Asus P8Z68 Deluxe Gen3 Motherboard Review

In the beginning of this review we asked the question of what makes an enthusiast motherboard and does product segmentation really play a big factor in what you can do.  Having used several Z68 motherboards up to this review we have come to the conclusion that a little does go a long way.

The P8Z68 Deluxe/Gen3 is a very unique motherboard in that it comes from a line of mainstream motherboards with features normally reserved for higher end enthusiast models.  Features such as a digital PWM and hardware based system tuning are generally expensive and difficult to implement so most builders avoid using them except at the boutique level.  It is true that you won't find common enthusiast features like a widely outrageous expansion slot layout or onboard voltage test points but if you think about it, most people don't need that stuff making the Deluxe/Gen3 almost the perfect combination for everyone.

This motherboard does feature the PLX PCI Express 3.0 bridge chip giving the motherboard an increased number of PCI Express lanes to use.  Normally these features are used to increase video card performance but in the case of the P8Z68 Deluxe/Gen3 it is used to enable more onboard features and keep them enabled regardless of system configuration.

For this review we did not include our normal performance numbers since Sandy Bridge systems using the same hardware all have the same performance curve.  The Deluxe/Gen3 is no exception.  We did however get to use this motherboard for a wee bit of overclocking and with only a few minor performance tweaks and upgraded fan on our Cooler Master X6 Elite we had the system running at a strong 5.025Ghz and completing a variety of benchmarks for the Ninjalane HWBot team.

You can see the results of these overclocking tests at HWBot using the links below.  The video cards were BFG GTX 260s on Liquid Nitrogen using nothing more than cold and a tweaked BIOS image.  

Easy to use UEFI BIOS
Great for Overclocking
Extra space between video card slots
Digi+ VRM for stable power
Onboard Bluetooth
Gigabit Intel LAN

Lots of clicks to access to advanced BIOS menu
Power and Reset buttons covered in triple card setups
Chipset cooler not connected to PWM