Conclusions
We’ll get this out of the way right away; if you are looking for a Z68 board to take your Sandy Bridge to the absolute limit, we’re talking 4.9 GHz and beyond, you can forget about the GA-Z68A-D3H-B3.
That being said, you can probably forget about most boards in its $110 price range, which on paper at least, do not compare favourably to it for the most part. The VRM, while not robust (it is just a 4+1+1 design), is made of very high quality, durable components. In fact, just about everything on this board is high quality for the price. The audio is good for an onboard solution, the ethernet works well and has low CPU usage, and you even get quite a few nifty extras like high amperage USB power and more.
The only thing that really performed poorly on the GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 was the Etron USB 3.0 controller. It stalled quite often in our tests, and when it was working, did not perform well compared to the more commonly used Renesas controller.
Aside from that one thing – which may be fixed by drivers any time – this is actually a very good board for the price. I can see it suiting a $800-1000 build perfectly well. Just add a good CPU cooler, hit the “Twin Turbo” button, and you will have a nice modest 4.4 to 4.5 GHz overclock most of the time.
Your other options in this price range are other 6 phase boards, but look carefully at the VRM components used, and you may find yourself coming back to this one. That being said, that USB 3.0 controller leaves a horrible taste in my mouth, and I hope Gigabyte gets around to fixing it.
