May 13 2011 review by overclockersclub

While performance is good, it's not the determining factor in many builds. People are looking for value and features. Features sell. Of course with the Z68A-GD80 there are the Military Class II components but there's more to the board than that. The list includes USB 3.0 connectivity front and rear, Intel Z68 Chipset to take advantage of Intel Quick Sync technology, LucidLogixs Virtu software that allows for a single monitor connection to the system when a discrete video card is used to get the best of both worlds.

Compared To:

ASUS Maximus IV Extreme, ASUS P8P67, ASUS P8P67 WS Revolution, ECS P67H2-A, Intel DP67BG, MSI P67A-GD65.

Benchmarks Tested:

3D Mark Vantage, Aliens vs. Predator, Apophysis, Batman Arkham Asylum, Bibble 5, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, Cinebench, Geekbench, HD Tune 4.60, Office 2007, PC Mark Vantage Professional, POV Ray 3.7, ScienceMark, Sisoft Sandra, WinRAR.

Overclocking:

An Intel core i7 2600K was OCed @ 4966 Mhz.

Test Setup:

• Computer Case : Cooler Master HAF 932
• CPU : Intel Core i7 2600K
• CPU Cooler : Noctua NH-U12P SE 1366
• Graphics Card : Sapphire Radeon HD 5870
• HDD : 1 x Seagate 1TB SATA,
• SSD : Mushkin Io 128GB
• Mainboard : MSI Z68A-GD80
• Operating System : Windows 7 Professional x64
• Optical Drive: Lite-On Blu-Ray
• PSU : Mushkin 1000W Joule
• RAM : Mushkin 996805 Redline 1600MHz 4GB DDR3