MSI Z68A GD65 G3 Review
Introduction and Technical Specifications
Published: 28th September 2011 | Source: MSI | Price: £142.79 |
Introduction
There has been a lot of talk about the benefits and drawbacks of the Gen3 motherboards. The only one we've seen so far is the Gigabyte Sniper which was a genuine Gen3 motherboard and today we take a look at another technologically stuffed board in the guise of the MSI Z68A GD65 G3. Quite a lengthy title.
The last GD65 we looked at was the P67 version and, at first glance, they are identical. Of course with the Z68 chipset being an evolution of the P67, and the LGA1155 socket still being in place, there wont be many changes.
So what does the Gen3 bring to the table? Largely it's the inclusion of PCIe 3.0 which provides double the bandwidth of PCIe 2.0 and should give us benefits even with our test GTX570. When genuine PCIe 3.0 graphics cards arrive we'll obviously see how great it is, but for the moment we'll focus on finding out if the extra bandwidth can give us any 'free' performance.
We've discussed in a previous article the accuracy or not of Ivy Bridge compatibility with UEFI BIOS so that angle shall remain in that article as without Ivy Bridge chips to hand we wont know either way.
So at half the price of the Sniper 2 does this deliver?
Technical Specifications
Besides the inclusion of the 3rd Generation PCI Express slots this is a fairly standard Z68 board with a focus on performance over frippery.
| Socket | 1155 |
|---|---|
| CPU (Max Support) | i3/i5/i7 |
| FSB/BCLK/Hyper Transport Bus | 100MHz |
| Chipset | Intel® Z68 (B3) |
| DDR3 Memory | DDR3 1066/1333/1600*/2133*(OC) |
| DDR2 Memory | N/A |
| Memory Channel | Dual |
| DIMM Slots | 4 |
| Max Memory (GB) | 32 |
| PCI-Ex16 | 2 |
| PCI-E Gen | Gen3 (1x16, 1x8) |
| PCI-Ex4 | N/A |
| PCI-Ex1 | 3 |
| PCI | 2 |
| IDE | N/A |
| SATAIII | 4 |
| SATAII | 4 |
| RAID | 0/1/5/10 |
| LAN | 10/100/1000*1 |
| TPM | 1 |
| USB 3.0 ports (Rear) | 2 |
| USB 2.0 ports (Rear) | 4 |
| Audio ports (Rear) | 6+Coaxial / Optical SPDIF |
| eSATA | N/A |
| VGA | 1 |
| HDMI | 1 |
| DVI | 1 |
| VGA Max Share Memory (MB) | 1024 |
| DirectX | DX10.1 |
| Form Factor | ATX |
| DrMOS | Y |
| APS | Y |
| Sideport Memory | N/A |
| SLI | Y |
| 3-way SLI | N/A |
| Hybrid SLI | N/A |
| CrossFire | Y |
| Hybrid CrossFire | N/A |
Most Recent Comments
The GD65-G3 might not look as good but it doesn't look bad and performance wise, at half the price, it's not far off the Sniper 2 either nothing worth spending another £150 for anyway.
Also, I have probs with my Steelseries Xai in the BIOS of my P8P67 I have to use the keyboard, I think UEFI doesn't like some gaming mice
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Originally Posted by murphy7801
Would be nice could test some of the Asrock gen3's ? |
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Originally Posted by VonBlade
Last I heard they were planning to send us one, so watch this space. |
Shame the overclock wasn't too great but overall performance for the price seems reasonable.
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Originally Posted by Murdolator
Interesting, i've been trying to shortlist some Gen 3 motherboards for my upgrade so it's nice to see some performance results. Shame the overclock wasn't too great but overall performance for the price seems reasonable. |
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Originally Posted by murphy7801
Thought the performance for the price is fair the looks are little dull. |
The asrock board probably has it beat looks wise, be interesting to see how they compare performance wise, since i don't think there is too much difference in price right now between this and the extreme 4 gen 3 board.
And i think Asus have possibly just thrown some Gen 3 boards into the mix too.
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Originally Posted by Murdolator
True, it's certainly not the nicest looking board. But worth considering for a windowless build perhaps. The asrock board probably has it beat looks wise, be interesting to see how they compare performance wise, since i don't think there is too much difference in price right now between this and the extreme 4 gen 3 board. And i think Asus have possibly just thrown some Gen 3 boards into the mix too. |
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