People will often ask, “what is the best motherboard?” That might seem like an obvious question to ask – and 10 years ago that was certainly a more important question to ask – but these days manufacturer quality has increased quite a bit, and figuring out the ‘best motherboard’ is not such a clear process. Aside from figuring out good manufacturers to purchase from, there are so many different options for different objectives that there is no one best motherboard. I definitely have a recommendation, but that doesn’t mean that making a different choice is going to be bad.
Now we are looking at the Z68 motherboard offerings, and we can see that there are a number of quality options. For the key elements of the Z68 chipset, see my previous article ‘The Z68 Chipset – What it Means to Gamers.’ In this article, I am going to go over some Z68 motherboard offerings from the three major motherboard manufacturers as they stand today. As you may have noticed from previous articles, I tend to prefer motherboards made by Asus. Not only do they consistently present a high level a quality in performance, they also present a high level of quality in workmanship – as well as customer service. Check out my article on motherboards – The Motherboard: Lifeblood of the Computer – as to why I think the way I do about this.
That being said, there are three major manufacturers today that provide high performance motherboards at high quality. You would not be making an error of judgment by choosing boards from any of these manufacturers, though I will still make one ultimate recommendation. The three manufacturers are Gigabyte, ASRock, and Asus. In this article, I will be looking at Z68 motherboard offerings in the $200 range – these will roughly correspond with the P67 motherboard offerings which are now in the $170 range. All of these boards utilize a UEFI over the traditional BIOS (basically a BIOS with a much more user friendly UI).
- Allows SLI/Crossfire at 8x/8x and 8x/8x/4x.
- 12 phase voltage regulator is excellent for overclocking – and for the non overclocking means less stress from power over the lifetime of the board.
- 2 year manufacturers warranty.
- Less USB 2.0 ports than typical, to make space for video output – this is seen in the Gigabyte board as well, with Asus removing a PS/2 port.
Gigabyte Intel Z68 ATX DDR3 2133 LGA 1155 Motherboards GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3
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- Gigabyte makes up for the reduced usb ports by adding more internal ports (so you can add expansion bays connecting to the internal connectors, if you have a lot of USB devices) – 8 usb 2 ports and 4 usb 3 ports internal.
- Only supports SLI/Crossfire at 8x/x8, there is no third video card slot.
- Seven phase voltage regulator – the least of the three.
- Three year manufacturer Warranty.
ASUS LGA 1155 SATA 6Gbps USB 3.0 Supported Intel Z68 ATX DDR3 2400 Motherboards P8Z68-V PRO
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- No PS/2 port. If you still use a PS/2 keyboard, then you would have to get a cable to switch to usb (they are cheap) – I actually still use an old keyboard, because it just won’t break.
- Allows SLI at 8x/8x, and 8x/8x/4x with a catch. With the one slot set at 4x, you have to disable the two 1x pcie slots and the two front panel usb3 ports. At first glance this sounds like a bum wrap, but there are a couple ways to look at this: if you intend on using three video cards, then I would recommend going for a much higher level of motherboard – also the chances of requiring two 1x pci slots, 4 usb 3.0 slots, and an x4 pcie slot is minimal – the only thing requiring an x4 pcie slot is going to be a 3rd video card, any other pci board can utilize 1x with no problems.
- So why go with this board? Aside from being at the top of the benchmarks, this board comes with a 16 phase voltage regulator, which is quite impressive at this level.
- Three Year manufacturer warranty.
So with the details aside, it comes down to the benchmarks. As you can see from Tom’s Hardware’s benchmarking reviews – all three of these motherboards are pretty much in line, and also in line with the Asus P8P67 Deluxe which was used for comparison. Gigabyte does well, but not as well as the other two. Toms recommends the ASRock, due to the Asus board requiring special settings for the third video slot. My opinion of that is previously stated, and I see the Asus Z68 motherboard as the best motherboard purchase – their history of quality and customer service brings them over top of the other two options. Again, the motherboard is the lifeblood of the computer, so it isn’t the place to sacrifice any level of quality just to save a few $$.
I’ve also updated my mid-range build page with the P8Z68-V Pro motherboard. Before you make a decision, be sure to read my Z68 Chipset article, as it will make clear for you whether you should acquire a Z68 Board or a P67 board – you will see both options on the Mid Range page.
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