EVGA Z68 FTW Motherboard Review

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Apoptosis
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EVGA Z68 FTW Motherboard Review

Post by Apoptosis »

EVGA Z68 FTW Motherboard Review

EVGA may have been a little late to the game with their Intel Socket 1155 motherboards. By no means does that mean they aren't making a splash with them. The EVGA Z68 FTW is a damn fine looking motherboard. Looks won't get you the frame rates we all desire though! Does it live up to the expectations that accompany the EVGA name? Or is it all show and no go? Join us as we take a look at the performance of the EVGA Z68 FTW and compare it to a handful of systems!

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One area that we had a pleasure playing with was our overclocking experience with the EVGA Z68 FTW. With only a few minor tweaks in the UEFI BIOS of the EVGA Z68 FTW we were able to bring the Intel Core i7 2600K to a solid 4.8GHz overclock. That's a solid 1.4 GHz over the stock clock speed of 3.4GHz that the Intel Core i7 2600K comes out of the box with. We were able to boot into Windows 7 64bit at 4.9GHz on the EVGA Z68 FTW but we started pushing the thermal limits on air cooling under full load.
Article Title: EVGA Z68 FTW Motherboard Review
Article URL: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1776/1/
Pricing At Time of Print: $263.75 Shipped
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Skippman
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Re: EVGA Z68 FTW Motherboard Review

Post by Skippman »

Thanks for the great review! About 2 weeks to late for me. ;)


A couple things I've noticed from my own experience with the Z68FTW. The ELEET software can also overclock the eVGA GPU's to an extent and you can overclock the system from the application whilst in Windows itself. I've not played with that feature yet myself however.

Also, ELEET is compatable with the G series of keyboards from Logitech and gives a nice readout on the LCD display including voltages, temps, and fan RPM's for those who are interested in that feature. I did not know it did that myself until I was flipping through aps on the KB the other day and stumbled onto it.
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Re: EVGA Z68 FTW Motherboard Review

Post by Major_A »

AIDA64 supports Logitech keyboards. I think HWiNFO32/HWiNFO64 does as well.
http://www.aida64.com/downloads/aida64e ... h8jz2cyzip
http://www.hwinfo.com/beta/hw32_390_1460.zip
http://www.hwinfo.com/beta/hw64_390_1460.zip
The compact flash slot has a wide variety of uses. It can be used as storage, for a swap file, or just about anything else you can think of. The compact flash technology is a bit on the dated side.
There currently isn't another flash medium that is as fast as CF. A good SDHC card is slow as molasses compared to a good CF card. Newegg has several 600X CF cards for sale.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... rchInDesc=
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Re: EVGA Z68 FTW Motherboard Review

Post by Skippman »

What kinds of temps were you posting with your build? Before OC, under load and after OC, under load?

I'm pulling 32C at idle right now and 50C whilst playing BF3. Trying to get an idea of the temps I should be expecting. I can't seem to find any published specs on what the i5 should run at other than thread about "is my proc to hot"? Knowing a baseline would help.
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Re: EVGA Z68 FTW Motherboard Review

Post by XstollieX »

Major_A wrote:
The compact flash slot has a wide variety of uses. It can be used as storage, for a swap file, or just about anything else you can think of. The compact flash technology is a bit on the dated side.
There currently isn't another flash medium that is as fast as CF. A good SDHC card is slow as molasses compared to a good CF card. Newegg has several 600X CF cards for sale.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... rchInDesc=
Fair enough, flash storage isn't my strong suit. In all honesty though I'd still rather have seen a mini PCIe slot that we could use a ssd with.
Skippman wrote:What kinds of temps were you posting with your build? Before OC, under load and after OC, under load?

I'm pulling 32C at idle right now and 50C whilst playing BF3. Trying to get an idea of the temps I should be expecting. I can't seem to find any published specs on what the i5 should run at other than thread about "is my proc to hot"? Knowing a baseline would help.
I didn't check the temps under load or idle when not oc'd, at least not with any utilities. The post code LED was usually sitting around 30 degrees when Idling. Way to many variables for a repeatable result, mainly the three systems in my office and 0 climate control ability. Under load when overclocked I was pushing upper 90's. I had reseated the Corsair A70 once to be sure it was right, but upon breaking down the system it looks like it may have still been sitting funny on there. Sitting Idle
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Re: EVGA Z68 FTW Motherboard Review

Post by DJDeejay »

Thanks for the great review!

I'm seriously considering this board for my next review, and I'm just wondering if someone could elaborate some on the dual eight pin CPU power connections. The article briefly mentions that "The EVGA Z68 FTW is capable of running dual eight pin CPU power plugs. Fortunately only one is required under 99% of circumstances". I'm wondering if this could be elaborated upon?

I was hoping to re-use my current PSU, which is an Antec True Power Trio 750. What's holding me back is the fact that it only has one eight pin CPU connector.

I took a look at EVGA's pdf manual, and it simply says to hook up both. It doesn't give any details about only hooking up one, or what will warrant connecting both.

I'm planning on running an i5-2500K in the board, and will eventually overclock, but could wait until I've upgraded the PSU (if it's actually necessary to).

Edit: I seem to have answered my own impatient question with some Google-ing. If I understand correctly, it's main for "extreme" overclocking.
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Re: EVGA Z68 FTW Motherboard Review

Post by XstollieX »

DJDeejay wrote:
Edit: I seem to have answered my own impatient question with some Google-ing. If I understand correctly, it's main for "extreme" overclocking.
You are correct sir. If you plan on doing some extreme overclocking with liquid Nitrogen or liquid helium then I would use the second, until that point you shouldn't need it. If even then.

Dan
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Re: EVGA Z68 FTW Motherboard Review

Post by DJDeejay »

Wonderful! Thank you very much for the speedy confirmation!
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