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From $100 To $160: Five Z68-Based Boards, Compared

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Value-oriented system builders celebrate new-found performance and features as Intel continues pushing its mainstream platform towards the high-end. Today, we draw a line in the sand and consider five motherboards priced between $100 and $160.

Benchmark Results: Productivity

If every motherboard performed perfectly, a perfectly consistent benchmark would prove performance parity. Adobe Photoshop is such a benchmark, at least on this occasion.

Note that 3ds Max completed five seconds quicker compared to our previous review. That’s because we decided to use the encoding time from consecutive runs, since this more accurately represents real-world use.

Differences in file compression and optical character recognition should be small enough to balance out in our total performance charts. We’re looking for overall performance differences after all, and individual benchmarks would merely highlight a problem that, so far, does not exist.

52 Comments Comment from the forums
  • vilenjan 11 July 2011 12:23
    What about looks? The gigabyte board looks so meh, while the MSI board is sexy!
    Reply
  • compton 11 July 2011 12:54
    I temporarily used a Biostar TH67+ 1155 mobo until I picked up my new board. After seeing the description of the Z chipset's Graphical UEFI I checked Biostar's website. It looks as though they're released the graphical UEFI for all biostar 1155 mobos.

    Now I just wish Intel would do the same -- can't they just rip off Asus's UEFI implementation?
    Reply
  • johnnyb_27 11 July 2011 13:01
    Why not use the MSI's Z68A-G65 instead of the MSI's Z68A-G55? They were the same price but now the drop MSI's Z68A-GD55 to 154 before rebate.
    Reply
  • dirtmountain 11 July 2011 13:09
    Sorry, but rebates don't count. A nice test of the other 4 motherboards though.
    Reply
  • hatethisbull 11 July 2011 13:59
    90% of this article could've been compressed into the summary page. I would've preferred to see comparisons between, say, a $70 h67 and a high-end z68. Instead of four pages of unsatisfying gaming benchmarks, how about focusing on board usability? Which of the boards have cheap PCI-E retention clips that are going to pop off on first use? Which ones will have blocked ports, etc.
    Reply
  • The Greater Good 11 July 2011 14:01
    vilenjanWhat about looks? The gigabyte board looks so meh, while the MSI board is sexy!
    Do you stare into your case whilst computing, or do you look at the monitor?
    Reply
  • aznguy0028 11 July 2011 14:57
    The Greater GoodDo you stare into your case whilst computing, or do you look at the monitor?I look into my case daily when I use the computer. There's a reason why there is a window, and hours of hard work for your perfect wiring job deserves much credit and to be stared at. Not to mention coloring schemes that matches your case/mobo pcb color/fan led colors/etc.
    Reply
  • jerreddredd 11 July 2011 16:31
    isn't it time we lost the PS2 port? and maybe even the DB15 VGA port also?
    Reply
  • Crashman 11 July 2011 16:52
    johnnyb_27Why not use the MSI's Z68A-G65 instead of the MSI's Z68A-G55? They were the same price but now the drop MSI's Z68A-GD55 to 154 before rebate.MSI picked the GD55 because it's SUPPOSED to cost $160. MSI did NOT pick the GD65 because it's SUPPOSED to cost $180. MSI's predictions from a few weeks back simply didn't pan out.
    Reply
  • Crashman 11 July 2011 16:55
    jerreddreddisn't it time we lost the PS2 port? and maybe even the DB15 VGA port also?Not PS/2, just VGA. They leave the Multi-I/O controller on the board for compatibility in other areas, so PS/2 is "free" and some people still use it at the high end.

    Some cheap monitors still use VGA, but these boards are not for the budget market! For VGA compatibility (for external capture devices and such) they could just use DVI-I and let the oddball user who needs VGA for that oddball purpose supply his own adapter.
    Reply