MSI Z68A-GD65 (G3) Pro Reviews

The MSI Z68A-GD65 G3 has next generation features and a price to match

Overall, the MSI Z68A-GD65 G3 delivered decidedly average performance compared to the other boards, and it lacked some compelling extra features save for PCI-E gen 3 support when Ivy Bridge arrives. However, we definitely liked the price, and the overclocking features are easy to use and very effective.

First the bad. The Z68A-GD65 G3 software features for overclocking were terrible in our experience. The UEFI Windows BIOS did not work right for us and neither did Control Center II. The Click BIOS II is a huge step in the right direction, and now very usable, although we are waiting to see the flurry inducing double clicking situation remedied as MSI has now promised. If you are guy that does not like to go into the BIOS past first POST, this board is not for you. Now for the good, if not great! The MSI Z68A-GD65 G3 is the only motherboard we have ever tested that allowed us to stably overclock our 2500K CPUs to 5GHz. That is a certainly a statement about the Z68A-GD65 G3, no matter how you look at it. The MSI Z68A-GD65 G3 is an overclocking and stability monster. We cooked it under duress for over a week without even a hint of failure. This board is a brick house, and you know what kind. If you are an "old school" overclocker and like attacking your tweaking through the BIOS, then the Z68A-GD65 G3 should be on your short list. We have been big fans of the GD65 series of MSI motherboards since these debuted. The Z68A-GD65 G3 is a bit more expensive than these boards have been in the past, but this new GD65 is also fairly feature rich comparatively as well. This new Z68A-GD65 G3 will cost you $190.00 as of writing this. With that said you have to remember that the Z68A-GD65 G3 is poised to deliver PCIe Generation 3.0 specification transfer speeds when you can finally seat an Intel Ivy Bridge processor on this motherboard.