All stock codes associated to this product
GAZ68XUD7B3, GA-Z68X-UD7B3
GA-Z68X-UD7-B3 (rev. 1.0)
Intel® Z68 Chipset
Overview
Introduction
GIGABYTE Z68 series motherboards provide all the advanced overclocking features users have come to know and love about the GIGABYTE P67 series motherboards including increasing processor core ratios, increasing DDR3 memory ratios and increasing power and current limits. In addition, GIGABYTE Z68 motherboards also allow users to increase the graphics core clock speed, for even greater graphics performance.
GIGABYTE Touch BIOS™ (Patent Pending)
An Innovative New Way to Modify BIOS Settings
Navigating through the BIOS to change system settings can be a daunting task for users not familiar with control “F”functions and mouse-less navigation. While some EFI BIOS try to address this with a mouse friendly environment, many implementations still lack a certain ease-of-use necessary for most people. With GIGABYTE Touch BIOS™, GIGABYTE engineers have completely re-imagined how users can interact with their BIOS, allowing for a more intuitive user experience. In fact, with a touch screen monitor, GIGABYTE Touch BIOS™ is as easy to use as most apps on your iPhone.
Supports Intel® Smart Response Technology
Faster than HDD-only system
GIGABYTE Z68 series motherboards are equipped with the much anticipated Intel® Smart Response Technology, allowing users to experience system performance similar to SSD only systems. Intel® Smart Response technology works by using intelligent block-based caching of frequently used applications to improve system performance and responsiveness. In fact, GIGABYTE Z68 motherboards with Intel® Smart Response Technology are able to outperform hybrid drive systems by more than 2X (PC Mark Vantage) and HDD-only systems by as much as 4X (PC Mark Vantage).
* 4X+ Faster than HDD-only system in PC Mark Vantage(HDD Score)
Maximum Power Delivery
Like the pistons and cylinders of a car engine, the design of the motherboard Voltage Regulator Module (VRM), component quality and number of power phases greatly affects motherboard performance. GIGABYTE engineers were first to realize not only the importance of using the best quality components for this critical area, but also that with more power phases, there can be more power available to your CPU. GIGABYTE 6 series motherboards with their new redesigned VRM, promise to deliver first class system performance and power stability. With only the best quality components and unique design, incorporating Dual CPU Power and Power Phase Boost with Multi-gear Switching, your CPU can enjoy better power than what was available from previous motherboards.
Industry's Leading TRUE 24 Phase Power Design
GIGABYTE's cutting edge 24 phase power VRM design utilizes the highest caliber components to provide unadulterated, smooth power to the CPU. The innovative 24 phase power VRM has been designed and engineered to deliver fast transient response times through quick and seamless power delivery during extensive CPU loading variations. In addition, heat from the VRM is effectively reduced by spreading the load between the 24 power phases, resulting in a cooler, more stable platform.
Dual CPU Power Technology
Imagine a workstation class redundant (duplicated) power design on a desktop motherboard. GIGABYTE's proprietary Dual CPU Power Technology allows CPU VRM power phases to split evenly into 2 sets of power engines that operate in tandem. This allows 1 set of power phases to rest while the other is active, as opposed to a traditional power design, where all the power phases are always active. As such GIGABYTE Dual CPU Power effectively halves the amount of work done by each set of power phases to significantly increase motherboard durability and reliability.



New 100% Hardware VRD 12 Compliant CPU Power Design
GIGABYTE 6 series motherboards incorporate an Intel approved Intersil PWM controller that is VRD 12 (Voltage Regulator Down) compliant. This means that it offers new features that include SerialVID (SVID) which transfers power management information between the processor and voltage regulator controller, allowing more robust and efficient signaling control between the CPU and PWM controller hence, delivering a more energy efficient platform.
Driver MOSFETs - Integration of VRM Components
A traditional Voltage Regulator Module (VRM) consists of a Choke, Capacitors, MOSFETs and a Driver IC. By incorporating the MOSFETs and driver IC in accordance with the Intel
Driver-MOSFET specification, we can achieve higher power transfer and increased efficiency at higher switching frequencies to satisfy the growing power requirements of today's processors. Driver-MOSFETs also help to reduce VRM real estate requirements in the CPU zone.



