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Date added: 10/20/2011 HotHardware - Z68 Roundup: ASUS, EVGA, ASRock, GB, MSI, ZOTAC

Until Intel's next-gen, high-end Sandy Bridge-E and its companion X79 chipset, launch sometime this quarter, Sandy Bridge, Intel's second generation Core family of processors and the Z68 Express chipset remain Intel's current premiere desktop platform. It is with that in mind that we've just taken a look at several different motherboard offerings from manufacturers that cover a range of form factors, feature sets, and price points. If you’re on the market for a Z68 board for a new build, odds are one of the products in this round-up will meet your needs.

 We’ve already covered the Z68 chipset in depth here, so we won’t get too heavy on the details again in this roundup, but an overview of the chipset is warranted. With the Z68, Intel has produced a successor to the P67 and H67 chipsets that takes the best of both and adds a few new features. In addition to support for the entire family of 2nd-gen Intel Core chips with Turbo Boost 2.0, the Z68 chipset supports Intel High Definition Audio, 8 PCI-Express 2.0 lanes (16 more in the CPU), 6 SATA ports (2 x 6Gbps, 4 x 3Gbps), integrated Gigabit MAC, 14 USB ports, and support for a smattering of audio/visual ports including HDMI and DisplayPort.

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