Gigabyte Z68X-UD3R-B3 Motherboard

The latest Intel Z68 Express chipset based mobo --Gigabyte Z68X-UD3R-B3 is in the ATX form factor and is compatible with the LGA1155 socket. This means an Intel core i3, i5, i7, Pentium and Celeron processors can be plugged onto the it. The mobo finds support for DDR3 2133/1866/1600/1333/1066 MHz memory modules. Just like the E350N, this mobo comes equipped with dual BIOS support, which has become a standard feature for Gigabyte. The board has USB 3.0, SATA 6 Gbps support which are again present on the latest boards being shipped today.

Test Bed: Intel core i5-2500 (3.3 GHz) processor, Seagate Barracuda XT 2TB hard disk, 2GB (1333MHz) Patriot DDR3 RAM, Windows 7 Ultimate(32 Bit), Glacialtech Alaska CPU cooler

The motherboard scored 22775 in 3DMarks 06, which means excellent graphics performance. In PCMark Vantage, the score was 6757, so it is more than a decent performer when it comes to basic office apps. In CineBench 11.5, the score was 4.71 points, more than decent again. Since this is one of the first few mobos to arrive in the Z68 chipset category, you cannot really compare this against other mobos. However, these scores fared well when compared with some of the other motherboards reviewed in our last mobo shootout in January 2011. Read it here:http://tinyurl.com/3h7x35u

Bottomline: Overall performance is good and the latest chipset from Intel make this board apt for enthusiasts.