ASRock Z68 Pro 3 review

An affordable Intel Z68 chipset motherboard has landed

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ASRock Z68 Pro 3
Not so pricey, but pretty powerful

TechRadar Verdict

A budget Z68 that may be basic but is a better performer than its predecessors

Pros

  • +

    Excellent value

  • +

    QuickSync and SRT

  • +

    Good performance

Cons

  • -

    No SLI

  • -

    No Crossfire

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At the price that ASRock can apparently produce motherboards like the ASRock Z68 Pro 3, based on Intel's latest Z68 chipset, you might find yourself asking the utterly reasonable question: "what's the point of anything else?"

There are H61s, H67s and P67s galore out there, and all of them will work in tandem with a second generation Intel Core processor. But since the ASRock Z68 Pro 3 is based on the best of the best and available for only just over £100, what really is the point of browsing beyond it?

To recap, the Z68 has all the overclocking features of previous high-end boards, but can do two things no other chipset can. It has Intel's Smart Response Technology (SRT), which enables you to use a small, high-speed SSD as a cache drive, and Lucid's Virtu software on board too.

That software layer, uniquely, enables you to use a discrete graphics card in the PCI-Express slot and still take advantage of Intel's awesome GPU video encoding booster, QuickSync.

Gigabyte's Z68X-UD3H-B3 is another £50 more, so what are you missing out on with this ASRock bargain board?

Adam Oxford