Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 review – bargain mobo of the year

1. Introduction2. Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z683. Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 (Super High Res Gallery)4. Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 (Bios & Overclocking)5. Testing Methodology6. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra7. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.5 64 bit8. Synthetic: Unigine Heaven Benchmark9. Synthetic: PCMark Vantage10. Synthetic: PCMark 711. Synthetic: 3dMark Vantage12. Synthetic: 3DMark 1113. Image Quality: HQV Benchmark 2.014. Real World: Blu Ray Playback Performance15. Real World: MKV Playback16. Real World: Flash HD Performance17. Real World: Media Encoding18. Data Throughput: SSD Performance19. Gaming: Just Cause 220. Gaming: Dead Island21. Gaming: F1 201122. Gaming: Alien V Predator23. Gaming: Lost Planet 224. Gaming: Total War: Shogun 225. Closing Thoughts26. View All Pages

Kitguru often focuses on the ultra high end hardware, but today we are building a system around the Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 motherboard, a new product which aims to deliver the best price point possible. At a shade under £85 we wanted to test this new mobo with the award winning Intel 2500K processor. Can we upgrade your older system to a new, kick ass CrossfireX gaming system for around £600?

As this is an upgrade scenario, you will already have a chassis, hard drive, power supply, monitor, keyboard/mouse and we will focus on upgrading the core components including processor, graphics, motherboard, memory and cooler.

Motherboard:
Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard – £85 inc vat from Scan.

Processor:
Intel Core i5 2500k – £160 inc vat from Scan.

CrossfireX Graphics:
XFX HD6870 Black Edition x 2 – £146 inc vat each from Scan. (£290 total)

Cooler:
Arctic Cooling Freezer Xtreme Rev.2 CPU Cooler – £26.50 inc vat from Amazon.

Memory:
Corsair Memory XMS3 Classic 4GB DDR3 1600 MHz CAS 9 Dual Channel Desktop – £23 inc vat from Scan.

Total: £584 inc vat.

The system above is well balanced with some of the best priced components on the market. Obviously if you also need a power supply upgrade you could run initially with a single graphics card, then upgrade with another at a later date, when funds permit.

On paper the Gigabyte -Z68AP-D3 Z68 seems almost too good to be true, especially at this budget price point. It is fully loaded and even comes equipped with Intel Smart Response Technology, the first ever mSATA drive connectors on a standard desktop PC motherboard. It has CrossfireX support, USB 3.0 connectors and SATA 6Gbps connectors.

The Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard arrives in a colourful box with the name of the product on the front, as well as a list of key selling points, ideal for a retail store display.

Considering the price, the bundle is acceptable. There are several SATA 6Gbps capable cables, a backplate, user manual and software/driver disc.

The board is rather plain looking, but uses an Intel approved Intersil PWM controller that is VRD 12 (Voltage Regulator Down) compliant – it is ATX Form Factor – measuring 30.5cm x 21.5cm. The board has a dual bios configuration, in case the main bios gets corrupted it can be automatically restored from the secondary. It also allows booting from 3TB drives and is ErP Lot 6 compliant.

The GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 supports ‘On/Off Charge' which enables devices to draw more current from the motherboard USB ports than standard USB ports, so that charging from your PC can be as fast as with a charger to the mains. We have tested this system in previous reviews and it works well. LucidLogix Virtua is supported, but we have tested it in the past and avoid it when possible.

Internal connectors are as follows:

1. 1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector
2. 1 x 4-pin ATX 12V power connector
3. 2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors
4. 4 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors
5. 1 x mSATA connector
6. 1 x CPU fan header
7. 2 x system fan headers
8. 1 x power fan header
9. 1 x front panel header
10. 1 x front panel audio header
11. 1 x S/PDIF Out header
12. 3 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers
13. 1 x clearing CMOS jumper
14. 1 x Trusted Platform Module (TPM) header

The GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 has four memory slots for a total of 32GB DDR3. It supports memory speeds at 2133/1866/1600/1333/1066 MHz. There is full support for Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules.

There are 6 SATA ports, the four in blue are SATA 3Gbps, and the two at the right (in white) are SATA 6Gbps rated. The board offers RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10 configurations.

The board is equipped with modest heatsinks to aid with cooling. There is a 4 pin CPU power connector close to the I/O panel. We noticed there were only a few 3 pin fan headers on the board, which may cause some issues for top mounted chassis fans. The board uses the Realtek ALC889 codec for 2/4/5.1/7.1-channel output.