108dB Signal-to-Noise ratio playback
GIGABYTE strongly believes that in 2011, HD audio playback is a standard specification, and as such, we have made Blu-ray audio playback a standard for all of our motherboards.
All of GIGABYTE's 2011 motherboards feature higher capability audio solution with 108dB Signal-to-Noise ratio (SNR) playback quality to deliver high-performance, multi-channel HD audio. SNR is a comparison of the amount of signal to the amount of noise such as hiss present in the signal (expressed in Decibels). A higher SNR equals a better audio experience. For example, 108dB, is a high audio specification, as this means the audio signal is 108dB higher than the level of the noise.
DualBIOS™ 3TB+ HDD Support (Hybrid EFI Technology)
Hybrid EFI Technology combines the benefits of GIGABYTE's mature BIOS platform including stability and compatibility with 3rd party products with 3TB+ HDD support from EFI technology, allowing GIGABYTE to offer the best of both worlds through a quick and easy BIOS update using GIGABYTE's @BIOS utility that is freely available from the GIGABYTE website.
GIGABYTE DualBIOS™ is a patented technology that automatically recovers BIOS data when the main BIOS has crashed or failed. Featuring 2 physical BIOS ROMs integrated onboard, GIGABYTE DualBIOS™ allows quick and seamless recovery from BIOS damage or failure due to viruses or improper BIOS updating. In addition, GIGABYTE DualBIOS™ now supports 3TB+ (terabyte) hard drive booting without the need for partitioning, and enables more data storage on a single hard drive.
Ultra Durable 3
The GIGABYTE Ultra Durable™ 3 design features twice the copper for both the power and ground layers of the PCB, dramatically lowering system temperature by efficiently spreading heat from critical areas of the motherboard (such as the CPU power zone) throughout the entire PCB. GIGABYTE's Ultra Durable™ 3 also lowers the PCB impedance by 50%, which helps to reduce electrical waste and further lowers component temperatures. A 2x Copper layer design also provides improved signal quality and lower EMI (Electromagnetic Interference), providing better system stability and allowing for greater margins for overclocking.
On/Off Charge Technology
GIGABYTE On/Off Charge technology allows you to charge your iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch regardless of whether your PC is on, in standby mode or even off. A derivative of GIGABYTE's highly acclaimed 3x USB Power feature, On/Off Charge enables devices to draw more current from GIGABYTE motherboard USB ports than standard USB ports allow, so that charging from your PC can be as fast as with a charger.
Note: Due to certain mobile phone limitations, users may need to connect the mobile phone to their PC before the PC enters S4/S5 mode to enable a quick charge from non On/Off Charge USB ports. Charging results may vary by model.

SuperSpeed USB 3.0
GIGABYTE Ultra Durable 3 motherboards boast SuperSpeed USB 3.0 technology made possible through an additional onboard host controller. With superfast transfer rates of up to 5 Gbps, users are able to experience a theoretical 10x improvement over USB 2.0. Additionally, backwards compatibility with USB 2.0 assures users of long term use of their legacy USB 2.0 devices.
Turbo USB3.0 Boosts Performance by Up To 10%
When GIGABYTE's Turbo USB3.0 feature is enabled, it provides the fastest possible USB3.0 performance by allocating PCIe lanes to directly connect the CPU and USB 3.0 controller chip. This provides approximately 10% better performance than when it is disabled and USB 3.0 traffic is directed through the chipset.
Note: Turbo USB 3.0 utilizes 8 PCIe VGA lanes, so it is only possible to enable it with a single graphics card running at PCIe x8 on Z68 chipset motherboards, or while using Intel HD Graphics from the CPU (i.e. no VGA card) on Z68 chipset motherboards. It is an option for high bandwidth users.

3x USB Power Boost
GIGABYTE motherboards feature a 3x USB power boost, delivering greater compatibility and extra power for USB devices. GIGABYTEs unique USB power design is also able to efficiently regulate output over the full voltage range, which greatly enhances USB device compatibility. In addition, dedicated lower resistance fuses ensure lower voltage drops, and provide more stable and plentiful power delivery.
Front Access Control Panel
As part of its box kit, the motherboard features a convenient Front Access Control Panel that allows quick and easy access to 2 USB 3.0 ports
Additional Back Panel Features
Power eSATA for quick connectivity to external drives. Quick Boost button allowing gamers to instantaneously overclock their system with single press of a botton.
Turbo XHD- Full Automatic RAID 0
GIGABYTE Turbo XHD provides a quick and easy way to boost your hard drive performance by automatically detecting 2 new SATA3 HDDs and enabling users to effortlessly set up a RAID 0 configuration via an easy to use utility. RAID 0 boosts HDD performance by up to 4X.
Turbo XHD function only enabled for the SATA controllers integrated in the Intel Z68/P67/H67 Chipset.
Dynamic Energy Saver™ 2
GIGABYTE Dynamic Energy Saver™ 2 incorporates a host of intelligent features that, at the click of a button, utilize a proprietary hardware and software design to considerably enhance PC system energy efficiency, reduce power consumption and deliver optimized auto-phase-switching for the CPU, Memory, Chipset, VGA, HDD, and fans.
Multi-display Support with 3-way SLI™ and 3-way CrossFireX™
Flexible graphics capabilities - Up to 3 VGA cards are supported for either 3 way CrossFireX™ or 3-way SLI™, delivering the ultimate in graphics performance for gaming enthusiasts who demand the highest frame rates without compromising on resolution.

