Intel Desktop Board DZ68BC – BOXDZ68BC
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- New – Retail
- 3-Year Limited Warranty
SpecificationsMfr Part Number: BOXDZ68BCCPU: Socket 1155 Support 2nd generation Intel Core i7 series ProcessorsChipset: Intel Z68 Express Chipset Memory: 4x 240pin DDR3-1600+/ 1333/ 1066 DIMMs, Dual Channel, Non ECC, Max Capacity up to 32GB Slots: 2x PCI-Express 2.0 x16 Slot(one run at x8, Supports ATI CrossFireX and NVIDIA SLI); 2x PCI-Express 2.0 x1 Slots; 3x PCI Slots SATA: 4x SATA2 Ports, 4x SATA3 Ports, 1x eSATA3 Port, Support RAID 0/ 1/ 5/ 10 Audio: Intel 10-channel High Definition Audio CodecLAN: Intel 82579V Gigabit Ethernet Controller Ports: 14x USB 2.0 Ports (6 rear, 8 by headers); 4x USB 3.0 Ports (2 rear, 2 by headers); 2x IEEE 1394a Ports(1 rear, 1 by header); 1x eSATA3 Port; 1x HDMI Port; 1x DVI Port; 1x DisplayPort; 1x optical S/PDIF out Port; 1x RJ45 LAN Port; Audio I/O Jacks Form Factor: ATX, 11.6 x 9.6 inch / 29.46 x 24.38 cmPackage: Retail
Intel motherboard
Intel Desktop Board DZ68BC – BOXDZ68BC
List Price: $ 328.33
Price:
Good board with caveats,
I get Intel motherboards for stability and support. This is the first one I have found that supports UEFI. I wanted to put 6 1TB hard drives in it and end up with a single 4.5 TB boot drive. I cheered when the bios showed my 6 disk raid 5 configuration as bootable. However Windows 7 64-bit Enterprise wouldn’t let me use it unless it divided the drive into 2TB partitions. A call to intel blamed the hard drives. I didn’t pursue that and just accepted the situation. Maybe there is some sort of incompatibility with certain hard drives? Mine are Seagate SV35.5 designed for multimedia use.
I am running 6 1TB drives in Raid 5, an extra 2 TB drive on the Marvel for backup, a blue ray drive on the Marvel. I have a MSI GeForce 570GTX card as the main video card for the primery monitor and a secondary GTS450 to drive two secondary monitors. I use the integrated Intel HD graphics to drive a fourth monitor. 16 GBs of Corsair memory.
No problems with anything except the RAID5 situation. Note also that each of the Intel SATA ports can be configured for online replacement, which I think is a higher end feature. I like the skull lights, control buttons on the board, and the new USB bluetooth attachment. Good board.
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|Quality Z68 Board with Lots of Features,
This is going to be a lengthy review, so let me start with a summary…
I am very pleased with this board. Plenty of SATA ports, plenty of USB2 and USB3 ports, integrated video, integrated audio, (2) PCIE x16 slots with support for SLI/Crossfire, and LucidLogix Virtu included. Add four memory slots with total capacity of 32gb, an eSata port, and a 1394 firewire port.
Lots of diagnostic LED’s in case you have a bad component and can’t boot. There is even a header for a serial port, although you will need your own cable and backplane adapter if you want to use it. Networking is provided by onboard Intel 1gb LAN adapter, plus an included Wifi G/N + Bluetooth adapter (installation optional).
I’ve been running this board for two weeks now and it has been rock-solid. I briefly loaded/tested XP just to see how the board/drivers supported XP, and then subsequently proceeded with loading Windows 7 x64 Ultimate. Both installations went smoothly, although the XP drivers are a little harder to find/download. (An earlier review here incorrectly stated that USB3 did not work with XP; that is NOT the case as USB3 works just fine on XP.)
No issues whatsoever during installation/setup. I have attached a number of USB2 devices (printers, cameras, iPhone, iPad, joystick), and two TV tuner devices (one PCI Hauppauge HVR2250, and a network-based SiliconDust HDHomeRun). I tested fireware, esata, and USB2 with a Western Digital MyBook external drive, and tested USB3 with a Lacie external usb3 drive and Corsair usb3 flash drive. All the ports and their drivers worked perfectly.
