Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 Motherboard

On-Board Peripherals

The Intel Z68 chipset is a single-chip solution and is also known as PCH (Platform Controller Hub). This chip supports two SATA-600 ports and four SATA-300 ports, supporting RAID (0, 1, 5 and 10). One of the SATA-300 ports controlled by the chipset was routed to the motherboard rear panel as an eSATA-300 port. The manufacturer added two additional SATA-600 ports, controlled by a Marvell 88SE9128 chip, supporting RAID 0 and 1. The SATA ports are located on the motherboard edge rotated 90°, so video cards won’t block them (except for the third SATA-300 port, which is installed using the standard orientation).

Figure 4: SATA-300 port (black), SATA-600 ports controlled by the chipset (white), and SATA-600 ports controlled by the Marvell chip (gray)

There is no support for a floppy disk drive controller or an ATA-133 port.

This motherboard has 12 USB 2.0 ports, four soldered on the rear panel and eight available through four headers located on the motherboard. It also has four USB 3.0 ports, two available on the motherboard rear panel and two available through a front panel connector, controlled by two EtronTech EJ168A chips.

This motherboard has two FireWire ports, one available on the motherboard rear panel and the other available through a header on the motherboard. These ports are controlled by a VIA VT6308P chip.

This motherboard supports 7.1+2 audio format, i.e., eight channels plus two independent channels for audio streaming. On this motherboard, the audio is generated by the chipset using a Realtek ALC889 codec, which is an outstanding solution, providing an impressive 108 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog outputs, 106 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog inputs, and up to 192 kHz sampling rate for both inputs and outputs. This means you are able to capture and edit analog audio (e.g., converting LPs to CDs or MP3, converting VHS to DVDs or any other digital format, etc.) with this motherboard without adding any background noise.

The portrayed motherboard comes with independent analog audio outputs, meaning that you won’t need to use the line in or mic in jacks when connecting an eight-channel analog speaker set, and an optical SPDIF output. You also can add a coaxial SPDIF output or route digital audio to your video card to have digital audio in its
HDMI connector using the available “SPDIF_O” header.

This motherboard has one Gigabit Ethernet port, controlled by a Realtek RTL8111E chip.

In Figure 5, you can see the motherboard rear panel, with shared PS/2 keyboard/mouse connector, four USB 2.0 ports, VGA connector, DVI-D connector, HDMI connector, DisplayPort connector, optical SPDIF output, one FireWire port, one eSATA-300 port, two USB 3.0 ports, one Gigabit Ethernet port, and independent analog 7.1 audio outputs.

Figure 5: Motherboard rear panel