[Jon A. Silvers]

I am going to buy Intel i5 2500k,have good psu, and wont to oc to 4 Ghz with lowest voltage possible. Red a lot of reviews,but I need personal expirience and I am hoping that I am on the best place that there is,and which of these boards are best for that task,longevity and quality of the board are prime concern,it must be z68 cause i plan to upgrade to ivy bridge next year on same motherboard,and if you have some other advice please tell.Budget is 210e max.
Thanks in advance.
Asus Gene Z (Gen 3) ~ not yet priced (155e non gen3 version)
Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD4 ~ 180e
MSI Z68A-GD65 (G3) ~ 165e
MSI Z68A-GD80 (G3) ~ 210e

 

[microfister]

i have the z68a-gd80 (g3), and i love it. msi confirmed using ivy bridge samples on it for testing. i chose it because at the time it was the only high end z68 board that had ports for the integrated graphics, gen 3 support, and enough sata ports to accomodate my hdds/ssd. i havnt had any issues with it, msi has an overclocking guide for the board on their site, along with a very detailed manual.

all of the z68 boards have limitations, not all the ports can be used at once. if your using the pciex4 slot you lose the use of several ports, but this apply to most of the z68 boards.

i would suggest either going with asrock or msi(msi has great customer support, from what ive had to deal with), both have confirmed using IB samples on their boards, and have gen 3 support. gigabyte lied about having gen 3 support and tends to lack the hdmi/dvi ports for the IGP. and asus has horrible customer support(IMO).

 

[Jon A. Silvers]

Is there any difference between gd80 and gd65 except number of vrm phases (build quality and oc capabilities) ?