Computer Components

Heatsink Tested

GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3 Review - A Cheaper Alternative For the Best Z68 Motherboard

If you're looking for the best Z68 motherboard but your on a tight budget the GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3 is a cheaper alternative that might be perfect for you.

This board belongs to the Ultra Durable series 3 to ensure that this one is tough, so that you can enjoy it for years without having any problems. This board is almost the same as the GA-Z68X-UD4-B3 they have the same killer looks in black. Both motherboards are identical in its features and performance to make it sure you've got the best of both worlds.

The Looks

The GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3 motherboard is a good looking motherboard that comes in a black color with a combination of gray in its heatsink. It caches your attention easily by just by looking at this board and it feels like it can cranks up on speed.

The heatsink has a pretty descent size that can handle heat at overclocked conditions. The two PCI-E slots are spaced properly in case you'll need to use it in SLI or CrossfireX configuration to have enough air passage. The 4 DIMM slots are well placed so that it never touches the GPU card when installed.

All 8 SATA ports are mounted in right angle position for fast access and neat wiring as well as the 24/8 pin ATX power connector are also in a nice place. Back panel provides a healthy dose of ports in nice color code combination for you to easily identify each port. Overall, a very nice design and cool looks for great performing board.

Specs

Supports Core i7/Core i5/ Core i3 processors

Intel Z68 Express Chipset

Support Dual channel memory architecture for DDR3 2133/1866/1600/1333/1066 MHz

High Definition Audio Realtek 2/4/5.1/7.1-channel Dolby Home Theater with S/PDIF Out

1 x RJ45 LAN Realtek RTL8111E chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)

1 x PCI Express x16 slot @ x16, 1 x PCI Express x16 slot @ x8, 2 x PCI Express x1 slots and 2 x PCI slots

Supports both ATI CrossFireX and NVIDIA SLI technology

4x SATA 6Gb/s, 4x SATA 3Gb/s and 2x eSATA 6Gb/s connectors

14x USB 2.0/1.1 and 4x USB 3.0/2.0 ports

Features

New features for the GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3 is the touch BIOS in which you can control the BIOS settings with your fingers just like your iPhone. This is only applicable with a touch screen monitors and this is only available from their new Z68 motherboards. Another new features only from a Z68 motherboard from Gigabyte is the SSD, they claiming it as 4X faster than the HDD-only system.

Other features from their previous board designs are the maximum power delivery that delivers more power to the CPU with the new VRM design. The 12 phase power design idea is to reduce heat by spreading the load into 12 power phases for more stable and cooler. It also delivers fast response during the CPU loading variations.

Dual CPU power technology allows 1 set of power phase to rest while the other is active. In result, only half the amount of work by each power phase thus increases the motherboard durability and reliability. The integration of the Driver MOSFETs on a single IC that can achieved higher power transfer and faster switching frequency for more efficiency. The 108dB Signal-to-Noise ratio (SNR) playback ensuring a quality HD audio by further reducing the noise to deliver high performance multi channel output.

The Gigabyte dualBIOS supports more than 3TeraByte of hard disk drive space without the need of partitioning for more data storage. This features also provides a main backup for incase the main BIOS has crashed it automatically quick recovers all data's. It provides two physical ROM BIOS install in the motherboard itself.

The Turbo XHD provides an easy way to boost your HDD performance up to 4X by automatically detecting your hard drive to setup into RAID 0 configurations. The On/Off charge technology allows you to charge your iPad and iPhone even if the PC is in standby or off mode. Dynamic energy saver 2 reduces your power consumption while optimizes the efficiency of your system. This board is also equipped with an Over Voltage Control IC, for extreme overclocking that protects the CPU and memory.

Like what I said before the GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3 belongs to the Ultra Durable 3 series motherboards. That's why this board is made to last for years. What makes this board tough? The design of this board is twice the copper size for both the power and ground layers of the PCB. In this case it improves the signal quality and lowers the electromagnetic interference that provides better system stability which is great for overclocking. It also lowers the impedance by 50% that lowers the component temperature. It also uses solid Japanese caps and Ferrite core chokes for longer life span.

The best part of this board is the support for both the SLI and CrossfireX multi GPU configurations for you to have freedom to choose your best GPU weapon. Some other features are the Smart 6 for smart PC system management those are the Smart QuickBoot, Smart QuickBoost, Smart Recovery 2, Smart DualBIOS, Smart Recorder and Smart Time Lock that maximize your computing experience.

Testing The GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3

The GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3 was tested using the 2500K processor. The multiplier is set at x45 and staying the BCLK at 100MHz we got a stable at 4.5GHz. We want to find out more if we can push it harder if we increase the BCLK at 103MHz resulting at 4.635GHz.

An additional of 1.335GHz from the stock frequency of 3.3GHz shows a tremendous increased in its performance and smoothness in frame rate in various games. I presume that when a 2600K processor is used you can go further than these results. But as far as we got the following outcome, this motherboard shows a very impressive performance.

Bottom Line

As we already seen, the GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3 is a great performer. If you don't care much about the eSATA port the GA-Z68X-UD3P-B3 is your best choice as a cheaper alternative for the best Z68 motherboard.

The amount that you can save with this board can be added to spend it with a good Graphics card or with a bigger size memory sticks. With a lower price Z68 motherboard you can now have both the QuickSync HD graphics and overclocking features of the new Sandy Bridge processor that the p67 and H67 chipset lacks.

The only problem this board has it doesn't have a video output thus forcing you to buy a separate graphics card, but you can still enjoy the combination of the IGP and the discrete GPU. This would definitely your best Z68 motherboard with the best price you can get.

Read more reviews of the best motherboards and discover the top 5 Best Z68 Motherboard for intel Sandy Bridge processors.

About the Author

Learn more about the latest Z68 chipset that supports the intel Sandy Bridge processors and read more reviews of the Best Motherboards for intel and AMD.

XSC tested in the real world