Gigabyte Z68 vs Asus P8P67 vs Intel DP67BG3

[orija]

Gigabyte Z68X-UD3R-B3

Asus P8P67 B3

Intel DP67BG

These are the three motherboards I have locked in on. I will be using a 6950/570/580 with a 2500k. I'll be overclocking the cpu that too to not more than .5-.7 GHz.

The Z68 specific features like SSD caching and Virtu are not required by me. Also, not interested in Xfir/SLI. Which of the three would be the best choice?

Currently the only factors are the ease of overclocking with the Asus BIOS and the durability of Intel products.

 

[rolli59]

I personally would go with the Z68 but the Asus is a good choice considering overclocking and memory support, Intel boards can be finicky with memory and so on.

 

[orija]

^So, in what way is the Z68 better?

 

[rolli59]

In the future, since not now you might find a need for the new tech.

 

[Zenthar]

I might be wrong, but I think, because the board doesn't have any video out port, virtu won't actually be supported by the Z68, making it just a P67 with SSD caching. At that point might as well just get the Asus P67. If it wasn't for that I would probably have suggested the Z68; not for the virtu itself, but just the ability to use the board without a dedicated video card. Might seems stupid, but if you have a video card issue, I like the fact that I can still use the PC and it might be good as a (powerful) HTPC after a few years of loyal services .

 

[suteck]

These are my opinions so please don't anybody beat me up for them.

The ASUS board is a minimalistic board. If you only want 2 memory slots, no HDMI graphics use and no sata 3 support it is a good cheap board. And ASUS does make good overclockers but you only want 0.5 to 0.7 OC? Is that what that says? So this board will save you money.

The Intel board has more of the bells and whistles including the 4 memory slots and 1 x16 lane for your video card. It includes the sata 6GB/s and the usb 3.0. There is no onboard video so if that is important then this board isn't what you want. As far as intel being durable, I think you'll find that lots of different mobo's have intel parts on them so the dependability gets spread around. I don't like intel boards myself, can't explain it but they don't look good in my cases or on the breadboards.

Last but not least is the Gigabyte board - Newest tech, Has both the sata 6GB/s and usb 3 as well as the same configs for the x16 slots. Biggest difference is the z vs p chipset. If you are not planning on overclocking much then that won't make much of a difference. The z is a little better at higher overclocks and you can overclock and still use the onchip video - which this board doesn't have. And from my experience the Gigabyte boards are pretty good for overclocking. Mine runs stable and it was simpler to set up than my asus p6t6 board was.

So, given those few facts and fictions I would choose the Gigabyte board. - Well I guess I have in the past lol

 

[Zenthar]

BTW, the Z68X-UD3H-B3 is nearly identical to the UD3R, but will support onchip video as well (with a few (IMO) irrelevant tradeoffs). It also overclocks well, got my 2500K running at 4.5GHz without any efforts.

 

[suteck]

^ + 1 Now that's a nice board! Good choice.

 

[orija]

But doesn't the Asus board also have eSATA, better power delivery (12 Phase CPU, 4 Phase iGPU), UEFI BIOS?

 

[suteck]

Yes for the esata but so does the Intel board, not the gigabyte board. Do you have an esata device or use for one? As for the uefi bios, gigabyte uses touch bios, they say it's easier to navigate - their words. And I don't see anything about that for the Intel board. As for the 12 phase cpu, 4 phase gpu - what does asus say are the advantages of having that? Gigabyte uses the dual power phase running in tandem approach meaning that one set will run while the other is set to be used when needed but "rests" until then. And I'm just arguing to argue. I really don't know what most of that means. There are probably some very good points to the asus board. In fact, if you want to compare apples to apples you might want to look at some comparable priced asus boards..The one you picked is about $85 while the other boards are about $175. Asus has some great boards for that price. Even some with all the other boards benefits and the integrated video. Like the ASUS P8Z68-V LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA.

 

[Zenthar]

The UD3H does have eSATA and as for UEFI, the only 2 benefits are GUI BIOS and 3TB+ drive support and Gigabyte has the later so it's up to you to see if the GUI is worth the difference. Finally for OC, it also depends up to where you want to push your CPU; I was able to push my 2500K to 4.5Ghz without effort.

 

[orija]

Best answer selected by orija.