Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3

Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 review

The Z68 platform has seen a lot of love from Gigabyte since it came about, and the Z68AP-D3 has to be one of the cheapest Z68 boards we've ever seen. But does that also mean it's one of the weakest? Since the farce that accompanied the launch and subsequent silicon failure of the initial P67 platform, Gigabyte effectively ditched that chipset in favour of the Z68. When it made the announcement it would only be releasing a handful of P67 boards and focusing on the Z68 platform we thought maybe the low-end might suffer. Gigabyte explained to us though that the cost difference between creating a P67 or Z68 board were negligible. With such budget Z68 boards arriving, like this one, that strategy looks to be working. There's little missing from this budget board, but it still comes with Z68 specifics such as the Lucid Virtu and Smart Response Technology (SRT), as well as onboard video outputs. Wallet friendly This isn't the cheapest Z68 motherboard that Gigabyte has created, there are other boards out for just over £70, but the Z68AP-D3 doesn't skimp on the features that make the Z68 chipset attractive. It comes with a single onboard HDMI port, but that does mean it can be used without needing to plug in a discrete GPU.