Power eSATA- Power Cable-free
Featuring with two external SATA (Power eSATA) ports in the rear panel that provide smart setup and hot-plug functionality that allows easier data backup and content manipulation on external storage devices.
10 USB3.0/6 SATA3 for Superfast Data Access
With 10 USB 3.0 and 6 SATA3 high speed storage connectors, this motherboard allows for up to 10X faster USB 3.0 transfer speeds and 2X the throughput from existing SATA compatible drives.
Extreme Cooling Solution
GIGABYTE motherboards feature a high performance copper heat pipe with a sintered process to improve heat transfer between the heat source and the cooling fins of the heat sink. The heat sinks are designed for ultra efficient heat dissipation and are aided by the CPU fan blowing air down onto the CPU cooler.
Smart Dual LAN
GIGABYTE Smart Dual LAN technology features intelligent LAN port auto-switching between the 2 physical Gigabit LAN chips; offering hassle free, zero downtime, high speed network connectivity.

Smart 6 Smarter PC system Management
Smart QuickBoot
Speeds up booting times.
Smart DualBIOS
Smart personal reminder of PC passwords.
Smart QuickBoost*
One-click Overclocking
Smart Recorder
Your PC's Watch Dog
Smart Recovery 2
Allows you to go back in time on your PC and retrieve lost files
Smart TimeLock
Time Controller for your PC.
Cloud OC
GIGABYTE Cloud OC is a free overclocking application that facilitates PC overclocking through any web browsing capable device such as a smart phone, iPad, iPhone, Netbooks or notebook PC. Being browser based, it connects via wireless Internet, Bluetooth or through an Ethernet cable, and its many functions are categorized into three tabs: Tuner, System Info and Control.

