MSI Z68A-GD80 (B3) Motherboard

Conclusions

The MSI Z68A-GD80 (B3) has several nice features, such as two FireWire ports, four USB 3.0 ports, three PCI Express x16 slots, decent audio quality with optical SPDIF output, a very high-end voltage regulator circuit, and an impressive set of overclocking options, allowing you to increase the CPU base clock using 0.01 MHz (10 kHz) steps, which is unbelievable. In addition, the OC Genie button allows you to overclock your system without the need of manually changing any complicated settings. It supports Lucidlogix Virtu technology, allowing the computer to automatically turn off your add-on video cards when you are not playing games, thereby saving energy. Furthermore, you can benefit from Intel’s Smart Response Technology to greatly improve your system’s performance.

The main drawback with this motherboard is the reduced number of internal PCI Express lanes, causing it to disable the SATA ports controlled by the Marvell 88SE9128 chip (the eSATA-600 port and the additional SATA-600 port, labeled SATA7), the two USB 3.0 ports available on the front panel header (JUSB4), the FireWire ports, and the two standard PCI slots when a video card is installed in the third PCI Express x16 slot. Also, you can’t use both PCI Express x1 slots at the same time. These problems could be solved by adding a PCI Express switch chip, but this addition would increase the cost of the motherboard.

The MSI Z68A-GD80 (B3) has some advantages over the Gigabyte Z68X-UD5-B3: the support for the Virtu technology, a second Gigabit Ethernet port, four real USB 3.0 ports (the Gigabyte Z68X-UD5-B3 has only two real USB 3.0 ports; the eight USB 3.0 ports it has are achieved using hub chips), and price.