MSI Z68A-GD80 (G3) Motherboard Review - PAGE 2

The MSI Z68A-GD80 comes packaged in a box that is similar to other LGA-1155 motherboards from MSI, meaning it is adorned with the same color scheme, and still conveniently lists the supported features. Like other MSI motherboard products, the Z68A-GD80 box places a large emphasis on the use of "Military Class II" components, but it also lists new features such as the Clock BIOS II design, Gen 3 PECI Express slots and the newly extended 5-year warranty.

The accessories come packaged at the top portion of the box and are separated by an inner cardboard liner. MSI has included four SATA cables, two SATA power adapters, the rear I/O shield, a user guides, quick install guide, V-check cables, SLI video link, M-connectors, driver CD and multiple forms of documentation. MSI has also included an internal USB 3.0 bracket that can be secured to any of the open rear expansion slots. With this bracket and the available on-board USB 3.0 headers, the Z68A-GD80 can support up to eight USB 3.0 devices out of the box.

The overall design of the Z68A-GD80 is the same as other MSI boards currently on the market, as most use the same color scheme and on-board heatsinks. However, differences can be found in the expansion areas, as the GD80 includes three PCIe slots along with a wide array of expansion options. Overall, the board is aesthetically pleasing and the layout looks extremely spacious, which should provide ample room for expansion.

Turing the board around we can see that MSI has secured all the on-board heatsinks to the PCB with screws as opposed to plastic pins. This ensures the base of the heatsink is firmly secured to their designated areas, improving the thermal transfer rate and thus reducing the temperature of the dedicated components. Additionally, when looking at the back of the PCB we can see that all of the PCIe x16 slots include the full amount of soldering points needed to work at the maximum transfer rating.

The Z68A-GD80 uses a standard ATX form factor and like other MSI boards currently on the market, it features the latest Military Class II design. This means the board uses high-quality components to improve the board's lifespan, quality and performance, giving it unparallelled efficiency. All of this is achieved by increasing the quality of the on-board components themselves, and in this case MSI has used a DrMOS design with Hi-c capacitors, Super Ferrite Core chokes and of course all solid Japanese capacitors.

The CPU area on the Z68A-GD80 uses Intel's latest LGA-1155 interface supporting Intel's Sandy Bridge processors. Surrounding the CPU socket is the included voltage regulation area. which is very robust, as the board features a 12-phase Tantalum core Hi-C Cap power design used in conjunction with the all solid Japanese capacitors and a heatpipe thermal solution. This will ensure the installed processor receives ample current, thus increasing system performance, stability and overclocking headroom.

Next to the CPU socket are four memory DIMMs that utilize a dual channel architecture and can support up to 32GB of DDR3 memory at speeds of 2133OC/1600OC/1333/1066MHz. By default, the motherboard will supply the memory with 1.5V of power. Next to the LGA-1155 socket is the main 24-pin power connector, and a row of voltage checkpoints that can provide real-time readings of multiple voltage levels via a multimeter.

Moving onto the I/O panel, the MSI Z68A-GD80 includes a single PS/2 keyboard/mouse connector, optical S/PDIF out connector, IEEE 1394 connector, one eSATA 6Gb/s port, four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, a RJ-45 LAN port, HDMI port, DVI port (supported via built-in SandyBridge IGP) and finally six audio ports. The USB 3.0 ports are connected via on-board NEC controller, while the audio chip utilized on the board is a high-end THX TruStudio PRO sound processor. Additionally, between the PS/2 and eSATA connectors is an easy access clear CMOS switch that can revert the BIOS back to the default settings when needed.

The expansion slots on the Z68A-GD80 are similar to the Intel P67 version of the GD80, but the Z68A utilizes the latest PCIe 3.0 technology which doubles the bandwidth of the PCIe x16 lanes to 32GB/s. In total, there are three PCIe x16 slots, two PCIe x1 slots and two PCI slots. This configuration will allow for plenty of expansion, but even with a tri-fecta of PCIe x16 lanes, the SandyBridge platform will still reduce the total bandwidth, meaning CrossFire and SLI will at most run at x8/x8, instead of a potential x16/x16.

For anyone using more than one graphics card, MSI has added an on-board 6-pin power connector that is dedicated to the PCIe slots. The extra power source will increase the available power supplied of the graphics cards, which in turn improves the stability of systems set up in either an SLI or CrossFire configuration. As part of the Z68 platform, the Z68A-GD80 also utilizes the LucidLogix Virtu technology. This allows the board to dynamically switch between the integrated IGP and discrete GPU during operation to either save power or enhance the graphics processing.

The bottom of the Z68A-GD80 looks just as busy as the rest of the board, as MSI has included plenty of onboard headers and storage expansion options. Starting with the bottom mounted headers, MSI has included a JSP1 header, audio header, three USB 2.0 headers, a single UBS 3.0 header, along with three on-board buttons that each have a specific function. The first button is the reset switch, followed by the power switch. Both of these buttons are self-explanatory, but the third button is a little more complex. This button is the OC Genie II switch which increases the clock speed of the processor in a single push, allowing the motherboard to automatically overclock the processor for you. During testing, the OC Genie II option provided an approximate 20% clock speed boost, which is pretty good considering there is no additional tweaking necessary on the user's part to make it happen.

Like other SandyBridge motherboards, there are no IDE ports on the Z68A-GD80, but there are plenty of SATA option available. In total there are seven ports that are separated by color. The white ports utilize the SATA 6Gbs interface, while the black ports use the older SATA 3Gbps standard. Of the seven ports, the top six ports (angled at 90°) are connected via the Z68 chipset, while the last SATA port is connected via an on-board Marvell 88E9128 controller. The ports connected directly to the Z67 Express chipset include full RAID support and will work in either ACHI or RAID  0,1,5 and 10 configurations.