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Intel's Z68 platform has proven popular with the enthusiast audience, as the combination of stellar performance and competitive pricing is tough to match. In September Gigabyte released the GA Z68AP D3, a budget priced board which targeted a huge audience and I really thought it offered great value for money.
Today we are looking at another low cost Z68 board from Asus, the P8Z68-V LX. With a low retail price of £89.98 inc vat is this enough to satisfy the discerning enthusiast user on a budget?
Product Overview:
- Dual Intelligent Processors – TPU & EPU
- UEFI BIOS (EZ Mode) – Flexible & Easy BIOS Interface
- GPU Boost – Go to the Limit with iGPU Level Up!
- LucidLogix Virtu (Universal Switchable Graphics) – Auto Switching between Integrated Graphics and NVIDIA/AMD Cards
- Intel Smart Response Technology – SSD Speed with HDD Capacity
- USB 3.0 & SATA 6Gb/s Support – Double Access, Double Convenience
The motherboard arrives in a strictly understated box, with the name of the product on the front and a list of specifications.
As this is a budget oriented product, the bundle isn't as extensive as other ASUS motherboards we have reviewed in recent months. There is a manual, quick start guide, software/driver disc, two SATA cables and a backplate for the chassis. Asus also include a branded sticker for the case. We would have expected at least four SATA cables with the board, even with the budget leanings.
The motherboard isn't polluted with heatsinks, giving another indication of the budget status, although there is a nicely coloured blue and black heatsink above the SATA ports to aid with stability when pushed hard – it is passively cooled. The P8Z68-V LX uses Dual Intelligent Processors Technology. According to Asus “This exclusive design consists of the EPU (Energy Processing Unit), which automatically monitors power consumption system-wide to ensure efficiency, and the TPU (TurboV Processing Unit) – guaranteeing superior performance for every task, bringing users an unbeatable experience.”
It measures 30.5 cm x 22.9 cm and is a 4+2 Phase Power Design.
The board has 6 SATA ports bottom right, four of which are 3Gb/s port(s) – these are blue. The two gray ports are Sata 6Gb/s rated. All are controlled by the Intel Z68 express chipset. There is support for Raid 0, 1, 5, and 10. Sadly these are vertically mounted which may cause some issues for specific users.
The Asus P8Z68-V LX has four memory slots with support for up to 32GB of DDR3 memory. It can handle DDR3 2200(O.C.)/2133(O.C.)/1866(O.C.)/1600/1333/1066 MHz Non-ECC configurations with full support for the Intel Extreme Memolry Profile (XMP).
The Asus P8Z68-V LX is Quad GPU CrossfireX compatible and there the following slots on the board:
1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (blue)
1 x PCIe 2.0 x16 (x4 mode, black)
2 x PCIe 2.0 x1
3 x PCI.
It is worth pointing out that the PCIe x16_2 slot shares bandwidth with PCIe x1_1 slot, PCIe x1_2 slot.
There are 4 USB 2.0 connectors which support an additional 8 USB 2.0 ports.
The board has three, four pin fan headers and a single three pin fan header. They are all positioned in the top half of the board. Asus include a ‘Memory OK' button, to help with troubleshooting. The board has ASUS C.P.R. overclocking protection, which allows for previous, usable settings to be easily recalled.
The back I/O panel has connectivity for:
1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse combo port(s)
1 x DVI
1 x D-Sub
1 x HDMI
1 x LAN (RJ45) port(s)
2 x USB 3.0
4 x USB 2.0
1 x Optical S/PDIF out
6 x Audio jack(s)
On this page we present some super high resolution images of the product taken with the 24.5MP Nikon D3X camera and 24-70mm ED lens. These will take much longer to open due to the dimensions, especially on slower connections. If you use these pictures on another site or publication, please credit Kitguru.net as the owner/source.
The UEFI BIOS is an impressive configuration with an ‘EZ' mode (easy) for people who only want to touch the basics. An advanced mode is available for overclocking and finer tuning of settings.
Within the advanced panel, the ‘main' tab offers a basic overview of the hardware configuration. An easy to read, reference point.
The AI Tweaker panel is the main section for overclocking. With a decent air cooler, 4.6ghz was easily achievable from this motherboard @ 1.42 volts. More should be possible with improved cooling, however the hard core audience are likely to invest more on a high end motherboard, specifically just for overclocking.
The ‘Advanced' panel lets the user adjust many of the onboard configuration settings. such as the SATA drives and USB configuration.