I have very slightly overclocked the board, raising the standard clock range of 3.4-3.8Ghz up to 3.8-4.2Ghz. No voltage changes were needed to accomplish this, just simple turbo multiplier changes using Intel’s “Extreme Tuning Utility”. It continues to be completely stable, and max CPU temp under full load is only 52C using a Zalman 9900 Max air cooler. (Sorry, I did not test temps with the stock cooler.)
Bottom line, I would not hesitate to recommend this board. If you are looking for a quality Z68-based board with Intel quality, a 3 year warranty, and lots of features (including overclocking capability if you have an unlocked cpu), I don’t think you can go wrong here. Nothing is perfect and I would like to give it a “4.5”, but since Amazon doesn’t allow half-stars I am rounding up to 5-stars.
Now, the gory details for those who want them….
I bought this board to replace an aging pentium-D system. I paired it with an Antec P193v3 case and CP850 PSU, Intel i7-2600k cpu, Zalman 9900max cooler, Intel 510 Sata-III 120gb ssd (boot drive), 2 WD Caviar Black 1tb Sata-III drives in raid-1 (data drive), 16gb of Corsair ddr3 (with low profile heat spreaders), and a GeForce GTX-560ti 2gb video card.
The board is physically well made, having no odd jumpers or questionable traces. A previous reviewer mentioned his board having “glove prints” and misaligned jacks, but I had none of that. The board is stamped “Made in China”, so it is possible (as with a lot of Chinese imports) that there are quality variations between boards or batches. In any case, my particular board looks absolutely perfect and exactly what I would expect from Intel.
Documentation in the box is adequate but sparse. The included full color “quick reference” sheet that comes in the box shows everything you need for making physical connections. For more detail, you will want to download the Product Guide and Technical Product Specification PDFs from Intel’s download center. I did find the technical document a little lacking in detail, especially as regards some of the BIOS options. But on the positive side, all documents are professionally written in English with no sign of the more common “bad translation” you see with many electronics products.
8 SATA drive ports: There are (6) SATA ports that support RAID via the Intel Z68 chipset: (2) Sata-III (6gb/s) and (4) Sata-II (3gb/s). The onboard Marvel controller adds (2) more Sata-III ports that support RAID via Marvel’s software RAID, for a grand total of (4) SATA-II and (4) SATA-III ports.
14 USB2 ports: There are 6 external USB2 ports, 2 of which are “high current, always on” for charging external devices like smartphones or tablets. The motherboard has 4 additional USB2 headers, providing 8 more USB2 ports for case front panel or (optional) back-plane adapters. Note that the included Wifi/Bluetooth module, if you use it, plugs into 1 of the 4 headers thus using (2) of the USB2 ports.
4 USB3 ports: There are 2 external USB3 ports, and an internal header for 2 more for connection to case front panel or (optional) back-plane adapters.
32gb max memory: Four memory slots, supporting up to 32gb of dual-channel DDR3.
Other ports: There are two 1394 Firewire ports (one…
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|Bells and whistles galore with Intel’s quality and reliability,
I upgraded to the DZ68BC from a veritable antique Intel P4-era board, which to its credit was still working 8 years later. I expect nothing less from the DZ68BC, which is designed for Intel’s Sandy Bridge (and with a future BIOS upgrade, Ivy Bridge) era CPUs, which should be good enough for years to come.
The board works as expected with an Antec Three Hundred case, 8GB of G.Skill memory (max total 32GB), Core i5-2500, and a Crucial M4 SSD. The flash upgrade–easily done by putting it on a USB stick–went perfectly, and Windows 7 x64 installed startlingly fast.
There’s USB 2/3, DVI, Displayport, HDMI, Wifi (G and N), Bluetooth, and about everything else you can think of, though you’re out of luck if you need a parallel (LPT) port for an old printer (in that case, get a USB-LPT adapter). Ditto serial, though note that they include pins onboard if you want to supply your own serial ribbon cable out to the back of the case.
Loads of SATA ports (SATA2 and SATA3)–so many, that you can very likely stick with the native Intel ports and not bother with the pair of Marvell ones (I actually disabled my Marvell SATA ports, which speeds boot time quite a bit).
Comes with a broad array of on-board LEDs for diagnostic purposes, including a coded 2-digit display. For good measure, the board also includes a glowing skull, since what good board wouldn’t (yes, you can disable it in the BIOS)?
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