MSI Z68A-GD80 (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). The SATA ports that are controlled by the chipset are located on the motherboard edge rotated 90°, so video cards won’t block them. However, a third SATA-600 port, controlled by a Marvell 88SE9128 chip, is installed facing up. This chip also controls an eSATA-600 port.

Figure 4: SATA-300 (black) and SATA-600 (white) ports

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

This motherboard has 10 USB 2.0 ports, four soldered on the rear panel and six available through three headers located on the motherboard. It also has four USB 3.0 ports, two available on the motherboard rear panel, controlled by a NEC (Renesas) µPD720200 chip, and two available through a front panel connector, controlled by another NEC (Renesas) µPD720200 chip. (The motherboard comes with an I/O bracket for you to install two USB 3.0 ports in an expansion slot in your case.)

The Z68A-GD80 has two FireWire (IEEE1394) ports, one at the motherboard rear panel and one available at a header on the motherboard. These ports are controlled by a VIA VT6308 chip.

This motherboard supports 7.1+2 audio format, i.e., eight chann
els plus two independent channels for audio streaming. On this motherboard, the audio is generated by the chipset using a Realtek ALC892 codec. Finally, Realtek is disclosing the specifications of this chip, which include 97 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog outputs, 90 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the analog inputs, and up to 192 kHz sampling rate for both inputs and outputs. These specs are good for the mainstream user, but if you are looking into working professionally with audio editing, you should look for a motherboard that provides an SNR of at least 97 dB for the analog input.

The portrayed motherboard comes with independent analog audio outputs, meaning that you won’t need to “kill” the line in or mic in jacks when connecting an eight-channel analog speaker set and a digital SPDIF output. Digital audio is also available through the on-board HDMI connector, and you can either install a coaxial SPDIF jack or route digital audio to your video card to have digital audio in the HDMI connector using the available “JSP1” header.

This motherboard has two Gigabit Ethernet ports, controlled by two Realtek RTL8111E chips.

In Figure 5, you can see the motherboard rear panel, with shared PS/2 keyboard/mouse connector, optical SPDIF connector, clear CMOS button, FireWire port, four USB 2.0 ports, one eSATA-600 port, two Gigabit Ethernet ports, two USB 3.0 ports (blue), one DVI-D connector, one HDMI connector, and independent analog 7.1 audio outputs.

Figure 5: Motherboard rear panel