New, better Z68 boards?

VortX

VortX

VortX

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I am currently looking to get a decent Z68 board but I am fairly disappointed at the lack of MBs out, most of which are cheap and nasty.

Are there any new Z68 motherboards with any leaked details out there? (Yes I know it's a brand new chipset) I would like to go with ASUS but I don't really like their colour scheme atm, it reminds me of Gigabyte's horrendous old baby blue scheme.

I am moving from an R3E so I don't really want to "downgrade" in terms of build quality that much either. The only truly decent boards, in terms of build quality seem to be the Gigabyte UD5 & UD7 but after reading reviews im not impressed at all. I don't want to spend as much as I did with my R3E though; I am looking between 180-250 max.

Thank you. :)
 
Just had a look at your R3E build - very nice indeed.

As for a s1155 board, have you considered going for a P67 board? Unless you need SSD caching or Intel Quick sync then these boards are just as good as Z68 and there are currently much more of them to chose from.

That said, AMD bulldozer will be dropping in less than a month - before splashing out on a shiny new s1155 system I would suggest waiting to see what AMD bring to the table with their eight core bulldozer chips and AM3+ boards.
 
VortX said:
Apparently BD is set for June 7th, so just over a week.
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It's been "just over a week" for the last 3 months. :D


@OP : The MSI Z68A-GD80 might be worth a look, but if you're not impressed with the UD7, I'm not sure what you want (unless it's QuickSync/LucidVirtu). Could be worth waiting a few weeks for new boards, including Gigabyte's new mSATA series (with P in the title).
 
DennisMenace said:
It's been "just over a week" for the last 3 months. :D


@OP : The MSI Z68A-GD80 might be worth a look, but if you're not impressed with the UD7, I'm not sure what you want (unless it's QuickSync/LucidVirtu). Could be worth waiting a few weeks for new boards, including Gigabyte's new mSATA series (with P in the title).
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Yeah people can say what they want but the electronics shows in which AMD promote their products and the "reliable" reports suggest June 7th - Mid June.

It's not that I am not impressed with the UD5/UD7, but bang for buck they appear to be a joke. After reading reviews on the 2 boards, overclocking results were actually better on the cheaper, less well built boards. It seems motherboards on based on this chipset are a bit premature.

I did read some reviews on the MSI Z68 board too, but I don't feel I can put my trust in MSI just yet. They are still fairly new to the motherboard scene and the reviews don't show anything "impressive", the ASUS Z68 Pro mobo beats it in most tests and I trust ASUS, moreover I like their BIOS/software support.
 
VortX said:
I did read some reviews on the MSI Z68 board too, but I don't feel I can put my trust in MSI just yet. They are still fairly new to the motherboard scene and the reviews don't show anything "impressive"
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It depends what you mean by fairly new.

They've "only" been producing motherboards for around 25 years.

The MSI Sandybridge boards have been the least problematic of the big manufacturers judging by the posts in this forum.
 
Surveyor said:
It depends what you mean by fairly new.

They've "only" been producing motherboards for around 25 years.

The MSI Sandybridge boards have been the least problematic of the big manufacturers judging by the posts in this forum.
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Have they really? Well I never. I only noticed MSI boards (consumer ones at least) appear in the last 3~ years. Maybe I just never paid attention to them I guess. I do like the look of the MSI board, I will have a look for more reviews.
 
VortX said:
I am currently looking to get a decent Z68 board but I am fairly disappointed at the lack of MBs out, most of which are cheap and nasty.

Are there any new Z68 motherboards with any leaked details out there? (Yes I know it's a brand new chipset) I would like to go with ASUS but I don't really like their colour scheme atm, it reminds me of Gigabyte's horrendous old baby blue scheme.

I am moving from an R3E so I don't really want to "downgrade" in terms of build quality that much either. The only truly decent boards, in terms of build quality seem to be the Gigabyte UD5 & UD7 but after reading reviews im not impressed at all. I don't want to spend as much as I did with my R3E though; I am looking between 180-250 max.

Thank you. :)
Click to expand...

Hi just go with the Asus, if you want reliability etc, i got the Asrock z68 pro4 but after a week it started to freeze on the bios menu even on the very first boot up I did I had to reset the bios via the reset button at rear but was ok until now, anyway I have just ordered the Asus board reason been it has the onboard display ports etc and the Gigabyte ud7 doesn’t! Either way all the new sandy bridge boards look cheap for some reason as I had a UD5 Extreme and a UD7 x58 before this... Anyway the combination of a 2600k and z68 board blows my i7 920 @ 4ghz out of the water... :) Cant see you neededing anymore than the Asus P8Z68-V PRO.. but do agree with you the colour sucks! cant have it all lol
 
VortX said:
Have they really? Well I never. I only noticed MSI boards (consumer ones at least) appear in the last 3~ years. Maybe I just never paid attention to them I guess. I do like the look of the MSI board, I will have a look for more reviews.
Click to expand...

I had an MSI board about 10 years ago so they've been making consumer boards at least that long.
 
Surveyor said:
I had an MSI board about 10 years ago so they've been making consumer boards at least that long.
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As I said, maybe I just didn't notice them. The shops do seem to be flooded with ASUS and Gigabyte all the time and not much else.
 
I agree MSI still need to knock it up a gear every time I get a MSI product I always find something I don’t like. For example just got 1 Asus 6950 and 1 MSI R6950 both cards are ref design but the Asus will overclock better and the Asus is much heavier, not saying a heaver heat sink is better always but it does run 5deg lower than the MSI card :s cutting corners i think!
 
Crezzlin said:
I agree MSI still need to knock it up a gear every time I get a MSI product I always find something I don’t like. For example just got 1 Asus 6950 and 1 MSI R6950 both cards are ref design but the Asus will overclock better and the Asus is much heavier, not saying a heaver heat sink is better always but it does run 5deg lower than the MSI card :s cutting corners i think!
Click to expand...

I've got an MSI Frozer II 560Ti and it's brilliant. Except one of the 2 fans rattles for about a minute every time I turn the computer on and then it eases out. Seems a shame because I am going to end up taking it back for a replacement just because they didn't put enough oil/grease inside the fan.

So what was possibly an attempt to save money is gonna end up costing them a hell of a lot more. Will they ever learn? lol
 
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