Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H

Component manufacturer Gigabyte is traditionally terrific at giving motherboard shoppers an easy slate of options: You can find a model for any chipset you?re interested in, at practically any price you can pay. We?ve looked at a number of the newer LGA1155 motherboards recently, which can be used with either Intel?s third-generation (?Ivy Bridge?) or second-generation (?Sandy Bridge?) Core families of processors, and many of them have hugged (or even pushed past) the $300 price barrier. The Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H, on the other hand, comes in at just $159.99 (list) and gives you almost what you can get from some of the pricier contenders.

Utilizing Intel?s Z77 Express chipset, the ATX-form-factor GA-Z77X-UD3H has overclocking capability and fully supports Intel?s Smart Response Technology (SRT), which lets you configure a solid-state drive (SSD) to use for data caching. (For more information about this, read our review of the Intel SSD 311 Series.) To aid with the latter feature, there?s an mSATA port right on the motherboard; just plug in a miniature drive and you?re ready to go. (Gigabyte previously did this on last generation?s GA-Z68XP-UD3-iSSD?it?s a nifty feature.)

The GA-Z77X-UD3H has a number of solid capabilities as well. It can house up to four DIMMs of standard-clocked dual-channel DDR3 1600 memory; it also supports overclocked rates up to DDR3 2666, though higher-end (and higher-priced) motherboards like the Editors? Choice Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe and the ECS Z77H2-AX can crank it up to DDR3 2800. Expansion slots are a fairly typical affair. In addition to one standard PCI and three PCI Express (PCIe) x1 slots, there are three PCIe x16 slots: one running at x16, one running at x8, and one running at x4?though if you want to use the last one, you won?t be able to use any of the x1 slots because all four share bandwidth. The GA-Z77X-UD3H does conform to the PCIe version 3.0 standard. You?re limited to a maximum of two video cards, though?you can put three or more in the Asus and ECS boards. And if you do use discrete video, LucidLogix?s Virtu MVP virtualization provides dynamic switching between it and the Intel integrated system.

You have plenty of other installation options on the GA-Z77X-UD3H. In addition to the aforementioned mSATA connector, there are two 6Gbps SATA III ports and four 3Gbps SATA II ports (all of which support RAID Levels 0, 1, 5, and 10) that are driven by the Intel storage controller. A secondary Marvell 88SE9172 chip handles the two 6Gbps eSATA ports on the rear panel.

Speaking of which, back there you?ll find those eSATA ports joined by a decent combination of current and legacy jacks. There?s a single PS/2 port for connecting an old-style keyboard or mouse, six USB 3.0 ports, four display outputs (VGA, DVI, HDMI, and DisplayPort), Gigabit Ethernet, S/PDIF optical out, and six analog audio ports for connecting an eight-channel surround-sound system. Motherboard headers let you add up to six additional USB 2.0 ports as well.

The GA-Z77X-UD3H boasts a number of Gigabyte-specific features as well. It meets the company?s ?Ultra Durable 4? standards for construction, which means additional copper in the PCB, glass fabric material that protects against humidity, electrostatic protection, built-in power surge protection and DualBIOS function that automatically restores from a backup BIOS file in case of a power outage, and all solid caps for reducing operating temperatures. The motherboard uses an entirely digital PWM controller for enhanced precision in power delivery, and an associated utility gives you control over system voltages, phases, and frequencies. EZ Setup simplifies the process of configuring your system to use Intel?s key Ivy Bridge technologies (Smart Response, Rapid Start, and Smart Connect). A couple of technologies aid in the charging of devices: All USB ports on the system pass three times more power than usual, which will help you charge devices faster, and On/Off Charge lets you charge your iOS device even if your computer is asleep.

We also want to call out something else about the GA-Z77X-UD3H. Gigabyte stuck with a hybrid version (UEFI functionality, BIOS look and feel) for a long time?a little longer than it should have, in our book?but now it?s graduated to one of the easiest-to-use and nicest-looking UEFIs out there. The appropriately named 3D Mode lets you click on the various components on a picture of the motherboard and receive the options that apply to that part of the hardware; it?s a great tool for beginners, though Advanced Mode offers the full slate of deeper-dive options for the users who?ll appreciate those. When Gigabyte jumps into the future, it does so with both feet.

Performance tends not to vary a great deal between same-class motherboards; we?ve found that in our recent testing of first-wave Ivy Bridge boards, but even so the GA-Z77X-UD3H routinely finishes near the middle of the pack. It nabbed top honors on only one of our tests (Handbrake 0.9.6 video transcoding, which it finished in 30 seconds?one second less than the Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe required), but it was solid across the board.

When we measured full-system power usage using an Extech Datalogger, the Gigabyte motherboard used the least electricity after 15 minutes of idling (71.1 watts), but the second most under full load (139.1 watts, although well behind the ECS Z77H2-AX?s monstrous 158.5 watts). By comparison, the Intel Desktop Board DZ77GA-70K used 71.2 watts when idle and proved the least power hungry under full load, drawing only 136.3 watts.

The more you crave exotic or powerful extras for your Z77 Express motherboard, the less appropriate the Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H will be for you. Its entry-level pricing has meant some corner cutting, and a lack of functionality that more die-hard users would no doubt appreciate (such as, among other things, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support). You can get those features on more extreme motherboards like the Asus and ECS models?but you?ll also pay as much as twice the GA-Z77X-UD3H?s price. If you don?t need all that additional bling, however, the GA-Z77X-UD3H is a nice little board at a nice little price.

More Chipset and Processor Reviews:
??? Intel Desktop Board DZ77GA-70K
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??? ECS Z77H2-AX
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