Z68 Express Roundup: Three Motherboards Do Battle Around $200

Intel reserved its most feature-rich LGA 1155 platform for (or four?) months past the launch of its Sandy Bridge-based processors, but was it worth the wait? We compare three upper-mainstream Z68 examples to a top-quality P67 predecessor to find out.

We were initially stoked by how much better Intel’s current-generation processors are than their predecessors, combining quantifiable per-clock performance gains with lower power consumption, higher clock speeds, and vastly superior overclocking capability.

And yet, perhaps the most significant addition to the company's second-gen Core processors, Quick Sync-accelerated video transcoding, was limited to very inflexible H67 Express-based platforms. The P67 chipset allowed us to taste the new processor’s awesome overclocking, while its inability to access the architecture's integrated graphics core left a bad taste in our mouth.

Intel changes all of that with the release of Z68 Express, the uninhibited chipset that now sits atop Intel's mainstream-performance lineup. Now we even have the motherboards to prove it.

If you aren't yet familiar with the new platform, check out our coverage of the chipset itself in The Intel Z68 Express Review: A Real Enthusiast Chipset.