14 DAY TRIAL // Apart from the well known G80 (G3) model, MSI's lineup of Intel Z68 motherboards with support for the next-generation PCI Express 3.0 standard also includes the Z68A-GD65 (G3), which sports a similar feature set, except for some minor changes.
Going from PCIe Gen 2 to Gen 3 doubles the bandwidth available to the add-on cards installed, from 500MB/s per lane to 1GB/s per lane.
As a result, a PCI Express x16 slot is capable of offering 16GB/s (or 128Gbit/s) of bandwidth in each direction, which should prove more than enough for even the fastest graphics cards and SSDs.
Speaking of PCI Express x16, the Z68A-GD65 (G3) is equipped with two such slots, which are accompanied by three PCIe x1 as well as by two 32-bit legacy PCI slots.
The PCI Express x16 slots are compatible with both AMD CrossFireX and Nvidia SLI setups and users can also install up to eight SATA storage devices, thanks to the four SATA 6.0Gbps and four 3.0Gbps ports present.
The rest of the feature list includes support for the Virtu switchable graphics technology, Gigabit Ethernet, 7.1-channel audio, with optical and digital S/PDIF outputs, VGA, DVI and HDMI video outputs, as well as two USB 3.0 ports.
Just like all the other high-end MSI motherboards, the Z68A-GD65 (G3) also includes a suite of overclocking oriented features like dedicated voltage measurement points, Power and Reset on-board buttons, OC Genie II support and a rear-mounted Clear CMOS button.
No information regarding pricing or availability has been made official by MSI, but the board is already listed on the company's website.
Sadly, users won't find much use for the two PCI Express 3.0 slots at this point in time, as the first Ivy Bridge LGA 1155 processors to get support for this technology won't arrive until March or April of 2012.
