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.
Z68 Extreme4 UEFI
ASRock’s now-familiar UEFI changes little for the Z68 generation. Changes that do occur are largely related to its onboard GPU overclocking capability. Performance fanatics will likely use integrated graphics exclusively for video transcoding and instead focus their overclocking efforts on the CPU core, though.
ASRock’s “Turbo 50” allows the instantaneous 50% overclock of certain processors, particularly low-end models that drop into other interfaces. Hardware limitations prevent LGA 1155-based platforms from pushing the BCLK very far, and higher-priced unlocked models come with higher stock frequencies that are far closer to the CPU’s safe-and-sane limits.
The Z68 Extreme4’s top OC Tweaker menu also contains the most often-used frequency and voltage controls.
All of the motherboards in this comparison provide XMP support. Users who would like to tune for even more memory performance will find that the Z68 Extreme4 has a few secondary timings in addition to the main four.
Less-motivated overclockers can simply select from one of ASRock’s five overclocking profiles, which come in 200 MHz increments above the processor’s rated maximum Turbo Boost ratio.
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Crashman user 18ASrock comes with 4 eSATA cables?KisakukuThe first UEFI screenshots for ASRock and Asus are switched.Fixed, thanks!Reply -
evga_fan ->ThomasReply
"Gigabyte’s Quick Boost application sets our processor at 200, 400, or 700 MHz beyond its rated frequency."
Just so you know. Anyways, keep up the good work!
Cheers -
crisan_tiberiu so, basicaly there is no difference in performance between theese boards as i can see.Reply -
hmm .. was thinking of getting an Asus P8Z68-V Pro .. not so sure now knowing that the other boards offer the same performance and are both cheaper.Reply
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Olle P One additional feature of the ASRock card that isn't mentioned is its set of holes matching a socket 775 cooler. That feature was the main reason I ordered one of these cards three days ago, since I won't have to spend money on a new CPU cooler.Reply -
crisan_tiberiu Olle POne additional feature of the ASRock card that isn't mentioned is its set of holes matching a socket 775 cooler. That feature was the main reason I ordered one of these cards three days ago, since I won't have to spend money on a new CPU cooler.Reply
ermm thats pro, since i have a socket 775 core 2 duo atm. Any other motherboards out there that suport this?? i would love to know