Introduction

Earlier this month GIGABYTE invited us over to check out both the Z68X-UD7-B3 and Z68X-UD3H-B3 Motherboards in Taiwan. Because the preview on the GIGABYTE boards wasn't done in house and didn't include the contents of the package nor our standard photo line-up, we'll be covering the board as we would normally cover one that we hadn't previewed.

That means that we'll start by looking at the box itself before looking at the actual contents of the package. Once that's done we'll have a good look around the motherboard to cover the location of all those important connectors while also covering some of the main features. Once that's done, we'll check out the BIOS and we'll also do something a little different today and cover the new Touch BIOS that GIGABYTE has been heavily promoting.

Once we've done that, we'll cover the overclocking potential we managed to achieve with the board and also talk a little about GIGABYTEs "QuickBoost" feature before getting into the performance side of things.

So with that all said and done, let's not delay any longer and get stuck into the package of the GIGABYTE Z68X-UD7-B3 to see exactly what's going on.

The Package

In typical GIGABYTE fashion, the Z68X-UD7-B3 box is big and has an absolute wealth of information. Like a book, you can flip open the front and see not only part of the board, but also a diagram as to how the cooling system works and just a bunch more information in relation to the features that are offered on the board.

Inside the box we're pretty stacked when it comes to the bundle. We've got the normal stuff like manuals, driver CD and I/O shield. On the SATA cable front we've got four along with two SATA to eSATA cables. Along with that, we've also got an eSATA power connector and two SLI bridges; one a 3-Way SLI one, the other just an extended bridge.

On top of all that, we've got an eSATA bracket on the right and a dual port, 3.5" USB 3.0 plate that can be installed in the front of your case. Clearly this is one of the larger bundles we've seen to date on the Z68 platform.