The monitor tab is ideal for right after the system build. Checking that temperatures, fan speeds, and voltages are all falling within parameters.
The boot tab allows for adjustment over full screen logo, boot drive options and boot override settings.
The ‘tool' panel has options for flashing the bios, and for storing/recalling overclocked settings. It is at the level we would expect from ASUS, especially the intuitive layout.
Kitguru has reviewed a huge array of Z68 motherboards this year and today we will focus on the ‘budget' oriented audience. Those people who won't spend several thousand pounds on configuring a new system.
The only exception to this rule with our test hardware today, will be a 240GB Patriot Wildfire solid state drive – we selected this specifically to test the ultimate SATA III performance of the motherboard. You may not be able to afford this, but we want to see if the SATA performance is at the level we would expect.
Processor: Intel Core i5 2600k @ reference clocks
Cooling: Arctic Cooling Freezer 13
Graphics: XFX HD6870 Black Edition
Motherboard: Asus P8Z68-V LX Motherboard
Chassis: Cooler Master Storm Trooper Case.
Power Supply: PC Power & Cooling 600W.
Memory: 8GB ADATA gaming memory @ 1600mhz
Storage: Patriot WildFire 240GB
System validation is available here.
Monitors: Dell Ultrasharp U3011
Software:
Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit
Unigine Heaven Benchmark.
PCMark 7.
3DMark Vantage.
3DMark 11.
Fraps Professional.
Steam Client.
FurMark.
HQV 2.0 Software.
Technical Monitoring and Test Equipment:
Nikon D3X with R1C1 kit.
Olympus E-PL1.
Keithley Integra unit.
Thermal Diodes.
Raytek Laser Temp Gun 3i LSRC/MT4 Mini Temp.
Extech digital sound level meter & SkyTronic DSL 2 Digital Sound Level Meter.
Games:
Alien V Predator.
Dead Island.
Just Cause 2.
F1 2011.
Lost Planet 2.
Resident Evil 5.
Total War: Shogun 2.
All the latest BIOS updates and drivers are used during testing. We perform generally under real world conditions, meaning KitGuru tests games across five closely matched runs and then average out the results to get an accurate median figure. If we use scripted benchmarks, they are mentioned on the relevant page.
Some game descriptions and information are taken with courtesy from Wikipedia.
SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. It should provide most of the information (including undocumented) you need to know about your hardware, software and other devices whether hardware or software. Sandra is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means “defender”, “helper of mankind”. We think that’s quite fitting.
It works along the lines of other Windows utilities, however it tries to go beyond them and show you more of what’s really going on. Giving the user the ability to draw comparisons at both a high and low-level. You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, PCI, PCI-X, PCIe (PCI Express), database, USB, USB2, 1394/Firewire, etc.
Native ports for all major operating systems are available:
• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x86)
• Windows XP, 2003/R2, Vista, 7, 2008/R2 (x64)
• Windows 2003/R2, 2008/R2* (IA64)
• Windows Mobile 5.x (ARM CE 5.01)
• Windows Mobile 6.x (ARM CE 5.02)
All major technologies are supported and taken advantage of:
• SMP – Multi-Processor
• MC – Multi-Core
• SMT/HT – Hyper-Threading
• MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, SSE 4.1, SSE 4.2, AVX, FMA – Multi-Media instructions
• GPGPU, DirectX, OpenGL – Graphics
• NUMA – Non-Uniform Memory Access
• AMD64/EM64T/x64 – 64-bit extensions to x86
• IA64 – Intel* Itanium 64-bit
Performance is as we would expect as these clock speeds and memory settings, with no performance concerns to mention.
CINEBENCH R11.5 64 Bit is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer’s performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON’s award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.
CINEBENCH is the perfect tool to compare CPU and graphics performance across various systems and platforms (Windows and Mac OS X). And best of all: It’s completely free.
The 2600k is a strong performer in Cinebench R11.5, scoring 7.44 points. Ideal for use as a low cost 24/7 rendering station.
Unigine provides an interesting way to test hardware. It can be easily adapted to various projects due to its elaborated software design and flexible toolset. A lot of their customers claim that they have never seen such extremely-effective code, which is so easy to understand.
Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.
