Z77 Mobo Roundup II: EVGA, ASRock, Gigabyte, Zotac

Name: Z77 Motherboard Round-up: EVGA, ASRock, Gigabyte, Zotac
Brand: Z77

by Seth Colaner — Tuesday, June 26, 2012, 11:00 AM EDT

Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H

Gigabyte’s mainboards are rarely accused of being too gaudy, and the Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H certainly isn’t. The black PCB is highlighted by black slots and tasteful metallic blue heatsinks, and aside from the big red power button and Debug LED, the board is a no-frills, all-business affair.

Gigabyte built the Z77X-UD3H with an all-digital VRM and PWM design and gave users control over the voltage, phase, and frequency controls via its 3D Power utility, and there are plenty of hardware monitoring tools and software on board if you need to reign in your settings.

Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H

Specifications & Features

CPU:

Chipset:

Memory:

Onboard Graphics:

Audio:

LAN:

Expansion Slots:

SATA:

USB:

Form Factor:

Support for Intel Core i7/i5/i3, Pentium, and Celeron processors in the LGA1155 package

Intel Z77 Express Chipset

4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 32 GB of system memory
Dual channel memory architecture
Support for DDR3 2666(OC)/1600/1333/1066 MHz memory modules
Support for non-ECC memory modules
Support for Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules

D-Sub, DVI-D (1920x1200 max), HDMI (1920x1200 max), DisplayPort (2650x1600 max)

VIA VT2021 codec
High Definition Audio
2/4/5.1/7.1-channel
Support for S/PDIF Out

Atheros GbE LAN chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)

1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16), PCI-E 3.0
1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8), PCI-E 3.0
1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x4 (PCIEX4)
3 x PCI Express x1 slots
1 x PCI slot
Support for 2-Way AMD CrossFireX/NVIDIA SLI technology
     (PCIEX16 and PCIEX8)

Chipset:
2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3 0/SATA3 1) supporting
     up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices
4 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (SATA2 2~5) supporting up to
     4 SATA 3Gb/s devices
1 x mSATA connector
Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10

Marvell chip:
2 x eSATA 6Gb/s connectors on the back panel supporting up to
     2 SATA 6Gb/s devices
Support for RAID 0 and RAID 1

Chipset:
Up to 4 USB 3.0/2.0 ports (2 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available
     through the internal USB header)
Up to 6 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (available through the internal USB headers)

VIA VL800 chip:
Up to 4 USB 3.0/2.0 ports on the back panel

ATX Form Factor; 30.5cm x 24.4cm

The board can handle all Intel Socket 1155 Core i3/i5/i7, Pentium, and Celeron chips, as well as 32GB of DDR3-2666 (OC) system memory. On the graphics side of things, the Z77X-UD3H sports a D-Sub port, DVI-D port, HDMI port, and DisplayPort, and the board is ready for up to 2-way SLI/CrossFireX with three PCI-E x16 slots (one at x16, one at x8, and one at x4), three PCI-E x1 slots, and a PCI slot.

There are two SATA 6Gbps ports, four SATA 3Gbps ports, and one mSATA slot available via the chipset and another pair of eSATA 6Gbps ports on the rear I/O panel courtesy of a Marvell chip. Note that although the mSATA slot is a nice touch, it’s positioned rather close to the CPU socket, so it might be tricky to maneuver in there.

The board wants not for USB ports, with four USB 3.0 and six USB 2.0 available, along with another four rear USB 3.0 ports powered by the VIA chip; the rest of the rear I/O panel includes a PS/2 port, optical S/PDIF, Gigabit LAN port, and six audio jacks. In addition to the aforementioned big red power button, the Z77X-UD3H has physical reset and clear CMOS buttons as well as a BIOS toggle switch and a Debug LED.

Gigabyte was downright Spartan with the accessories--our mainboard came with just the manual, installation guidebook, drivers and utilities disk, I/O shield, SLI connector, and a few SATA cables--and incongruously generous with the included software and utilities. In addition to the requisite Intel software (Rapid Start, Smart Connect, Smart Response), Gigabyte packed in its @BIOS and Q-Flash BIOS technology; Xpress Install and Xpress Recovery2; EasyTune and X.H.D. overclocking tools; 333 Onboard Acceleration to boost USB and SATA performance; and more.