Aria.co.uk Gladiator i5 4.4GHz Z68 Bundle

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The Gladiator comes packaged just like the P67 did with enormous amounts of air bags and one of the most serious cardboard boxes we’ve ever seen. There is no chance of it getting damaged in transit which is always a worry with a pre-mounted heatsink.

The bundle itself is kept safe in a modified anti-static bag and we also have the box and all accessories included, just as if you’d brought it all separately.

      

As this is one of the lower-end Gigabyte motherboards there isn’t an extraordinary amount of accessories included, but there is still everything you’d need. 

Once out of the packaging you can see the Freezer 13 dominates this Micro-ATX board.

      

Although the Gigabyte Z68MA-D2H-B3 comes with Intel HD3000 graphics integrated, there are still enough PCI-e slots that you could run CrossfireX or SLI should you so choose. An array of USB3.0 headers ensure you’re not short of USB ports. 

The D2H comes with four SATA 3Gbp/s and two SATA 6Gbp/s sockets for all your storage requirements.

      

If you do wish to use this as your HTPC then power efficiency is an important requirement. It’s important in every use, but especially so as your digital media server. As you can see the 4-pin CPU power and integrated VRM components reassures us that your electric meter wont need a lie down.

   

Round the back we have a combined PS2, four USB 2.0, two USB 3.0 and the Realtek LAN. Although the excellent Realtek ALC889 supports 7.1 you’ll need a front-panel to make full use of it as the D2H comes with line-in, line-out and microphone jacks.

For maximum compatibility the onboard graphics can be output via the VGA, DVI-D or even HDMI connectors.