EVGA Z68 motherboards have arrived!

[zalbard]

This will make a good benching board, but for 24/7 operation EVGA is a poor choice of a motherboard manufacturer. Unless you find 4-6 months to get a new BIOS out of the door acceptable.
Some of the X58 board issues are STILL not fixed and it's been 4 months since the last BIOS update.

[MpG]

Why are there no heatsinks on the power section of the micro board? I don't care how efficient your phases are - they're not 100%, and there's going to be heat produced, especially once you start overclocking. And considering the kind of cases that mATX boards often get shoehorned into, you'd think they could at least afford a few strips of tinfoil there.

[TheCarLessDriven]

yeah Sandy Bridge/ Z68 really is a fly over generation. Nothing too great coming from Bloomfield/X58. No wonder evga was so laxed getting these out, lol.

[Pekalion]

After reading this thread, as soon as I get the P67 FTW I will change it for a MIVE

[nirvana_1911]

This will make a good benching board, but for 24/7 operation EVGA is a poor choice of a motherboard manufacturer. Unless you find 4-6 months to get a new BIOS out of the door acceptable.
Some of the X58 board issues are STILL not fixed and it's been 4 months since the last BIOS update.

I've had an E759 X58 Limited Edition since it's release and have had bugs and overclocking issues and could not agree more with what you say.
If EVGA don't come up to scratch in terms of reliability and stability for 24/7 users like myself, I'll have to look at another vendor such as Gigabyte.

[CedricFP]

Why are there no heatsinks on the power section of the micro board? I don't care how efficient your phases are - they're not 100%, and there's going to be heat produced, especially once you start overclocking. And considering the kind of cases that mATX boards often get shoehorned into, you'd think they could at least afford a few strips of tinfoil there.

The X58 MSI boards had no sinks on the mofsets and compared favourably to EVGA / ASUS who had sinks... not sure it's that huge of a deal assuming case airflow is adequate ie. not stagnant.

[Eldonko]

This was my review so I suppose I cam clarify a few points. The Z68 version is basically the same board so will have the same issues. For benching purposes, the board has 2 main issues.

1) It required more vcore for stability than many other boards I tested
2) Memory compatibility needs work. I am able to run my PSC at 7-9-7 2250 on other boards but on the FTW I could not even tighten to 8-9-8. Could just be the 1 kit I tested but it is an important point.

Price wise it is cheaper than other nf200 so with a little work on the BIOS the FTW could be improved soon. Here is a comparo to UD7 and M4E:

Pros

- Attractive board, excellent layout
- Triple BIOS support with BIOS switch
- Onboard power, reset, and clear CMOS buttons
- Voltage read points
- Huge bundle of accessories
- EVGauge and ECP Panel are nice additions
- Manual overclocking was very easy
- ELEET is a great overclocking tool
- A ton of PCI-E slots for GPU placement flexibility
- Cheaper than most other NF200 boards


Cons

- UEFI BIOS looks like a legacy BIOS and has no mouse control
- Memory clocking was not the best
- Board overvolts when “without vdroop” is selected
- Software voltage readings are low
- Board needs a bit more voltage than others for 5Ghz
- Dummy OC not up to par with competitor solutions
- ECP Panel uses non standard screws that are not included (for the time being)
- EVGauge cord is very short
- Less SATA 6Gb/s and USB 3.0 ports than competitor boards
- No labels on SATA cables

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...rd-review.html

[onethreehill]

EVGA Z68 FTW Review

A lot of manufacturers have jumped on the Intel Z68 chipset bandwagon as it's really the hottest chipset in town at the moment when it comes to sheer features versus performance. We stated it many times already, Z68 is what H67 and P67 really should have been combined.

Combine a nice K model Sandy Bridge processor with a P67 or Z68 motherboard and the sky is the limit. Nearing 5 GHz overclocks on just air is something more likely then it is a possibility. But it remains weird though, as the Z68 was never intended to be launched as an enthusiast platform. However due to delays on new chipsets and processors by Intel the mobo goblins figured, hmms, why not take that Z68 chipset with all the new features, add some more controllers and make it the hottest chipset currently available on the market?

http://www.guru3d.com/article/evga-z68-ftw-review/