Is the Ivy Bridge Processor backward compatible?

I think you can if you flash your bios with your current sandybridge cpu, if yo dont have any sandybridge cpu then forget it.

http://www.evga.com/support/download/showdlinfo.aspx?id...
sows last bios file was last year..not to good if there going to run ib chip that came out this year. I would email the mb vendor for a updated cpu cart that will work on that mb. if they woint work with you i take to a level three customer rep a evga and have them replace the mb with a z77 of the same gaming type.

Yeah, you'll have to talk to evga and ask if they have a BIOS that supports ivy bridge. Z68 can support it, but it is up to the MB maker to release an update to enable it.

The Bios to update to support of the 3rd generation Intel® Core™ processors was released to the motherboard manufacturers in Dec. of last year and should have been rolled out in Jan.. Since that time it is likely that an older board like the Z68 should support the 3rd generation Intel Core processors but may not support the full capibilities of processor (PCI-E 3.0 may not be supported on the board).