Hotkey OC
GIGABYTE Hotkey OC allows users to create and save various profiles that can be adopted for different benchmarks. Hotkey OC then allows users to jump between these profiles on the fly so that the best profile for each segment within the benchmark can be used to optimize scores and boost overall performance. For example, when running 3DMark 06, the 1st profile might be optimized for graphics, and can be used for the first two graphics tests, then, the next two tests can utilize the 2nd profile which might be optimized for CPU tests, and one could jump back to the 1st profile again for the final two graphics (shader) tests.
AutoGreen- Greening your PC via Bluetooth cellphone
AutoGreen technology can automatically save power by simply putting your PC in a state of sleep when your Bluetooth® cell phone is out of range of your computer.
Note: GIGABYTE motherboards do not include a Bluetooth® receiver; the addition of a 3rd party Bluetooth receiver is required.
Hardware OverVoltage Control IC - Enabling Extreme Overclocking
GIGABYTE Hardware Overvoltage Control ICs feature more voltage control options than before for the CPU North Bridge and memory. The overvoltage controllers also provide hardware linear real-time voltage control, which means there is no delay compared to the GPIO controller in past implementations.
Visible Overvoltage Reminder
An onboard Debug LED (Embedded post code LED display) simplifies motherboard signals and indicates system status.
Dolby Home Theater® - Enjoy a Rich Home Theater Surround Sound Experience
Dolby Home Theater® places listeners in the middle of the action, giving their PCs a powerful set of tools to deliver a cinema-style experience in vivid surround sound.
* Delivers vivid surround sound for music, movies, and games, using two to eight speakers or any set of headphones
* Designed to automatically deliver the best possible listening experience
ErP Lot 6 support
The ErP (also known as Energy-Related Products Directive) is part of the European Union's environmental regulations policy. It is based on concern for the environmental as the proliferation of electronic devices continues, and how to improve energy efficiency for a better and greener life. GIGABYTE supports ErP and produces motherboards that help you effectively improve system efficiency.
Specifications
| CPU |
- Support for Intel Core i7 processors/Intel Core i5 processors/ Intel Core i3 processors/Intel Pentium processors/Intel Celeron processors in the LGA1155 package (Go to GIGABYTE's website for the latest CPU support list.)
- L3 cache varies with CPU
|
| Chipset |
- Intel Z68 Express Chipset
|
| Memory |
- 4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 32 GB of system memory
* Due to Windows 32-bit operating system limitation, when more than 4 GB of physical memory is installed, the actual memory size displayed will be less than 4 GB.
- Dual channel memory architecture
- Support for DDR3 2133/1866/1600/1333/1066 MHz memory modules
- Support for non-ECC memory modules
- Support for Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules
(Go to GIGABYTE's website for the latest supported memory speeds and memory modules.)
|
| Audio |
- Realtek ALC889 codec
- High Definition Audio
- 2/4/5.1/7.1-channel
- Support for Dolby Home Theater
- Support for S/PDIF Out
|
| LAN |
- 2 x Realtek RTL8111E chips (10/100/1000 Mbit)
- Support for Teaming
- Support for Smart Dual LAN
|
| Expansion Slots |
- 2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x16 (PCIEX16_1, PCIEX16_2)
* For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16_1 slot; if you are installing two PCI Express graphics cards, it is recommended that you install them in the PCIEX16_1 and PCIEX16_2 slots.
- 2 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x8 (PCIEX8_1, PCIEX8_2)
* The PCIEX8_1 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX16_1 slot and the PCIEX8_2 slot with PCIEX16_2. The PCIEX16_1/PCIEX16_2 slot will operate at up to x8 mode when the PCIEX8_1/PCIEX8_2 is populated.
- 1 x PCI Express x1 slot
(All PCI Express slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)
- 2 x PCI slots
|
| Multi-Graphics Technology |
- Support for 2-Way/3-Way ATI CrossFireX/NVIDIA SLI technology
|
| Storage Interface |
Chipset:
- 2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3_0, SATA3_1) supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices
- 4 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (SATA2_2~SATA2_5) supporting up to 4 SATA 3Gb/s devices
- Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10
* When a RAID set is built across the SATA 6Gb/s and SATA 3Gb/s channels, the system performance of the RAID set may vary depending on the devices being connected.
2 x Marvell 88SE9128 chips:
- 2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (GSATA3_6, GSATA3_7) supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices
- 2 x eSATA 6Gb/s connectors (eSATA/USB Combo) on the back panel supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices
- Support for SATA RAID 0 and RAID 1
|
| USB |
Chipset:
- Up to 8 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (4 on the back panel, including 2 eSATA/USB Combo, 4 via the USB brackets connected to the internal USB headers)
2 x Renesas D720200 chips and 2 x VLI VL810 hubs:
- Up to 10 USB 3.0/2.0 ports (6 on the back panel, 4 via the USB brackets connected to the internal USB headers)
* The USB 2.0 signals of the 6 USB 3.0/2.0 ports on the back panel are from the Chipset.
|
| IEEE 1394 |
T.I. TSB43AB23 chip:
- Up to 3 IEEE 1394a ports (2 on the back panel, 1 via the IEEE 1394a bracket connected to the internal IEEE 1394a header)
|
| Internal I/O Connectors |
- 1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector
- 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector
- 4 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors
- 4 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors
- 1 x CPU fan header
- 3 x system fan headers
- 1 x power fan header
- 1 x Chipset fan header
- 1 x front panel header
- 1 x front panel audio header
- 1 x S/PDIF Out header
- 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers
- 2 x USB 3.0/2.0 headers
- 1 x IEEE 1394a header
- 1 x clearing CMOS button
- 1 x power button
- 1 x reset button
|
| Back Panel Connectors |
- 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
- 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector
- 1 x coaxial S/PDIF Out connector
- 2 x IEEE 1394a ports
- 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
- 6 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports
- 2 x eSATA/USB Combo connectors
- 2 x RJ-45 ports
- 6 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out/Rear Speaker Out/Side Speaker Out/Line In/Line Out/Microphone)
|
| I/O Controller |
- iTE IT8728 chip
|
| H/W Monitoring |
- System voltage detection
- CPU/System temperature detection
- CPU/System/Power fan speed detection
- CPU overheating warning
- CPU/System/Power fan fail warning
- CPU/System fan speed control
* Whether the CPU/system fan speed control function is supported will depend on the CPU/system cooler you install.
|
| BIOS |
- 2 x 32 Mbit flash
- Use of licensed AWARD BIOS
- Support for DualBIOS
- PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.0, SM BIOS 2.4, ACPI 1.0b
|
| Unique Features |
- Support for @BIOS
- Support for Q-Flash
- Support for Xpress BIOS Rescue
- Support for Download Center
- Support for Xpress Install
- Support for Xpress Recovery2
- Support for EasyTune
* Available functions in EasyTune may differ by motherboard model.
- Support for Dynamic Energy Saver 2
- Support for Smart 6
- Support for Auto Green
- Support for eXtreme Hard Drive (X.H.D)
- Support for ON/OFF Charge
- Support for Cloud OC
- Support for Q-Share
|
| Bundle Software |
- Norton Internet Security (OEM version)
|
| Operating System |
- Support for Microsoft Windows 7/Vista/XP
|
| Form Factor |
- ATX Form Factor; 30.5cm x 24.4cm
|
| Remark |
- Due to different Linux support condition provided by chipset vendors, please download Linux driver from chipset vendors' website or 3rd party website.
- Most hardware/software vendors no longer offer support for Win9X/ME/2000/XP SP1/SP2. If drivers are available from the vendors, we will update them on the GIGABYTE website.
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