Gigabyte Z68X-UD7-B3 Motherboard Review

To say the motherboard is attractive, is an understatement. The black PCB matches up great with the gold and grey heatsinks. The expansion slots and memory slots are all black as well, meaning the colour scheme is simple yet effective.

The back of the motherboard shows a total of 10 heatsink mounting screws, which are removable.

The Gigabyte board has a seriously effective power configuration in place. There are 24 power phases across the design, basically a 12 phase PWM design doubled for added stability and overclocking goodness. Both power channels will work by default and scale depending on the power demand at hand.

The PWM heatsink array is very impressive, with the accented gold edges complimented by the subtle grey paint on the main areas. In this area to the right (image above right) there is an 8 pin CPU power connector. The connector can be difficult to reach if you forget to hook in the power cable before a system build, but it is accessible. There are also several 3 pin power headers in the area for chassis and CPU fans.

Gigabyte have clearly spent some time with the board layout. There is a handy reset, CMOS clear and power button for easy test access and all of the header panels are colour coded and labelled for ease of use during the install phase.

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