Efficient and well-architected framework makes Unigine highly scalable:
- Multiple API (DirectX 9 / DirectX 10 / DirectX 11 / OpenGL) render
- Cross-platform: MS Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7) / Linux
- Full support of 32bit and 64bit systems
- Multicore CPU support
- Little / big endian support (ready for game consoles)
- Powerful C++ API
- Comprehensive performance profiling system
- Flexible XML-based data structures
We use the following settings: 1920×1080 resolution. Anti Aliasing off. Anisotrophy 4, Tessellation normal. Shaders High. Stereo 3D disabled. API: Direct X 11.
The XFX HD6870 Black Edition is a high performance graphics card, averaging 35.6 fps at these settings.
PCMark 7 includes 7 PC tests for Windows 7, combining more than 25 individual workloads covering storage, computation, image and video manipulation, web browsing and gaming. Specifically designed to cover the full range of PC hardware from netbooks and tablets to notebooks and desktops, PCMark 7 offers complete PC performance testing for Windows 7 for home and business use.
An overall score of 5,347 points is indicative of a good, strong, all round system as we would expect.
Futuremark released 3DMark Vantage, on April 28, 2008. It is a benchmark based upon DirectX 10, and therefore will only run under Windows Vista (Service Pack 1 is stated as a requirement) and Windows 7. This is the first edition where the feature-restricted, free of charge version could not be used any number of times. 1280×1024 resolution was used with performance settings.
An overall score of 19,334 points is very healthy indeed, with the CPU scoring almost 26,000 points.
3DMark 11 is designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista. The benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading.
After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.
If you want to learn more about this benchmark, or to buy it yourself, head over to this page.
Physics performance is particularly impressive, scoring 9,210 points, with the GPU scoring 4,340 points. The overall score is 4,716 points.
HQV Benchmark 2.0 is an updated version of the original tool and it consists of various video clips and test patterns which are designed to evalute motion correction, de-interlacing, decoding, noise reduction, detail enhancement and film cadence detection.
There are two versions of the program, standard definition on DVD and high definition on Bluray. As our audience will be concentrating on HD content so will we.
This has a total of 39 video tests which is increased from 23 in the original and the scoring is also up from a total of 130 to 210. As hardware and software gets more complicated, the software has been tuned to make sure we can thoroughly maximise our analysis.
Read our initial analysis over here
| XFX HD6870 BE |
|
|
Dial
|
4 |
| Dial with static pattern | 5 |
| Gray Bars | 5 |
| Violin | 5 |
| Stadium 2:2 | 5 |
| Stadium 3:2 | 5 |
| Horizontal Text Scroll | 5 |
| Vertical Text Scroll | 5 |
| Transition to 3:2 Lock | 5 |
| Transition to 2:2 Lock | 0 |
|
2:2:2:4 24 FPS DVCAM Video
|
5 |
|
2:3:3:2 24 FPS DVCam Video
|
5 |
|
3:2:3:2:2 24 FOS Vari-Speed
|
5 |
|
5:5 FPS Animation
|
5 |
|
6:4 12 FPS Animation
|
5 |
|
8:7 8 FPS Animation
|
5 |
|
Interlace Chroma Problem (ICP)
|
5 |
|
Chroma Upsampling Error (CUE)
|
5 |
|
Random Noise: Sailboat
|
5 |
|
Random Noise: Flower
|
5 |
|
Random Noise: Sunrise
|
5 |
|
Random Noise: Harbour Night
|
5 |
|
Scrolling Text
|
5 |
|
Roller Coaster
|
5 |
|
Ferris Wheel
|
5 |
|
Bridge Traffic
|
5 |
|
Text Pattern/ Scrolling Text
|
5 |
|
Roller Coaster
|
5 |
|
Ferris Wheel
|
5 |
|
Bridge Traffic
|
5 |
|
Luminance Frequency Bands
|
5 |
|
Chrominance Frequency Bands
|
5 |
| Vanishing Text | 5 |
|
Resolution Enhancement
|
15 |
|
Theme Park
|
5 |
| Driftwood | 5 |
|
Ferris Wheel
|
5 |
|
Skin Tones
|
7 |
| Total | 196 |
196 points is pretty much in line with other AMD based hardware with the latest drivers. A very strong result.
Our good friends at Cyberlink kindly supplied the software for our BluRay and conversion tests.
Cyberlink PowerDVD 11 is one of the finest solutions for the BluRay experience on Windows and we found this software to work perfectly with this chipset. We tested with the new Bluray Disc of ‘The Road’.
Absolutely no performance related concerns, averaging around 6 percent CPU usage.
