) to see if there are any issues with the combination of components on a motherboard. These are items like Audio lag, memory lag and of course problems with the PCIe lanes and signal traces. If there are issues in design, drivers or BIOS then you can have odd gaming performance. So without much more preamble let’s dive into the three games we currently use; Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 for DX9 FarCry 2 for DX10 and Battlefield Bad Company 2 for DX11.

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 DX9 -
This is an excellent but short game that put you right into the action from the beginning and does not let up the pressure until the very end. The graphics are a little better; most notably the night and thermal imaging have been improved. The AI is still the typical COD “bar fight” style AI, with maybe a tad more finesse. All in all it is not a bad game to play and a decent one to use for testing. Our testing run starts at the bridge and ends after you clear the school in the first level of the game. Settings are shown below as are the performance numbers.

For our testing of the Z68A-GD80 we wanted to try out the gaming performance of the Core i7 2600K’s GPU. We have been hearing about this for some time and thought we should give is a good ourselves in the lab. We did and found that and have found that it is not as impressive as we would have thought. As you can see from the numbers below our gaming experience with just this as the driving force was a tad on the sluggish side. This was with the settings dialed back quite a bit too.

On the other side of the coin, when we drop in the HD5870 V2 then the Z68A-GD80 really comes to life.  It comes in at the top of the group for both stock and overclocked testing.

FarCry2 DX10 -
Although not one of my favorite games this tedious game does have some good graphics. The large sandbox style of the game lends to mission based play. The only problem is that the AI is rather low grade. Still the more CPU power the more the bad guys try to do. Over all the game was a little bit of a disappointment to play, but still not a bad DX10 representation. Our testing run starts right after you get your first mission to clean out the safe-house and ends after the hostage rescue. Settings and performance numbers are shown below.
Our FarCry 2 testing with just the CPU pushing the frame rate was also well under our expectations for full fluid gaming.



Once again as soon as we have the Asus HD5870 V2 in the board we get some excellent gaming scores. This is certain good news for DX10 gaming (although there is not much of that anymore really).


Battlefield Bad Company2 DX11 –
I have liked many of the Battlefield games. They usually tend to be fast paced and fun. With Battlefield Bad Company 2 you do get some of that, but there is something about the graphics and the movement that just does not sit right. The AI is a less sophisticated form of the bar fight AI, but it gets the job done. Still, the game is good for testing as it can put a strain on the components of the board. Out testing run is the entire first level, from beginning to end. Settings are shown below along with the raw numbers.
For our “on-Die” GPU testing the trend continues with this one being the most unimpressive of the three. We can say that this is most likely due to the CPU on the Core i7 and not a board level issue though

The same trend continues when we drop in our favorite HD5870. Looks like the Z68A-GD80 might be a good choice for gaming as long as you have the right GPU in the system.

Gaming wrap-up -
Well, I have to say that the MSI Z68A-GD80 is a very good board for gaming… At least it is if you have the right GPU and you drop in an add-in audio card. The onboard audio while not bad just sounded over processed.  Still I have never recommended an IGP (integrated graphics Processor) for gaming before, and I am not going to here.

Value -
Value is another very subjective topic. What is expensive to some might be a deal to others. You can look at this topic in multiple ways. One is raw price and the other is what you get for the money. Each is accurate and both are correct ways to look at price/value. We tend to look at features, performance and real-property when we discuss value. However, we also take into account the raw cash cost of the item.

The MSI Z68A-GD80 can be found for around $220 on the internet (it is a little more at some local retail stores). This is about an average price for a full sized ATX motherboard with the option for multi-GPU gaming, but with a “GPU” built in. With Intel’s new setup you also get the ability to run in a hybrid mode (which somewhat extends the value of the board). This is a lot like what both nVidia and AMD did a few years ago in their mobile devices. This technology lets your computer run high-demand applications on the main GPU and then shift back to the lower power GPU when it is no longer needed. According to the documentation it can do this with the main video output on the board. We plan to take a deep look at this very soon and see just how well this works practice.  Getting back to value the MSI Z68A-GD80 does have more than its share of features and some good gaming performance to back up the price tag.


Conclusion -
The MSI Z68A-GD80 has a lot going for it. It has some good components, a solid feature set and the design philosophy is fairly sound on the surface. Where things break down is in the resource allocation. MSI chose to go very thin (like many companies did when the P55s first came out). They did not drop in a bridge chip to help make up for the limited number of PCIe lanes available. This has the potential to hurt this board if you load it up too much. We may have even seen some evidence of this in our testing (some of the general computing tests were a little on the low side). However, the GD80 does make a comeback when we dive into gaming. Here it was very capable (at least with one GPU).  The down side to this was the over processed audio, this is pretty easy to remedy with an add-in audio card though and the overall gaming performance would honestly be worth it.

So the MSI Z68A-GD80 B3 has some rough edges but it can still get the job done for most things and can really overclock your Core i7/i5 CPU while giving excellent gaming performance with the right gear.

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