Connection from the I/O is as follows:

1. 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
2. 1 x parallel port
3. 1 x serial port
4. 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector
5. 1 x HDMI port
6. 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
7. 2 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports
8. 1 x RJ-45 port
9. 3 x audio jacks (Line In/Line Out/Microphone)

Gigabyte has cut some costs by only offering a single PCIE slot with full x16 bandwidth. In Crossfire the second blue slot will run at x4 so it will be interesting to see the results later. The PCIEX4 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX1_2 and PCIEX1_3 slots. When the PCIEX1_2 slot or the PCIEX1_3 slot is populated, the PCIEX4 slot will operate at up to x1 mode. Best just using a single or dual graphics card configuration with no other devices installed.

Above, the sub £600 system, built. Scan have updated their stock of XFX HD6870 Black Edition cards with the dual fan version, which has the same specifications, but with better (and quieter cooling efficiency). These are right at the top of the <£150 performance chart.

Overclocked CrossfireX running on the Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard. Two cards at 940mhz core and 1150mhz GDDR5 (4600mhz effective) connected via a 256 bit memory interface. The HD6870 is a BARTS core with 1120 unified shaders, 32 ROPs and 1GB of memory.

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.

Gigabyte are using an AWARD bios which is fully featured and allows for a wide array of overclocking settings.

A wide array of settings allowing for control over all aspects of processor speeds, ram timings and overclocking settings.

Overclocking is extremely easy, although there are no ‘pre configured' settings like we have seen recently on many of the ASROCK boards. These are ideal for inexperienced users and for those who really can't get to grips with a plethora of bios settings.

The board has an excellent recovery system, and it will automatically rescue itself from an unstable situation, with a warning. We never had to interact with this board by resetting the CMOS when settings didn't work.

We managed to get the board stable to 4.85ghz with the Core i5 2500K, but this required a little work with voltages and a few other settings. We want to keep it simple for the target audience who will buy this budget board, so we backed down a little. We are using older Corsair 1600mhz memory, but the specifications are similar to the memory listed on the first page via UK retailer Scan.

Achieving 4.6ghz was as simple as changing the 2500k Core Turbo ratios to 46. Even an inexperienced user with weak to modest air cooling could get this board to 4.6ghz, therefore this is the speed we will use for our review results. Validation for 4.6ghz is available over here. A 1.3ghz overclock is really impressive, by just simply changing a few bios parameters.

Our test system today is based on creating an affordable, yet powerful gaming system – featuring the Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 board paired up with the Intel Core i5 2500k.

Processor: Intel Core i5 2500k @ 4.6ghz
Cooling: Arctic Cooling Freezer Xtreme Rev.2 CPU Cooler
Graphics: XFX HD6870 Black Edition x 2
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard
Chassis: Silverstone Raven 3.
Power Supply: Corsair 850W.
Memory: Corsair 1600mhz memory
Storage: Intel 80GB SSD (boot) / Patriot Wildfire 120GB SSD.
Monitors: Dell Ultrasharp U2410 Rev A00.

Software:
Windows 7 Enterprise 64 bit

Unigine Heaven Benchmark.
PCMark Vantage.
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

At 4.6ghz the Core i5 2500k is a formidable processor and these results with the Gigabyte board are excellent.

Cinebench R11.5 is the newest revision of the popular benchmark from Maxon. The test scenario uses all of your system’s processing power to render a photorealistic 3D scene (from the viral “No Keyframes” animation by AixSponza). This scene makes use of various different algorithms to stress all available processor cores.

In fact, CINEBENCH can measure systems with up to 64 processor threads. The test scene contains approximately 2,000 objects containing more than 300,000 total polygons and uses sharp and blurred reflections, area lights and shadows, procedural shaders, antialiasing, and much more. The result is given in points (pts). The higher the number, the faster your processor.

At 4.6ghz, the 2500k delivers very strong results indeed, scoring 7.28 points. In real world terms, this is a good indication that this system could be used as a full time 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.

Two HD6870's in Crossfire makes for a capable system as can be seen from these results. This outperforms the class leading GTX580 from Nvidia (costing over £400).

PCMark Vantage is a PC benchmark suite designed for Windows Vista offering one-click simplicity for casual users and detailed, professional grade testing for industry, press and enthusiasts.

A PCMark score is a measure of your computer’s performance across a variety of common tasks such as viewing and editing photos, video, music and other media, gaming, communications, productivity and security.

From desktops and laptops to workstations and gaming rigs, by comparing your PCMark Vantage score with other similar systems you can find the hardware and software bottlenecks that stop you getting more from your PC.

A very strong result indeed, scoring almost 18,000 points. The graphics and Solid State drive performance helped boost the overall score.

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.

Again, the balanced system build delivers the goods, with a final score of 5144 points.

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.

The HD6870's in Crossfire score almost 31,000 points, a very impressive result. The overclocked Core i5 2500k processor scores 23,471 points which brings down the overall score a little to 28,654 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.

