Soldato
- Joined
- 23 Apr 2009
- Posts
- 11,973
- Location
- Cheshire
Hi there, May I ask why you want to upgrade your current Z68 board? That particular gigabyte is a relatively cheap board - but it is still good quality, is packed with features and can overclock an i5 CPU very well indeed (here is an in-depth review with a glowing report).
The only thing it is really lacking in is SLI support and a x8/x8 PCIE link for dual graohics cards - but if you are sticking with a single graphics card then it doesn't matter. Also, it doesn't have PCIE gen3 - but if you are only running a single graphics card then the existing PCIE gen2 x16 slot won't be a bottleneck for quite some time.
If you really do want to upgrade your Z68 board for some reason then as the guys above has said - the only upgrade is a Z77 board. These boards are natively PCIE gen3, so you won't see "PCIE gen3" in their product names since they all have this feature (unlike Z68 boards where only later versions do PCIE gen3). That said, these Z77 boards won't overclock your CPU any better, but (depending on the board you pick) they will support SLI/CF and dual graphics at x8/x8.
However, please be aware that PCIE gen3 (both on Z68 and Z77 boards) only works if you are using an Ivy Bridge CPU. With your existing Sandy Bridge CPU all these boards would be limited to PCIE gen2 speeds - since the PCIE graphics controller is on the CPU and the sandy bridge only supports up to PCIE gen2.
The only thing it is really lacking in is SLI support and a x8/x8 PCIE link for dual graohics cards - but if you are sticking with a single graphics card then it doesn't matter. Also, it doesn't have PCIE gen3 - but if you are only running a single graphics card then the existing PCIE gen2 x16 slot won't be a bottleneck for quite some time.
If you really do want to upgrade your Z68 board for some reason then as the guys above has said - the only upgrade is a Z77 board. These boards are natively PCIE gen3, so you won't see "PCIE gen3" in their product names since they all have this feature (unlike Z68 boards where only later versions do PCIE gen3). That said, these Z77 boards won't overclock your CPU any better, but (depending on the board you pick) they will support SLI/CF and dual graphics at x8/x8.
However, please be aware that PCIE gen3 (both on Z68 and Z77 boards) only works if you are using an Ivy Bridge CPU. With your existing Sandy Bridge CPU all these boards would be limited to PCIE gen2 speeds - since the PCIE graphics controller is on the CPU and the sandy bridge only supports up to PCIE gen2.
