14 DAY TRIAL // After making its way into retail stores across Asia, Gigabyte's upcoming Z68X-UD7-B3 flagship motherboard based on the Z68 chipset is finally getting ready for a worldwide launch and it's expected to hit the store shelves on May 11.
Once released, the motherboard will replace the P67-UD7-B3 as the most advanced LGA 1155 solution in Gigabyte's lineup and should come at about the same price point as its predecessor.
Some of the key features of Z68X-UD7-B3 include support for 2-way and 3-way SLI and CrossFireX setups, DDR3 2133 support, a 24-phase power design that allows for improved overclocking and USB 3.0 and SATA 6Gbps connectivity.
In fact, the Z68X-UD7 features no less than six USB 3.0 ports (two are available via an on-board header) as well as four SATA 6Gbps connectors.
Swapping the P67 chipset with the Z68 PCH also enabled Gigabyte to offer support for Intel's Smart Response SSD caching technology.
This allows users to speed up their storage system by pairing together a solid state disk with an HDD and using the former as a fast cache memory for the hard drive.
What users don't get, however, is Intel integrated graphics support as Gigabyte has decided not to install any video outputs on the Z68X-UD7.
This means that consumers won't be able to use Intel's Quick Sync technology via the LucidLogix Virtu or Nvidia Synergy drivers.
Quick Sync was specially designed to increase the speed of video transcoding process and it manages to cut to a fraction the time needed for running such tasks without affecting the image quality of the resulting video.
As mentioned earlier, the Z68X-UD7 motherboard is expected to become available on May 11, but its price tag is not yet known. However, considering that the Z68 chipset is only about $10 more expensive than the P67, Gigabyte should retail this for a bit over $339. (via DonanimHaber)