The Matroska Media container is a very popular, open standard Multimedia container which is usually found as .MKV files. It is a very popular format in enthusiast circles and can be played directly in Windows Media Player with suitable codecs installed. We use the Combined Community Codec Pack (CCCP).
We ripped our BluRay disc of Sniper Reloaded to 1080P MKV and use Windows Media Player to playback the file.
MKV contained high definition content places a high load on a system. The 2600K is a powerful processor however and we didn't experience any performance related concerns with plenty of cycles left over for multitasking.
Many people using this system will be enjoying Flash related content so we feel it is important to test with some of the more demanding material available freely online. Full hardware acceleration is enabled.
This generation of hardware really has no problems with playback of 1080p flash related content, averaging just over 7 percent.
CyberLink MediaEspresso 6 is the successor to CyberLink MediaShow Espresso 5.5. With its further optimized CPU/GPU-acceleration, MediaEspresso is an even faster way to convert not only your video but also your music and image files between a wide range of popular formats.
Now you can easily playback and display your favourite movies, songs and photos not just on your mobile phone, iPad, PSP, Xbox, or Youtube and Facebook channels but also on the newly launched iPhone 4. Compile, convert and enjoy images and songs on any of your computing devices and enhance your videos with CyberLink’s built-in TrueTheater Technology.
New and Improved Features
- Ultra Fast Media Conversion – With support from the Intel Core i-Series processor family, ATI Stream & NVIDIA CUDA, MediaEspresso’s Batch-Conversion function enables multiple files to be transcoded simultaneously.
- Smart Detect Technology – MediaEspresso 6 automatically detects the type of portable device connected to the PC and selects the best multimedia profile to begin the conversion without the need for user’s intervention.
- Direct Sync to Portable Devices – Video, audio and image files can be transferred in a few easy steps to mobile phones including those from Acer, BlackBerry, HTC, Samsung, LG, Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Palm, as well as Sony Walkman and PSP devices.
- Enhanced Video Quality – CyberLink TrueTheater Denoise and Lighting enables the enhancement of video quality through optical noise filters and automatic brightness adjustment.
- Video, Music and Image File Conversion – Convert not only videos to popular formats such as AVI, MPEG, MKV, H.264/AVC, and FLV at the click of a button, but also images such as JPEG and PNG and music files like WMA, MP3 and M4A.
- Online Sharing – Conversion to video formats used by popular social networking websites and a direct upload feature means posting videos to Facebook and YouTube has never been easier.
For our testing today we are converting a 3.3GB 720p MKV file (2h:12mins) to Apple Mp4 format for playback on a portable device. This is a common procedure for many people and will give a good indication of system power. We are using the newest version which has been optimised for Sandybridge processors.
We recorded a total time of 10 minutes and 12 seconds from the encoding task which is very healthy, especially when considering the 2600k is running at reference settings within the Asus P8Z68-V LX bios.
To test today, we attached the ultra quick Patriot 240GB Wildfire Solid State Drive to ascertain SATA 6Gbps performance. This will likely be out of the price range for the target audience of the Asus P8Z68-V LX, however we want to push the performance to the limits, just to see what is possible.
A very important part of overall system responsiveness is down to hard drive performance. We use two of our favourite benchmark utilities Crystalmark X64 Edition and HD Tach to rate performance.
Performance is fantastic, averaging just under 500 MB/s in both sequential read and write tests. 4K and 4kQD32 performance is also as good as we have seen.
The ATTO Disk Benchmark performance measurement tool is compatible with Microsoft Windows. Measure your storage systems performance with various transfer sizes and test lengths for reads and writes. Several options are available to customize your performance measurement including queue depth, overlapped I/O and even a comparison mode with the option to run continuously. Use ATTO Disk Benchmark to test any manufacturers RAID controllers, storage controllers, host adapters, hard drives and SSD drives and notice that ATTO products will consistently provide the highest level of performance to your storage.
Class leading results from the Patriot Wildfire drive, scoring around 550MB/s in the read test and around 520 MB/s in the write test.
Just Cause is an open world action-adventure video game developed by Avalanche Studios and published by Eidos Interactive. It was released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox, Xbox 360 on September 22, 2006 in Europe, September 27, 2006 in North America, September 29, 2006 in Australia and November 8, 2007 in Japan. The fictional area explored during the game is described as being over 250,000 acres (1,012 km2; 391 sq mi) in size, with 21 story missions and over 300 side missions to complete.
