Gigabyte knows how to make a serious-looking motherboard using dark grey anodized heatsinks, black nickel-plated heat pipes, and black slots on the Z68XP-UD5’s black circuit board.
A single HDMI output facilitates access to integrated graphics without wasting space performance-oriented enthusiasts typically want for other features. Those other features include four USB 3.0 ports and two USB-powered eSATA ports.
Recognizing that most enthusiasts use three or four internal hard drives, max, Gigabyte doesn’t bother adding another internal controller to the Z68XP-UD5. The motherboard does, however, have four internal USB 3.0 ports and an incredible number of CPU voltage regulator components.
Perhaps you noticed that the Z68XP-UD5 has twice as many USB 3.0 ports (internally and externally), but half as many controllers when compared to similarly-priced products. Gigabyte achieves this by placing its eight ports on two USB 3.0 hubs, so that all eight devices share a single 5 GT/s PCIe 2.0 pathway to the chipset. Though we aren’t very concerned about multiple devices sharing the chipset’s DMI connection, eight 5 Gb/s ports sharing a single 5 Gb/s pathway seems like a recipe for a more serious bottleneck.
Even more worrisome are slots that cannot be utilized. What we mean is that the two x1 slots gobble up two of the third x16-slot’s four electrical lanes. If you populate either x1 slot, it kicks that third x16 slot down to x1 mode.
All of these missing controllers and shared lanes point to a less-obvious device missing from the Z68XP-UD5: the PLX bridge used by ASRock and Asus. That device acts as a smart switch (similar to those found in networks) to negotiate traffic between an over-abundance of devices and too few PCI Express lanes. Yet, because of the pared-down PCIe device count, we can still treat the Z68XP-UD5 as a fully-functional product if we ignore its x1 slots or its x16 slot wired with four lanes.
Slot layout is identical to that of Asus’ competing model, making the Z68XP-UD5 a board designed for two-way SLI or CrossFire, at most. If none of the x1 slots are filled, a graphics card in the third x16 slot (again, it runs with only four lanes) could be used separately to host additional monitors. The only problem we see with putting a graphics card into that slot is that most GPU coolers are too large to fit over the notoriously stiff, straight USB 3.0 connectors plugged into the motherboard's front-panel port headers.

Taking a cue from the competition, Gigabyte adds a USB 3.0 bay adapter to the Z68XP-UD5’s support kit. On the other hand, its inclusion of only four SATA cables looks a little too budget-minded for a board that costs well over $200.
- Four Z68 Express-Based Motherboards For Enthusiasts
- ASRock Z68 Extreme7 Gen3
- Z68 Extreme7 Firmware
- Asus P8Z68 Deluxe
- P8Z68 Deluxe Firmware
- Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD5
- Z68XP-UD5 Firmware
- MSI Z68A-GD80 (B3)
- Z68A-GD80 Firmware
- Test Settings And Benchmarks
- Benchmark Results: Crysis And F1 2010
- Benchmark Results: Just Cause 2 And Metro 2033
- Benchmark Results: Audio And Video Encoding
- Benchmark Results: Productivity
- Power, Heat, And Efficiency
- Overclocking
- A Word On Warranties
- Whose Enthusiast-Class Z68 Board Is Best?


My AsRock AliveNF6G-VSTA in my warehouse full of dust, mites, cobweb still works.. Recently upgraded to 4GB RAM and GTS 450 1GB video card..
Gigabyte
MSI
Asus
Asrock
The answer to my first email question to Asus came a three full weeks later AFTER I had decided to return the board. AND the answer was an absolutely stupid response that did not address the real problem. Still wanting an answer to my question, I clarified the question and sent it back to Asus again. TWO weeks later I got ANOTHER asinine response from them. At that point I realized I was wasting my time.
I don't know how good AsRock's customer service is since I have not had a problem with the board.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/z68xp-ud3-dz68db,2980.html
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/z68xp-ud3-dz68db,2980.html
Crashman to the rescue again
Real enthusiasts, on the other hand don't use integrated graphics and already have a dedicated SSD. Enter P67 in the round-up and the winner would still be for almost 18 months running, the $255 Asus P67 WS Revolution.
Luay, real enthusiasts do use integrated graphics just they use it for Quick Sync only.
lol I have succesfully RMA'd many a part!!! Asus, Seagate, Sapphire, Asrock, you name it...
I am surprised at the gigabyte board. The power regulation seems too complicated to be useful, and the lack of UEFI seems strange and will hurt boot performance.
I could care less about using the 3rd pci 16x lane
If you've never gotten a warrenty back than you must have very bad luck. Most companies will happily send a replacement product. OCZ even works with oyu to ensure that you are satisfied with what you recieve back. Out of all the products I've sent in for warranties in the past 3 years, all 4 of them got a working product back. One I didn't bother to ship out because shipping was more than it was worth at the time.
I could care less about using the 3rd pci 16x lane
Agreed, Quads and Tri GPU's are just not worth the price at this stage.
Always had luck with Asus, Gigabyte and MSI boards.