Honestly, I was hoping for a thread like this. I'm looking to get myself a z68 mobo here in a few days.
The board also takes the h67 and the p67 and combines their functions somewhat. if i'm not mistaken, you have the intergrated gpu on the cpu active for certain applications as well as your pcie gpu.
As for what one to get, It depends on what your looking for.
1: Are you getting a single gpu system, a dual gpu, triple? quad?
That should be your first concern.
2: How many SATA devices are you going to use? Include speeds(6.0, 3.0)
Most boards come with 4 6.0 gb/s ports, 4 3.0. I find that sufficiant
(4 raid drives go on 6.0, 3.0 for optical drives/non raid drives.)
3: What base memory frequency are you looking for(non overclocked)?
(usually 1600 is max base frequency, but some people have 1333 or 1066 that they don't want to replace. This could save you a bit of money)
4: Will you have a need for Firewire/e-sata?
5: will you be buying a sound card, or use onboard?
It all boils down to what features you specifically need, alot of them are really great boards with equally great performance.
I recommend keeping at about 1600 frequency RAM, cl9. If you have deep pockets, 1866 is probably the max i would recommend at this point in time. You won't physically see a difference when its that high.
(I was considering 2133 ram for awhile, at a premium of $200. I settled for a 1600 cl8(was on sale, cheaper than cl9's) g.skill ripjaws x built with SB in mind. Voltages at 1.5.)
Like you said in the post, Gigabyte UD3P seems the best, but its also the most expensive. It supports up to 2133 ram(you do need an OC to achive this on your cpu) As well as 4 6.0 sata ports. 2x sli with a healthy bandwidth, and firewire support.
If you plan on 3x sli/xfire, D3h gigabyte is also good, just lacks audio inputs, so plan on an audio card if you go this route(and use the ports...
)
Good luck.
An interesting comparisonThe only difference between these two is the addition of Esata ports, And one less usb port. Price difference is very close, one with free shipping, prolly the better deal since its free shipping
looking for more feedback/input/answers to the added Q's, etc...
