Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 Motherboard Review

Z77X-UD3H Overview
As I said this is one of 12 Intel Z77 motherboards announced from Gigabyte and one of their 6 ATX Z77 boards.  Gigabyte has gone with the same gunmetal black PCB as we saw on the X79-UD3.  Almost all of the accents on the board are black except for the 3 large metallic blue heatsinks.

Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 Motherboard Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 Motherboard

Starting towards the top of the board you can see the 8pin CPU power connector.  The Z77X-UD3H uses a 6+2+1 power phase design that takes advantage of an all Digital PWM controller array, to deliver power to the board’s 3rd generation Intel® Core™ processor. Using entirely digital controllers means that more precise power delivery to the motherboard’s most power hungry and energy sensitive components is possible. These components include the CPU, VTT, processor graphics and memory, without doubt the most important components on your motherboard. This All Digital Power system, with Precise Auto Voltage Compensation, provides you with exceptional control over the component power delivery on your GIGABYTE 7 series motherboard.  Gigabyte is using solid capacitors and ferrite-core chokes.

Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 Motherboard Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 Motherboard

Moving over to the memory slots, you have a total of four running in dual-channel fashion.  This board can support up to 32GB of DDR3 memory.  On the top edge of the board you will find a small reset CMOS button and reset button.  There is a large system power button.  It is great to see these on a motherboard, no one want to have to change jumpers to reset their CMOS.  Next to the power button is a 4pin fan connector.  Moving down you have the 24pin power connector and your USB 3.0 header.  I really like that Gigabyte has moved the USB 3.0 header to the center of the board.  Moving down you have your SATA ports.  You have a total of 6 with the 4 black being SATA 3GB/s and the 2 white being SATA 6GB/s.  They are rotated at a 90 degree angle so longer video cards will not block them.

Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 Motherboard Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 Motherboard

Along the bottom of the board you do have a POST diagnostics display.  It will display a 2-digit code when your system is not booting and you are able to look it up and see what component of your system is causing it not to boot.  Now moving to the left you have another 4pin fan connector, three USB 2.0 headers, TPM header, another 4pin fan connector and your front panel audio header.

Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 Motherboard Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 Motherboard

As far as expansion slots go you have two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots, one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slot, three PCI-Express x1 slots and a single PCI slot.  When you have a single card installed in the top x16 slot it will run at x16.  When you have 2 cards installed in the top and second PCI-Express x16 slot both cards will run at x8.  The bottom PCI-Express slot will always run at x4 speed.  A nice addition to this case is the Mini PCI-Express slot which is made for an mSATA solid state drive.

Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 Motherboard Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 Motherboard

As far as connections go you have quite a few.  Going from left to right you have a dual PS/2 keyboard / mouse port, 2 USB 3.0 ports, VGA, DVI, optical audio, HDMI, DisplayPort, 2 more USB 3.0, 2 eSATA 6GB/s ports, Gigabit Ethernet, 2 final USB 3.0 ports and your audio connections.

Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Intel Z77 Motherboard

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