This Direct X 11 benchmark is very intensive, but this system scores 8,246 points which is around 1,500 points more than we achieved with an overclocked Core i7 970 system and GTX580.

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
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 Blu-Ray Disc of Avatar.

No problems handling our Bluray test, the overclocked i5 2500k averaging only 7 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.

An intensive test, but passed with flying colours. There are still plenty of CPU 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.

With hardware acceleration enabled, the HD6870's step in to offload some of the demand from the CPU.

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.

Under 10 minutes is one of the best times we have achieved, thanks in part to the recent update performance patch to the software.

To test, we attached a Patriot Wildfire 120GB SSD to ascertain SATA 6Gbps performance.

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 the Samsung SSD from the onboard SATA controller.

One of the best results we have achieved with this particular drive, scoring over 505 MB/s in the sequential read test. Extremely impressive.

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.

Again, very strong performance results in both read and write tests, peaking around 500 MB/s in the write test and 550MB/s in the read 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.

Just Cause 2 is one of my favourite games in recent years, and this system has no problem powering through the engine, even at the highest image quality settings.

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.

An average of 142 frames per second with everything cranked is a good indication that there is plenty of power left in reserve for higher resolutions.

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.

This is a great new game from CodeMasters, and even after cranking the image quality settings the system achieves playable frame rates throughout. It never drops under the sweet spot of 30 fps.

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.

Alien V Predator is an intensive Direct X 11 game which can bring lesser hardware to a grinding halt. No such case for this system, averaging just under 100 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).

Another intensive Direct X 11 title. The system maintains an average of almost 50 fps, dropping to just over 30 fps in a few situations.

Shogun 2 is set in 16th-century feudal Japan, in the aftermath of the Ōnin War. The country is fractured into rival clans led by local warlords, each fighting for control. The player takes on the role of one of these warlords, with the goal of dominating other factions and claiming his rule over Japan. The standard edition of the game will feature a total of eight factions (plus a ninth faction for the tutorial), each with a unique starting position and different political and military strengths.

All settings are pushed to mixed high/ultra settings as shown below.

Real world testing can fluctuate a little, especially with dynamic environments. With this test we also like to include built in benchmark results via Steam so readers can directly compare against their own hardware. Direct X 11 1080p and 720p results are below.

As Yoda might say, AMD are strong with this benchmark and the dual HD6870's are able to maintain very high frame rates, averaging almost 80 at 1080p.

The Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 is without a doubt the motherboard bargain of the year. For less than £85 inc vat it is an incredible deal and was rock solid throughout all our testing with an Intel Core i5 2500k @ 4.6ghz and even 4.8ghz.

While the board isn't populated with colourful, oversized heatsinks, stability is not a concern. We deliberately attempted to cause the board as many problems as possible by trying some crazy settings. It always recovered after a few failed reboots without any user intervention. It may sound like a small point, but many inexperienced users interested in a budget Z68 motherboard will find this reassuring.

Achieving 4.8ghz was straightforward, although it demanded a little knowledge of the bios, changing several processor and motherboard voltage settings. For an inexperienced user 4.6ghz is easily reachable, by moving the core turbo settings to '46'. The bios is both intuitive and user friendly.

Kitguru has concentrated on the Intel Core i7 2600k in the last 2 or 3 months, and it was refreshing to use the Core i5 2500k again, because at £160 inc vat it really does offer incredible value for money.

The GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 makes an ideal purchase for an enthusiast who doesn't want to spend the guts of £200 on a flagship motherboard. In reality there is little missing from the budget Gigabyte product, USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps performance is first class and we recorded some of the best throughput yet with the class leading Patriot Wildfire Solid State drive.

Looking at the specifications, we were initially concerned that Crossfire performance might be compromised, after all the second slot will default to x4 bandwidth. Our results indicate solid all round performance with the leading Direct X 11 titles even when the image quality is cranked to the hilt.

If you are in the market for a new system and want to keep the costs down as low as possible, then this is one of the best motherboards on the market. If you partner it up with a Core i5 2500k and some decent, inexpensive DDR3 memory then you will be futureproofed for some time yet. Adding a single card now, then another later will ensure you will be playing the latest Direct X 11 games at 1080p without a problem.

You can buy the Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 Z68 Motherboard for £85 inc vat from Scan.

Cons:

• Incredible price point.
• Great overclocking board when paired up with a Core i5 2500k.
• very stable.
• good recovery system.
• CrossfireX capable.
• onboard Intel graphics, ideal for media duties.

Pros:

• looks rather bland.
• bios with some ‘preconfigured' overclocked settings would be helpful for inexperienced users.

Kitguru says: One of the bargain products of 2011.

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