Gigabyte motherboard GA-Z68AP-D3 LGA1155

Introduction

The GA-Z68AP-D3 motherboard, based on the Intel® Z68 Express Chipset and supporting the new 2nd generation Intel® Core™ processors. Delivering the very best that Intel® 6 series chipsets have to offer, including a significant performance boost with Intel® Smart Response Technology, the first ever mSATA drive connectors on a standard desktop PC motherboard, and GIGABYTE's proprietary Touch BIOS™ technology, GIGABYTE Z68 series motherboards put users in the driver seat, allowing them to take total control over how their system operates and performs to best match their individual computing needs.

Onboard mSATA for Intel SLC SSDs and Smart Response Technology

GIGABYTE Z68 series motherboards are equipped with the much anticipated Intel® Smart Response Technology, allowing users to experience system performance similar to SSD only systems. Intel® Smart Response technology works by using intelligent block-based caching of frequently used applications to improve system performance and responsiveness.

GIGABYTE Z68 motherboards are equipped with the much anticipated Intel® Smart Response Technology, allowing users to experience system performance similar to SSD-only systems. Intel® Smart Response technology works by using intelligent block-based caching of frequently used applications to improve system performance and responsiveness. In fact, GIGABYTE Z68 motherboards with Intel® Smart Response Technology are able to outperform hybrid drive systems by more than 2X (PC Mark Vantage HDD test) and HDD-only systems by as much as 4X (PC Mark Vantage HDD test) and deliver a 60% performance improvement over HDD-only systems in PC Mark Vantage Suite.

108dB Signal-to-Noise ratio playback

GIGABYTE strongly believes that in 2011, HD audio playback is a standard specification, and as such, we have made Blu-ray audio playback a standard for all of our motherboards.

All of GIGABYTE's 2011 motherboards feature higher capability audio solution with 108dB Signal-to-Noise ratio (SNR) playback quality to deliver high-performance, multi-channel HD audio. SNR is a comparison of the amount of signal to the amount of noise such as hiss present in the signal (expressed in Decibels). A higher SNR equals a better audio experience. For example, 108dB, is a high audio specification, as this means the audio signal is 108dB higher than the level of the noise.

DualBIOS™ 3TB+ HDD Support (Hybrid EFI Technology)

Hybrid EFI Technology combines the benefits of GIGABYTE's mature BIOS platform including stability and compatibility with 3rd party products with 3TB+ HDD support from EFI technology, allowing GIGABYTE to offer the best of both worlds through a quick and easy BIOS update using GIGABYTE's @BIOS utility that is freely available from the GIGABYTE website.

GIGABYTE DualBIOS™ is a patented technology that automatically recovers BIOS data when the main BIOS has crashed or failed. Featuring 2 physical BIOS ROMs integrated onboard, GIGABYTE DualBIOS™ allows quick and seamless recovery from BIOS damage or failure due to viruses or improper BIOS updating. In addition, GIGABYTE DualBIOS™ now supports 3TB+ (terabyte) hard drive booting without the need for partitioning, and enables more data storage on a single hard drive.