MSI unveils two new Z68 motherboards by VR-Zone.com

One so far unseen Z68 motherboard model and one upgraded – if you can call it that – model has emerged on the MSI website today, namely the Z68A-G43 (B3) and the Z68A-GD55 (G3). This brings MSI's total Z68 board count up to seven, as three models are identical bar PCI Express 3.0 support.

The Z68A-GD55 (G3) is one of the models that fit into the already launched category, but it was moved into the PCI Express 3.0 fold today with the help of some new lane switches. As far as we can tell, nothing else has changed on this board, so there's not very much else to say about it.



The new addition to MSI's Z68 series is the Z68A-G43, which is MSI's entry level Z68 ATX motherboard. For a model in the gaming series it's a pretty feature stripped board, even compared to the Z68A-G45 and we have a hard time seeing a lot of consumers going for the Z68A-G43 over the Z68A-G45.



For starters the power regulation appears to be a very simple 4+1 design suggesting that overclocking isn't what this board is about. At least MSI has fitted a pair of heatsinks to the MOSFETs, albeit tiny ones, but they're at least screwed in. Furthermore there doesn't appear to be support for a dual x8 setup, although the board has a pair of x16 slots, the secondary slot only offers four lanes. The board also has two x1 PCI Express slots and three PCI slots. Oddly enough four of the six SATA ports are angled at 90 degrees which is an improvement over the Z68A-G45.



The board has pin-headers for eight USB 2.0 ports as well as a serial and parallel port, but otherwise there's very little else of notice. Around the back there is a pair of PS/2 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, a Gigabit Ethernet port, 7.1-channel audio jacks and a DVI and D-Sub port. Price wise the Z68A-G43 is listed for around €110 in Europe (S$190) which makes it a mere €10 (S17) cheaper than Z68A-G45 and from our point of view, it's not worth the small saving. The Z68A-GD55 (G3) has as yet not been listed for sale.

Source: MSI http://www.msi.com/product/mb/#?sk=Socket 1155