Computex: here is the first PCI-E 3.0 compatible motherboard

MSI engineers have upgraded a previously announced board to win the title.

The engineers at Micro-Star International came up with a very interesting pull on this year’s Computex that is none other than the Z68A-GD80 in a new robe, meaning it got a new G3 revision. After the redesign, the board now supports the PCI-Express 3.0 standard, which can provide twice as much bandwidth as the current 2.0. Its name makes it clear that it is a product equipped with a z68 chipset, making it perfectly compatible with all Sandy Bridge-based processors. Because this chipset does not natively support the PCI-E 3.0 standard, the manufacturer had to use a third-party controller chip. However, they did not regret getting tired of winning the title of “First PCI-E 3.0 Motherboard”. It is important to note that there is currently no product that supports this interface, meaning in practice it is not yet possible to measure the difference between the two generations, so for MSI, this can really only be considered a good marketing ploy.

The repertoire also includes the so-called Click BIOS II, which is a UEFI blessed with a modern graphical interface. Other manufacturers are likely to come up with their own PCI-E 3.0 compatible motherboards, however, Micro-Star International has overtaken the others.