EVGA Z68 FTW 160-SB-E689-K2 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Extended ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: The motherboard lights were cool I guess.

Cons: Too many to list.

Other Thoughts: I would actually wish this board upon my worst enemy.

Manufacturer Response:

Hello,

Please contact us at 888-881-3842 so we can get some information as to what the problem is, and see if we can help assist you with it.

Thank you,
Brandon B

Pros: Pretty is all.

With new BIOS update,'R16' I can finally boot on a OC with Vdroop enabled, before I couldn't.

Cons: BIOS,BIOS,BIOS! From day one it's been giving me problems. I couldn't boot on no OC with Vdroop enabled, and couldn't boot on 'off set' voltage(manual). With the new BIOS update as of 12-20-2012(R16), I can finally boot with Vdroop enabled, but still doesn't like 'off set' voltage.

As of feb. 22-2013 it will be a year that I've owned this board, so I think I can comment on the reliability/performance.

Other Thoughts: I can NOT recommend this as a good buy, do to it's bad BIOS.

Manufacturer Response:

Hello,

I am very sorry to hear that you are having this issue. Please give us a call at 888-881-3842 so we can work to get this resolved for you.

Thank you,
Brandon B

Pros: Cheap, and as you find out. There is a reasion reading threw the post. I here alot of problems but I did not have many my self. It seems to work fine at all ends to me.

Cons: three that buged me, one was the the power supplie choise. it has a sec 2 by 4 for over clocking power on the board that only a hand full of power supplies have. but you can run the board with just one. 2ed the 24 pin main power plug on the board is on its side. I have put 4 of these boards into cases and all of them we had to moded to be able to plug it in. Last the CPU had to be a "Sandy" bridge, there are more of thouse out there but that dose cut down you choises.

Other Thoughts: this is the 3rd board I have got threw EVGA and it will be my last.

Pros: Everything work's great after fixing. Fast, could run all my games on at least medium settings

Cons: RAM slots 3 and 4 were not working

Other Thoughts: Great - But I bought it at $80 so a cheaper mobo could be better

Pros: Works when voltage is set to auto...

Cons: BIOS is horrible, UEFI with no mouse support. It is basically old school efi bios with a few ugly icons on the top. Seriously watch some videos it is horrible compared to others.

I cannot set manual voltage or the board will not boot at all, have to clear cmos. There are a lot of threads on EVGA about this and no one from EVGA seems to care... This seems to be a very common problem so EVGA should be doing something about this to make up for this. These bugged boards should not be out in the market if they are old boards with the problem as EVGA_Jacob mentioned in a pm.

Other Thoughts: Should have went with Asus, I'm no longer purchasing EVGA motherboards. This was a problem with the P67's as well. They mentioned this would no longer effect newer boards and they would fix the problem. Well looks like they did the same exact thing so I can no longer trust EVGA. They should have never let so and so go from the team. Ever since then EVGA motherboards have gone down hill.

Manufacturer Response:

Hi,

I am very sorry to hear you are having this issue. Please give us a call at 888-881-3842 so we can work to get this resolved for you.

Thank you,
Brandon B

Pros: Lots of features and it has LOTS of potential.
EVGA has always made good video cards.

Cons: The Bios is "beta" at best and so many issues with it I wont go into it here. Just do yourself a favor and WAIT until they resolve the Bios issues with this product. You will thank me later!

Other Thoughts: Go visit http://www.evga.com/forums and look at all the posts about bios and vcore, DIMM voltage, BSOD's etc. It is ridiculous to say the least. I have been on the phone with EVGA 2 times and submitted a support tickets and forum post so we will see if they can resolve the issues soon. If not I will be kindly asking Newegg to refund or let me exchange the product for something different.

Pros: Looks Great. Old school Bios

Cons: Was a simple transition from my AsRock Fatal1ty Pro p67 to the EVGA FTW Z68. I thought i was upgrading but the bios don't work unfortunately.I tried old bios's and the newest and of course the one it came with and cant touch the voltage at all. Its just doesn't work.Just removed the Fatal1ty board today that was running 24/7 5ghz Prime stable. I went from that to Stock cpu clocks and ram speeds do to the bios not working at all. Not even a little. I am very experienced with overclocking and own a Rampage Extreme IV x79 and Rampage Formula IV x79 which both have advanced bios which i like. I wanted to try EVGA but i guess it was a big mistake. I don't understand this is supposed to be a FTW board! Also tried EVGA Forums many having the issue.

Other Thoughts: If you cant change voltages it most definitely isn't FTW . I am still trying everything i can to get this board to work as its all hooked up with my water cooling all installed which was there anyway as i only switched boards. Oh yeah also the great E Leet software if you change the voltage there it will crash when you hit apply.

Hey EVGA rep is this board junk or is there a older bios that will work? Please answer soon as i plan to Send the board back for another brand tomorrow but i really like to give EVGA the benefit of the doubt because your GPU's do rock.

Pros: Nice solid made motherboard, packed well, awesome customer support, warranty,if following guidlines is still great.(see below)

Cons: Bios!Bios!Bios! Why evg a why,did you let "X" leave for a competing company?All the sales of what HAD been the greatest graphics card and motherboard company to ever exist, now belong to your greatest rival...Im actually distraught.:(

Other Thoughts: If anyone from evga happens across this, just know the evga fan base is still there. The change of warranty from 10 year to 3 years, paired with the worst bios programming ever seen on a high dollar board is a recipie for distruction. I would buy again if the bios (this goes for every board in the x79 z77 z75, line up) was even remotely decent. If the warranty was like it was, then i could wait for a decent bios programming team. But your putting NEW boards out, when you should be putting all your resources into fixing the issues at hand, and saving your mobo division before its to late. (midnight)

Pros: great quality has lots of pci-e slots
the led number is very nice as it indicates my cpus temp
there is a power switch onboard which is superb for trouble shooting

Cons: tad bit expensive should have went with the sli instad since FTW just has more ports and pci-e slots.

Other Thoughts: cant get the usb 3 ports and audio for the front to work but that may be my fault

Pros: Looks great on paper.

Cons: I bought this with an i7 sandybridge and put a gtx 680 in it and the performance was atrocious. Not at all what it promises. It took the techs at my store 4 days to locate the problem, and it was the motherboard. They told me the motherboard was bottlenecking the system.

Other Thoughts: I do not recommend this motherboard, evga makes excellent videocards and they should stick with that.

Manufacturer Response:

Hello,

I do apologize for any confusion but a Z68 and I7 should not bottleneck any current graphics card. You can overclock the system for higher benchmarks however a stock I7 should be sufficient. If you still have the system please contact our 24/7 technical support so we can assist you with ensuring the BIOS is up to date and your memory timings are set: (888)-881-3842

Regards,
Matthew Hurwitz
Assistant Product Manager
Matth@evga.com