EVGA Z68 FTW review - Product Showcase

Product Showcase

As always we start off with the packaging and bundle. Above, you can see what to look for in the stores. Simple yet stylish packaging design by the way, the typical eVGA style.

We received the final retail sample and as such it came packed with a quite decent product bundle. Among the gear inside the kit you'll find the following extras:

• User's manual
• I/O Shield
• 2 SATA 2 cables
• 2 SATA 3 cables
• 2 SATA power adapters
• 2 port USB / Firewire bracket
• I/O fan
• 2 port USB 3.0 bracket
• 2-way SLI bridge
• 3-way SLI bridge
• Front Panel ECP (optional)
• EVGauge (optional)

Oh and obviously a motherboard as well, doh :) EVGA included the optional EVGauge, it's a funky meter that shows you the level of GHz you are running at, it's just a simple gauge for bragging right of course. Unfortunately the package did not have the new Front Panel ECP, so we can't say much about that.

It's not the first time we spot it, but this Z68 motherboard does not come with a video output, which a little weird as the IGP is definitely active on Z68. We have absolutely no doubt though that if you spend 250 USD on a motherboard aimed at gamers, you'd be installing a dedicated graphics card, so as such we feel the lack of the graphics subsystem is insignificant. It would have been nice to see at least an HDMI port though, even if it was just for troubleshooting the main dedicated graphics card or a little extra HTPC functionality. Hey it's there, it's available so why not implement it?