14 DAY TRIAL // With just a few more days to go until the Intel Z68 chipset becomes official, more and more motherboards based on this PCH make their appearance online and the latest to do so is the micro-ATX Gigabyte Z68MX-UD2H-B3.
This is only the third micro-ATX Z68 board to make its appearance, after the MSI Z68MA-ED55 and the ASRock Z68 Pro3-M, but it appears to be the most feature rich option of the three.
For starter, users that decide to go with the Z68MX-UD2H-B3 will get no less than three PCI Express x16 slots, two of which can be configured to work in an x8 mode and are compatible with Nvidia's SLI and AMD CrossFireX technologies.
The third one is an x4 slot electronically and the board also features a PCI Express x1 expansion slot.
Things also look surprisingly good in the storage department, where Gigabyte has decided to pair the board with three SATA 3Gbps ports and no less than four SATA 6Gbps connectors.
In addition, users will also find an on-board header for two front panel USB 3.0 ports, which are driven by an Eatron controller.
CPU power is provided via a 6+1 phase setup, which should allow for some decent overclocking results.
Moving around the back, we see that Gigabyte has opted to install four USB 2.0 ports, a pair of USB 3.0 ports driven by another Etron controller, an eSATA port, a Gigabit Ethernet port, a PS/2 port, and 7.1-channel audio with optical S/PDIF out.
The Z68MX-UD2H-B3 also comes with a set of four display ports, including D-Sub, DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort.
Pricing has not been announced yet, but the Gigabyte motherboard was already listed by some online retailers in Italy at €140 ($201 USD). The ASRock Z68 Pro3-M is also listed at about the same price, but it sports a limited feature set compared with the Z68MX-UD2H-B3. (via VR-Zone)