The system averages just over 50 frames per second at these settings, providing a very smooth enjoyable gaming experience.
Dead Island is set in the fictional island of Banoi, located off the coast of Papua New Guinea. The main characters wake up in the Palms Resort hotel to find the island attacked by zombies and mysteriously, they are immune to whatever is making people into zombies. As they try to find and help other survivors, they must also find a way to escape the island as well.
Solid performance from the Asus P8Z68-V LX system, averaging just under 90 fps at these settings.
F1 2011 is the newest Direct X 11 racing game from industry pioneers CodeMasters. The 2011 Formula One season is the 62nd FIA Formula One season. The original calendar consisted of twenty rounds, including the inaugural running of the Indian Grand Prix before the cancellation of the Bahrain Grand Prix. Pirelli returns to the sport as tyre supplier for all teams, taking over from Bridgestone. Red Bull Racing are the reigning Constructor’s Champions. Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel is the defending Drivers’ Champion, one of five World Champions appearing on the grid.
Asus P8Z68-V LX system produces solid frame rates at these settings, averaging over 30 fps, dropping to 27 fps once during an intensive part of our test environment.
Aliens V Predator has proved to be a big seller since the release and Sega have taken the franchise into new territory after taking it from Sierra. AVP is a Direct X 11 supported title and delivers not only advanced shadow rendering but high quality tessellation for the cards on test today.
To test the system we used a 1080p resolution with DX11, Texture Quality High, MSAA Samples 0, 0 af, ambient occulsion off, shadow complexity medium, motion blur on.
An intensive Direct X 11 game, but the system manages to produce good frame rates at these settings, averaging just over 50 fps.
Lost Planet 2 is a third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. Many gameplay features from the original Lost Planet game are present. Recurring elements include major boss battles, extreme terrain, and the ability to pilot mechanized armor suits, known as Vital Suits (VSs).
One of the more taxing games currently available, even though it has been out now for quite some time. At these settings, the system manages to produce an average of around 30 frames per second, dropping to 20 fps a couple of times. A few image quality settings would need to be lowered for a perfectly smooth experience.
The Asus P8Z68-V LX has proven to be a very capable, stable and reliable motherboard in our tests over the last week. The main talking point will be the incredibly competitive price point, as it retails for under £90 inc vat in the United Kingdom, at time of press.
At this price, we need to be willing to overlook some of the minor ‘niggles' … such as all the SATA ports being mounted vertically, rather than in parallel with the PCB. While The LX supports Crossfire configurations the secondary slot only operates in x4 bandwidth mode. This is the same as the Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 which we reviewed in September, and while on paper it sounds a deal breaker, in the real world it doesn't make a huge amount of difference.
Everything considered however, we would expect most people looking for a high end dual card system configuration will be aiming higher up the price range anyway.
The UEFI bios is extremely intuitive and maintains the high standards we would expect from Asus, even at a budget price point. Overclocking the 2600k proved incredibly easy and we coaxed 4.6ghz from the processor with little effort and a minor voltage increase. Higher would likely be possible, with improved cooling and higher voltages. We found the LX would recover well from an unstable overclocked state, after a few reboots, without user interaction. We would recommend additional airflow at overclocked settings however as the motherboard isn't equipped with many heatsinks.
The bundle is slightly disappointing. Asus for instance only include 2 SATA cables which seems a little oppressive, even at this bargain price point. Including two additional cables would only cost ASUS a couple of pence for every product sold and could surely be factored into the current price.
In regards to overall performance, we have no concerns at all with the P8Z68-V LX board design. SATA 3 performance for instance is as good as we would expect, right up there with the flagship motherboards. Of course this might sound strange, as every SATA 3 rated port should be identical, right? In our testing, we find this isn't the case with some minor variances between products and controller.
There is no doubt that the P8Z68-V LX is one of the best value motherboards for the Z68 platform. It might not come fully loaded when compared against their flagship products, but Asus have cleverly focused on the key enthusiast selling points. Stability, all round performance and a very intuitive bios implementation.
You can buy this motherboard direct from Overclockers in the UK for £89.98.
Pros:
- A fantastic price point to achieve.
- Good build quality.
- Bios is capable.
- rock solid.
- good SATA 3 performance.
- decent overclocking board.
Cons:
- Bundle is less than impressive.
- not the most attractive design (lack of heatsinks doesn't help)
Kitguru says: One of the best value for money Z68 motherboards on the market today.
