Do yourself a favor, and stay away from cheaper Z68 Gigabyte boards!

[moriz]

i also have a CM 690II case. with the asrock p67 extreme4, which has very similar layout as the OP's gigabyte, i've had NO problems with regards to cables and their placements.

also, IDE ports are redundant and useless. optical drives come in sata these days. as for floppy drives, either get on with the times, or pick up a USB floppy drive.

 

[clok1966]

Also not happy with my last tow gig boards. The Sadny bridge chip thing no big deal (not butthurt over that).. but my board killed my USB hub, figured ehhh no biggy, picked another up and it died. I decided i had something bad USB (drive, phone or ???) so got a new USB hub and plugged nothing in it, it died too. I then figured it was the board and lost no more devices. this was before i got my new replacement with the chip fix. The new one has killed one more brand new hub and my Network plug has died also..

this machine is on a UPS so m not having power issues. My 3rd dead board (part or whole)from gig in a year. Not majore as all the boards work in some degree.. but taking my main machine down for weeks to rma a board just a bit of a sour taste.

Im guessing bad luck, but who knows.. maybe I have just got 4 bad hubs in a row... (and i havent been buying generic junk, actually belkin and such)

 

[Snakecharmed]

I realize this thread is over a month old and I skimmed it fairly quickly, but what exactly about the OP's rant applies exclusively to his Gigabyte board?

Let's see what a $360 Z68 motherboard by Asus has:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131760

0 PCI slots
0 IDE/PATA connectors
Right angle SATA ports
USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports placed wherever they fit on the rear panel, including one aligned horizontally
4 internal USB 2.0 headers for 8 additional USB 2.0 devices
1 internal USB 3.0 header for 2 additional USB 3.0 devices
CPU power connector located along the top edge of the motherboard on the other side of the VRM

I also guarantee the USB 3.0 won't work before you install drivers for it because guess what? Z68 has no native USB 3.0 support and drivers for whichever USB 3.0 controller you have onboard aren't in Windows 7's driver database.

So yes, it is basically all the OP's fault for not understanding the default features of the Z68 chipset. I came from the relatively ancient NVIDIA nForce2 chipset for Socket A and I knew all this before buying my Z68 motherboard because I planned accordingly. You know what also helps? Looking at a picture of the motherboard you're about to buy before buying it.

PEBKAC.

 

[Ronald Mcdonald]

I recently ordered the same board, and I read reviews about how the lever on the CPU is REALLY hard to push down and feels like you are grinding and crushing the CPU.

Can someone shine some light on this aspect please?

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I recently ordered the same board, and I read reviews about how the lever on the CPU is REALLY hard to push down and feels like you are grinding and crushing the CPU.

Can someone shine some light on this aspect please?

That's how it is. I have a H67 board and I feel the same way. I thought I was gonna break the CPU.

 

[86waterpumper]

From the reviews folks have been very happy with the asrock pro-3(m)

Glad to hear this as I just ordered one the other day...
As for gigabyte, it does seem like their quality is slipping, maybe if they didn't want to produce 30 different z68 boards and would trim it down some they could actually make good ones

 

[ibex333]

also, IDE ports are redundant and useless. optical drives come in sata these days. as for floppy drives, either get on with the times, or pick up a USB floppy drive.

That is a very subjective opinion. You simply cant say things like that.

I recently ordered the same board, and I read reviews about how the lever on the CPU is REALLY hard to push down and feels like you are grinding and crushing the CPU.

Can someone shine some light on this aspect please?

Yes, that is very true. Except you DONT damage the CPU in the process. It only FEELS like you may.

I realize this thread is over a month old and I skimmed it fairly quickly, but what exactly about the OP's rant applies exclusively to his Gigabyte board?

Let's see what a $360 Z68 motherboard by Asus has:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813131760

0 PCI slots
0 IDE/PATA connectors
Right angle SATA ports
USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports placed wherever they fit on the rear panel, including one aligned horizontally
4 internal USB 2.0 headers for 8 additional USB 2.0 devices
1 internal USB 3.0 header for 2 additional USB 3.0 devices
CPU power connector located along the top edge of the motherboard on the other side of the VRM

I also guarantee the USB 3.0 won't work before you install drivers for it because guess what? Z68 has no native USB 3.0 support and drivers for whichever USB 3.0 controller you have onboard aren't in Windows 7's driver database.

So yes, it is basically all the OP's fault for not understanding the default features of the Z68 chipset. I came from the relatively ancient NVIDIA nForce2 chipset for Socket A and I knew all this before buying my Z68 motherboard because I planned accordingly. You know what also helps? Looking at a picture of the motherboard you're about to buy before buying it.

