14 DAY TRIAL // Outside of the P8Z68-V Pro that was pictured a short while ago, Asus is also preparing other two Intel Z68 motherboards for a May 11 release, the P8Z68 Deluxe and the P8Z68-V.
Starting with the P8Z68-V, this is a simpler version of the P8Z68-V Pro, that was spotted a short while ago, and compared to its older brother lacks FireWire support and the two SATA 6Gbps ports.
Asus has also removed the bundled USB 3.0 bracket that came standard with the Pro version, but otherwise the two boards are identical as they both feature three x16 slots as well as HDMI, DVI and D-Sub connectivity.
Of the three PCIe x16 slots, only the first one is capable of running in an x16 mode as the second has only eight PCI Express lanes linked to it and the third operates at in an x1 or x4 mode.
Moving to the P8Z68 Deluxe, this is a tweaked version of the P8P67 Deluxe, so it lacks the display connectors of the other two Z68 models.
Despite this handicap, however, Asus has managed to make the board compatible with the Lucid Virtu driver which means that video transcoding using Intel's Quick Sync technology will be available in the P8Z68 Deluxe.
Compared to the other Z68 board models, the Deluxe version gets an additional Gigabit Ethernet controller as well as a second eSATA port.
All three motherboard offer support for 2200MHz DDR3 memory (in OC mode), a 16 phase Digi+ VRM that delivers 12 phases to the CPU and four to the integrated GPU, as well as Nvidia SLI and AMD CrossFire support.
Other features that are common to all three models include, Bluetooth 2.1 connectivity, 7.1-channel audio with DTS support, four USB 3.0 ports as well as no less than 12 USB 2.0 ports.
No details regarding pricing are available at this time, but the motherboards are expected to launch on May 11. (via VR-Zone)
