future proof mobos?

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Just looking opinions on future proof mobos, I have selected an ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3 and just wondering is this still a good choice.

Could I get a decent board nearly the same as the above cheaper??

Any suggestions.
 
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this looks good, i also checked performance with other z68 boards on bit tech, and the Gigabyte Z68 boards are top performers.

Only thing is I dont have future pci-e 3.0 on any of there boards.
 
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hard to understand that article, very poorly layed out lol. In a nutshell what does it mean?

That if I buy any Gigabyte z68 board, I can put an ivy bridge processor on it? Along with PCI-E 3.0???????
 
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hard to understand that article, very poorly layed out lol. In a nutshell what does it mean?

That if I buy any Gigabyte z68 board, I can put an ivy bridge processor on it? Along with PCI-E 3.0???????

Yes, the top slot only, and at 8X bandwidth as the other 8X go through some little chips that are not PCI-E3.0 compatible.

Basically, when you run a single card you get 16X PCi-E lanes (8 from the cpu direct, and 8 more from the CPU that go through the little switches and send them to the top slot.

When a second card is detected in the other slot, the switches send those 8 lanes to that slot instead.

Leaving the top slot at 8X and the bottom at 8X.
 
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Well no, as the other 8X go through the switches that are not gen3.0 compatible.


To be honest its going to be ages before that sort of bandwidth is needed, even a 8X PCi-E2.0 doesnt hold back a current gen card.
 
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There's no such thing as a futureproof component in PCs. Motherboards tend to get upgraded at the same time as CPUs as normally CPU upgrades mean moving to another generation CPU which would require a motherboard upgrade. I believe that the motherboard you are talking about will support Ivy Bridge when it comes out, but I doubt you will be upgrading from SB to IB. Just get something that does the job well, has a few PCI-e x16 slots (the second one doing x8 is fine) and that's about all that you can do.

Presumably you want to save money in the long run by getting something that is futureproof. The best way to do that is to get something that does the job for the smallest possible price- the Asus P8P67 should see you right for a good price.
 
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ok good advice thanks, im going with the Gigabyte Z68XP-UD3 Mobo as its cheaper than the ASRock Extreme4 that i was planning on going with before. But due to performance bench marks that has put me off although with cracking features and PCI-E 3.0 support i'm going for performance which the Gigabyte offers for sure.

I can see the Asus P8Z68 board is good also but not sure which is better here.

Please someone tell me that Im making the correct decision here?
 
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Soldato
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The only issue I have with current Gigabyte boards and it may not even be an issue, but Windows 8 seems to leverage a lot of UFEI stuff for quicker booting, security and such and I'm wondering how much of that won't work with a Gigabyte motherboard since it isn't a full UFEI implementation.
 
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