ASUS P8Z68 Deluxe ATX Intel Motherboard

Comment:
Despite some minor flaws, I have no qualms in giving this board 5 stars - and I don't do so lightly. I was upgrading from a socket 775 system, so it had been some time since I had done a build. My last board was an ASUS as well. (P5B series) Since this board costs $300 with tax right now, I'll provide an in-depth review for those considering shelling out the cash.The only real concern I had with this board was the area around the CPU socket. Take a look at the picture and you will see the CPU socket is flanked with some pretty hefty heatsinks on all sides. I had originally planned to slap a Zalman heatsink on the CPU, but the backplate for it bumped into a heatsink screw. So I went with a Noctua cooler, and even the bracket for that left me with a meagre 1mm of clearance between the top heatsink bracket and the heatsinks surrounding the CPU socket. It was tight, but it was functional. I would have liked a bit more room here, but in the end the Noctua heatsink did fit, so I'm not taking off a star here. (Not to mention the Noctua heatsink is the better one anyway.)A second minor issue I had was with the placement of the PCIeX1 slots. There are 3 full size PCIeX16 slots, 2 PCIeX1 slots, and 2 legacy PCI slots. The problem is that if you are like most people, your new expansion cards are all PCIe. In this board design they placed one of the PCIeX1 slots directly below the primary 1st PCIeX16 slot. If you're like most people, you will likely have a video card that takes up two slots. So immediately you lose one PCIeX1 slot because of that. The other slot is ABOVE the primary 1st PCIeX16 slot, which while not obstructed, if you put a card there it will be a tight fit with most video cards. Not to mention reduce cooling effectiveness. Now it should be mentioned that you can put a PCIeX1 card in any PCIeX16 slot as well, but that means you can't put extra graphic cards in there. In my case this wasn't an issue since I was able to use one of the lower PCIeX16 slots for my PCIeX1 expansion card, which is why I didn't take off marks for it. If you have multiple cards to install, check out the slot design to make sure it will work for you.The other issue that I was a bit concerned with was the way the SATA ports were oriented. All-in-all having the ports at right angles is probably better than having them pointing straight up. Seeing as the ports are where a second video card would go, it's quite possible a long card would hang over and obstruct the ports. However, the SATA cables included *all* have a right angle connector on one end. So if you can't use a right angle connection on the hard drive for example, you have to use that on the motherboard. Yet if you do that you either block a port, or you have to try and cram it in the bottom port with the cable bent against the motherboard tray. In this case ASUS should have done what they did with my last board, which was to include 3 cables that are straight at both ends, and 3 with right angles. This is a minor issue though. Worst case scenario you can buy a straight/straight cable if you find you need it.For the board itself, I found the rear IO shield was cut ever so slightly off from ideal center. With the board in place, the ports and such were at one side of the opening. (There was no slack, even with all the screws loosened up, so I couldn't shift it.) Now before I blame the case, I should note that my last ASUS motherboard fit perfectly. While the offset isn't enough to cause problems - everything did fit, albeit snugly - I would have liked to have seen it a bit more forgiving. It was only out by 0.5mm, but that was enough to make it snug. Again, not a big deal, I tried all the plugs and I was able to get everything to plug in. It's just a bit snug on one side. Lastly, I was a bit concerned with the box itself. When I received the box it had a top that flips open, which is handy in a retail environment since under the top cover is a clear plastic cover that allows you to see the motherboard in the box, even though it is in a static bag. However, the box itself was NOT sealed, and there was no evidence of a broken seal. Furthermore, the static bag holding the motherboard did NOT have a warning sticker sealing it closed. These may be minor complaints, but the end result is that there is no certain way to know you are getting a 'new from factory' board. In my case I had no worries buying from NCIX, and you could tell from the accessories that it was a new package. However, I think someone at ASUS missed a step here and forgot to put a seal on the box. No biggie, just be aware.So let's get to the positives now. One of the things I really like is the excess of USB ports on the back IO panel. There are a whopping *10* USB ports on the back panel (8x2.0 and 2x3.0), which allows you to plug in almost anything without needing to screw around adding extra hubs and extensions. There are not one, but TWO external SATA ports as well, one powered and one unpowered. Two gigabit LAN ports, a firewire port, audio ports and a combo legacy PS/2 keyboard/mouse port. (You can plug in either - there is only one port though - if you have an old-style KVM that needs PS/2 keyboard *and* mouse connections, you'll have to buy an adapter.) They also include a 3.5" front panel USB 3.0 box, so you can have a couple USB3.0 ports in the front of your case, since most people won't have a case with USB 3.0 ports built into them yet. They also placed the USB 3.0 header in a good spot on the board, close to middle near the front of the case.ASUS has put a lot of attention into detail here, including LEDs that provide status for all possible components. Should the machine fail to boot, you can quickly look and see exactly what the problem is. The different LEDs will come on for CPU, GPU, DRAM, Boot device, TPU (overclock), and EPU (energy control). Post codes are easily seen on the dual digit LED display. There is also a MEMOK button, so that once you put in your memory - before you boot - you press and hold the button and the board will kick on and automatically try and configure it. This provides for a greater range of compatibility, since the board may use lower settings to get the system to boot, after which you can tweak the memory in the BIOS. Speaking of LEDs there are blue LEDs that light up one of the heatsinks on the board during nowmal operation. One of the things that I enjoy about the ASUS boards is the fan control. The CPU fan port and both chassis fan ports are controllable, which means the system can/will slow them down to reduce noise when the airflow isn't needed. No worries about fan controllers or resistors, just plug in and you're good to go. In the ASUS AI Suite II program in Windows you can see a graph of the fan speed versus temperature, and you can optionally change the way the fans are controlled. (excluding power supply fans)The BIOS is a treat, with the new GUI interface allowing you to use a USB mouse to move around and make selections. Entering advanced mode will provide you with options more similar to what you are used to in a 'standard' BIOS. However, it should be noted that almost all of the overclocking options can be changed in Windows using the ASUS AI Suite II program. That's what this is all about, isn't it? Overall I found that this board OC'ed quite easily. Since I'm still breaking in my heatsink (Artic Silver 5) I didn't push things, but I used the 'auto tune/OC' feature, and it took my i7-2600K from 3.4GHz to 4.4GHz with barely a yawn. And that was only on the 'fast' setting, not the 'extreme' setting. All in all I was quite pleased with this board, and I've only had it a few days. I suspect I'll be able to ride this board through many upgrades, especially given how new the Z68 line is. I'd definitely buy this board again based on my experiences so far.