Biostar TZ68K User Manual download pdf

Digit | November 2011 | www.thinkdigit.com

Tried & tested

ABOARD THE

Nimish Sawant

nimish.sawant@thinkdigit.com

“W

hat moth-

erboard

should I

buy?” is

one of the most common ques-

tions our readers ask us. Within

motherboards, there are so many

levels to consider that without

proper guidance it’s very difﬁcult

to pin down a speciﬁc board.

This year saw the entry of

Intel’s Sandy Bridge mother-

boards with the P67 and H67

chipsets, which Digit com-

pared back in January. The Z68

chipset was launched in May and

more recently, the A75 chipset

was introduced by AMD. We

decided to do a shootout of

boards based on these two

chipsets. You can expect a

similar shootout of higher end

chipsets, namely AMDs 990FX

(already in the market) and

Intel’s X79 (to be launched later

this year) sometime next year.

Needless to say, the Z68 and

A75 are two completely different

chipsets and boards housing

these chipsets are not compa-

rable. For this precise reason,

even though we’ve tested both

these chipsets, they should be

considered as two separate com-

parison tests.

Z68 Boards

`20,000 and up

A category of boards that is over-

kill for most users, but there’s a

deﬁnite demand for such boards.

It’s all about overclocking and

tweaking and of course the

looks. We got three boards which

were priced well over `20,000

namely, the Gigabyte Z68X-UD7-

B3, ASUS Maximus IV Extreme

Z and Gigabyte G1 Sniper 2.

G1 Sniper2 is the LGA1155

iteration of the original G1

Sniper which was available on

the LGA1366 socket for the X58

chipset. The packaging of the

board and the board itself com-

mand attention. A metallic bullet

magazine acts as the heatsink for

the southbridge and has a cheeky

warning, “Not a weapon, cannot

be assembled as a ﬁrearm.” The

heatsink in the centre has ﬁve

LEDs that glow green when the

board is powered on.

The G1 Sniper 2 has features

such as an on-board BigFoot

Killer E2100 NIC and Creative

Choosing the right motherboard for your system is an arduous task, specially with

so many brands and chipsets to contend with. We make that task easier for you by

testing over 30 boards (both Z68 and A75 chipset based)

MOTHERSHIP

Source: photos.com

HD Media Players

A massive round up of nearly all

the HD Media Players available in

the market

Gaming Stuff

Find out which keyboard and

mouse will work the best

for you

102Tried & tested

DIGIT

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Summary of Contents

Page 1 - MOTHERSHIP

88Digit | November 2011 | www.thinkdigit.comTried & testedABOARD THENimish [email protected]“What moth-erboard should I buy?”

Page 2 - HOW WE TESTED

89Digit | November 2011 | www.thinkdigit.comMotherboards Testdigital audio processor. It also houses on-board ampliﬁers to drive audio. On-board imple

Page 3 - ASUS Zenbook UX21 Teardown

90Digit | November 2011 | www.thinkdigit.comTried & testedZ68 Motherboards Under `10,000 `10,000 to `14,000`14,000 to `20,000 `20,000 and upBrand

Page 4 - Five pros of Google+

91Digit | November 2011 | www.thinkdigit.comZ68 Motherboards Under `10,000 `10,000 to `14,000`14,000 to `20,000 `20,000 and upBrand Biostar ASRock Gi

Page 5 - Superheated TVs

92Digit | November 2011 | www.thinkdigit.comTried & testedA75 MotherboardsBrand ASUS Gigabyte Gigabyte Biostar ZOTAC ECS ASUS ASUSASUS MSI Gigab

Page 6 - PlayStation 3D display coming

93Digit | November 2011 | www.thinkdigit.comMotherboards TestWi-Fi adapter and an onboard graphics card. Its priced higher considering it houses SO D

Page 7 - Down with the 3DS

94Digit | November 2011 | www.thinkdigit.comTried & testedoperation, temperatures and voltages among other things. ASRock Z68 Extreme7 Gen3 is

Page 8 - Empower yourself

95Digit | November 2011 | www.thinkdigit.comMotherboards Testnectors bundled along with the board. It only supports CrossFire at x8/x8 conﬁguration. T

Page 9 - ASUS Swap

96Digit | November 2011 | www.thinkdigit.comTried & tested- the Extreme7. The heatsinks are quite sturdy and it houses a POST debug LED as well