Ok so I just bought a 2500k...

[50]

I'm thinking about a Z68 motherboard but honestly don't know where to start. Here's what I'm interested in:

Video Encoding (I'm a little worried I may fret about the quality of Quicksync but I'll give it a shot)
Overclocking (I'm not looking to get to 5 GHz, but I would like a decent overclock with Hyper 212+ HSF)
Budget (Looking to keep it under $150 if possible)
SSD Caching (So do we have to buy the Intel SSD to use this feature or will any SSD work. If its the latter, I will take a cheapo 40gb SSD and play with this feature)

Anyone have any recommendations? Looking at the ASRock Z68 Pro 3.

 

[MoxJr]

i just bought the ASRock z68 pro3. appears to be best value

 

[Patrick Wolf]

Looks like you roll the dice for either that ASRock or GA-Z68A-D3H-B3. And you can use any SSD for caching. Personally I'd choose Gigabyte cause I've never used ASRock.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I'd go with the Asrock

 

[Doclife]

I went with Gigabyte because of better audio (Realtek ALC889 vesrsus ALC892).

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

Both of these Z68 boards look good. Gigabyte has done something strange with some of their Z68 boards, in that they removed any support for the IGP (intergraded graphic processor) from the board. These boards won’t come with any graphics ports on the board or the Lucidlogix Virtu software, so they really are P67 boards with support for SSD caching. Looks like the GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 that you got is a good board that will fit your needs in that it has both support for the IGP and the Virtu software.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team