PEBKAC.

I dont recall saying that my rant applies EXCLUSIVELY to anything. I said that this gigabyte board is very mediocre and has tons of issue with it. Lets not talk about things I never said please.

Also, the fact that I didnt do enough research before buying, doesnt change the fact that Z68 boards feel like a work in progress and should have not been released to the public yet.

It also doesnt change the fact that the board discussed in this thread is a very mediocre board and a true exmple of the phrase : "You get what you pay for".

Subjective opinions? Maybe. But That is how I feel. And I clearly described my reasons for feeling this way.


It's like I said in my OP. Gigabyte definitely did not go above and beyound this time.

 

[Diogenes2]

I am just about to upgrade to a 2600K build my final shortlist is right here

The Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 was my number one candidate. I've always got excellent stability and performance from my gigabyte mobo's in the past I currently use the GIGABYTE EP45-DS3R in my Q6600 build running at 3.0Ghz and it is as solid as a rock.

Should I be considering a different motherboard over the GA-Z68A-D3H-B3? I really want a "high end" and stable performance out of my upgrade and I do not want to miss out on extra performance/stability because I've went with the wrong motherboard.

That board is really not considered high end ..

Might be OK if you are not going to overclock, but will not have the voltage regulation you need for overclocking...

 

[Snakecharmed]

I dont recall saying that my rant applies EXCLUSIVELY to anything. I said that this gigabyte board is very mediocre and has tons of issue with it. Lets not talk about things I never said please.

So here's the rundown of this crappy, crappy board....

I was a fan of Gigabyte before, and always bought from them, but clearly their quality is dropping.

You're contradicting yourself. Your rant was exclusive to the GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 because it's quite obvious that it's the only motherboard you had any experience with using or looked at that supports a Sandy Bridge CPU.

Also, the fact that I didnt do enough research before buying, doesnt change the fact that Z68 boards feel like a work in progress and should have not been released to the public yet.

It also doesnt change the fact that the board discussed in this thread is a very mediocre board and a true exmple of the phrase : "You get what you pay for".

Subjective opinions? Maybe. But That is how I feel. And I clearly described my reasons for feeling this way.


It's like I said in my OP. Gigabyte definitely did not go above and beyound this time.

Everything you ranted about has to do with connectors and interfaces that are indeed obsolete whether you like it or not, or placement of connectors in locations and orientations that are considered the industry standard. If you're going to claim that Gigabyte did a lousy job, then so did Asus, MSI, and most everybody else. You can keep expanding your scope to cover whichever targets you want, but it doesn't matter. First, it was that this Gigabyte board wasn't good enough. I don't think the board you chose is very good either, but it has nothing to do with any of the reasons you cited.

Now you move your target to claim that Intel Z68 is half-baked when Z68 is an evolution of an existing chipset in P67. Who or what are you going to blame next? Every motherboard and chipset manufacturer for moving too fast for your liking? Do you know how many Z68 motherboards have IDE? One. Do you know how many AMD 900 series motherboards have IDE? One. How many motherboards with a current generation chipset have the majority of their SATA ports not at a right angle? How many motherboards with a current generation chipset have a connector for an internal floppy drive? Look above. In fact, just buy an ASRock and be done with it.

The majority of your complaints about the GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 apply to the vast majority of the motherboards on the market right now. Perhaps you should have kept up with the times or at least done some reading or at a very bare minimum used the Newegg advanced search feature before essentially declaring that 90% of the motherboards out there with a current generation chipset aren't good enough for you.

I get that you think you're trying to help save other people some grief over not picking the right motherboard, but based on how you went about picking this board without taking a look at its features, it wouldn't have mattered what you chose. You would have been disappointed with almost anything available on the market and posted a thread trashing whatever you bought. You could have bought that $360 Asus Maximus IV Extreme-Z and your complaints about the GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 would apply to that motherboard as well.

I had problems with two GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 motherboards and not once did I say that Gigabyte made a piece of garbage nor did I recommend against anyone buying the same motherboard. It simply wasn't stable with my setup for whatever inexplicable reason. Even if I did declare that it sucked, at least I wouldn't be ranting about how 2011 motherboards don't meet my expectations because I'm still living in 2009. In fact, my last motherboard had a chipset that debuted in 2002. Why was I not surprised nor upset that motherboards today don't have 5 PCI slots?

 

[coffeejunkee]

But wait... I should have done my homework BEFORE buying the board. Right? It's all MY fault.

This.

I would have given you some credit if you had brought up the lack of controllable casefanheaders, of which there is a grand total of 1 available on most GB mobo's.