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Gigabyte Z77-D3H and Z77X-UD5H Reviewed

Motherboards/Intel S1155 by leeghoofd @ 2012-06-24

Panther Point, the Z77 chipset, launched simultaneously with the brand new Intel Ivy Bridge CPU's. Supporting PCI-3.0, native USB3.0, high BCLK and RAM frequencies, but only if bundled with one of Intel's 3d generation CPU's. As usual, vendors launched a wide variety of boards, from low end basic OEM boards to high end gamer/overclocking versions. Choosing the right board is mainly always a matter of features, gimmicks, color schemes and surely the price tag. Today we review two of Gigabyte's offerings: the mainstream targeted GA Z77-D3H and the high end model, the GA Z77X-UD5H.

GA-Z77X-UD5H

Moving to the current flagship of the Z77 motherboards, the Z77X-UD5H. We are not taking into account the Sniper series as they are specifically gamer orientated:

A more feature rich accessoires bundle with the Z77X-UD5H board : Crossfire/SLI cables and a USB3.0 front panel are neatly packed in the box. The black PCB giving the board a more pro finish, but there's more than just looks here. A beefed up VRM area, ready to handle extreme voltages in case of extreme overclocking. To keep the MOSFET temperatures under control, the engineers opted to use a triple config blue heatsink design. All linked via a heatpipe for maximum heat dissipation.

The heatsinks are screwed down in stead of using the cheap plastic push pin method. Another clear sign Gigabyte means business with this board.

Near the top we find a red Power Button, Black reset and a Blue Clear Cmos button. Ideal positioned for benchers. If you look closely you can spot the voltage readout points on the right hand side of the red power switch. Very handy indeed for the enthousiast crowd. Again present the mSATA SSD port, Gigabyte's own patended technology to boost HDD performance.

Comment from Teemto @ 2012/07/08

Seems like you had a lot of issues with the UD5H.

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