Z68 MB advice

[african_leopard]

Hello

So after a fair amount of research I narrowed it down to 4 boards for my i5-2500 K. My old build has a rock solid gigabyte board that has never given me an issue in the last 4 years - I never needed to upgrade the BIOS either...So with that in mind, and the approximate CAD$150 budget..... I am leaning towards the gigabyte boards - particularly since they have the USB 3 headers.... All these boards have onboard sound and minimum of 5 audio ports - I don't have a audio card. And have PCIe 3 support....although I am not going to use that for a while .

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157279

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157271

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128512

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128498

The eSATA on the last board is also a consideration.

The last three boards are all available for 149.99 without rebates here in Canada - I'm just linking newegg for the board descriptions .

I may decide to overclock in the future - but not at the moment - so the board needs to be overclockable.

Any comments? Any-one have experience with these boards?

Thanks

 

[chesteracorgi]

If you are set on Gigabyte I prefer this one: http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128498

It seems to have all the features that you want and since you like Gigabyte's products it is the best choice.

 

[badtaylorx]

id go with that asrock extreme 3 board......the other asrock pro3 is one of those "skinny atx'' boards.....i think they look weird personally

and the gb boards are ok but i here many ppl have infinite loop problems with the z chipset

 

[african_leopard]

Hello

Thanks for the responses.

After reading this review on it's big brother, and reading about BIOS issues I decided not to go for the asrock extreme3 gen3.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/11/09/asrock_z68_extreme4_gen3_motherboard_review/

I went with this gigabyte board, GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 Rev1.3.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128498

Thanks