Gigabyte Intel Z77 LGA 1155 AMD CrossFireX/NVIDIA SLI Dual LAN Dual UEFI BIOS ATX Motherboard GA-Z77X-UD5H
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- CPU: Support for Intel Core i7/i5/i3/Pentium/Celeron processors in the LGA1155 package. Chipset: Intel Z77 Express Chipset
- Memory: 4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 32 GB of system memory. Dual channel memory architecture. Support for DDR3 1600/1333/1066 MHz memory modules. Support for non-ECC memory modules. Support for Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules
- Audio: Realtek ALC898 codec. Support for X-Fi Xtreme Fidelity and EAX Advanced HD 5.0 technologies. LAN: 1 x Atheros GbE LAN chip (10/100/1000 Mbit) (LAN1). 1 x Intel GbE LAN chip (10/100/1000 Mbit) (LAN2).
- Support for AMD CrossFireX/ NVIDIA SLI technology. Expension Slots: 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x4. 3 x PCI Express x1 slots. 1 x PCI slot.
- Storage Interface: 2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors. 4 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors. 1 x mSATA connector. Support for RAID 0/1/5/10. 2 x Marvell 88SE9172 chips: 3 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors. 1 x eSATA 6Gb/s connector.
- Back Panel Connectors: 1 x D-Sub port/1 x DVI-D port/1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector/1 x HDMI port/1 x DisplayPort/1 x eSATA 6Gb/s connector/4 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports/2 x USB 2.0/1.0 ports/1 x IEEE 1394a port/2 x RJ-45 ports/6 x audio jacks
- USB: Up to 2 USB 3.0/2.0 ports. Up to 6 USB 2.0/1.1 ports. Chipset + 2 VIA VL810 Hubs: Up to 8 USB 3.0/2.0 ports. Up to 2 IEEE 1394a ports.
Supports 3rd Gen. Intel 22nm CPUs and 2nd Gen. Intel Core CPUs (LGA1155 socket). GIGABYTE Digital Power Engine with GIGABYTE 3D Power. GIGABYTE 3D BIOS (Dual UEFI). Onboard mSATA slot for mSATA SSDs. PCI Express Gen 3.0 support. 2-way SLI and 2-way CrossFireX multi-GPU support. Lucid Virtu Universal MVP GPU virtualization support. HDMI, DVI, RGB and Display Port. Dual LAN (Intel Gigabit + Atheros Gigabit Ethernet controllers). Realtek ALC898 with High Quality 110dB SNR HD audio. GIGABYTE Ultra Durable 4 Technology. GIGABYTE 333 Onboard Acceleration (USB 3.0, SATA 3.0 & 3x USB Power). GIGABYTE On/Off Charge for USB devices
Gigabyte motherboard
Gigabyte Intel Z77 LGA 1155 AMD CrossFireX/NVIDIA SLI Dual LAN Dual UEFI BIOS ATX Motherboard GA-Z77X-UD5H
List Price: $ 199.99
Price:
Great board even for Sandy Bridge,
System Profile
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Seasonic 850watt 80+ gold
Corsair 16 GB Vengence 1600
Intel 2600k @ 4.1 Ghz
Corsair Obsidian 800D
Mushkin 120GB SATA 3 SSD
Nvidia GTX250
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
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I’ve had this board up and running for about a week now to replace my good old faithful Core 2 Quad. Had it not been for my old motherboard failing I would still have been happy w/ the Core 2. Once the prices of Ivy Bridge come down I intend to upgrade and pass the 2600k along to the kiddies.
I was originally waiting for the release of Ivy Bridge but I saw a great deal on the 2600k so I decided to go with it. The install went well. High quality materials and great build quality. This is my first board w/ a graphical BIOS and it was ok to me. (kind of like dragging someone out of the DOS world into Windows 3.11). The BIOS felt a little clumsy to navigate through but I think that it was just me having to adjust coming from a text only BIOS.
Admittedly I don’t have much patience anymore for researching proper vcore, multiplier, etc for overclocking and the stock speeds were just fine but the BIOS made it so simple to overclock that I opted to try for a mild 4.1 ghz OC. With ambient temp of 70f the CPU runs great at idle temp of 30c and after 30 minutes on prime95 63c.
Benchmarking my SSD using the Intel SATA controller and ATTO yielded a read/write of 550/515 MBs/s respectively. On a MSI z68 board with a 3rd party SATA 3 controller I was using for testing only yielded a 300/250 MBs/s read/write so I am defintiely pleased with the results of the Intel SATA controller on this board.
The only negative experience I’ve had w/ this board so far is that there was something on my network constantly waking the computer from sleep. I’m pretty sure it was something on the network because as soon as I disabled wake on lan the issue went away. I am not yet going to hold this against the board as I do not know if this is something that is my fault or some issue w/ the board.
If you are willing to give up a few USB 3.0 and SATA 3 ports, and have a slightly lesser quality audio processor, and a non intel LAN chip you can save $30 by going with the UD3H. (also a good board)
**IMPORTANT NOTE**
4/27/2012
Thanks to Sean’s comment below I discovered that the default BIOS version F4 which shipped with my MB does not support 1600mhz memory speed with Sandy Bridge. If you want to use 1600 with SB then you must update the BIOS. For me version F6H worked just fine. I am not docking a star for that since by the time I discovered the problem there was already a fix for it.
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|Ivy Bridge CPu’s need beta bios F8a,
Were do I start….This board has no issues with sandy bridge processors. Ivy bridge is a different story.
There is a reason why I am giving this item 5 stars.
With ivy bridge processors currently all versions of the Bios has issues. Even the Beta F8a version. However F8a is usable and stable though.
You have to call Gigabyte and ask for it to get it. This version is not available on their website.
Versions F5-F7 will cause BSOD when the computer goes into sleep mode with the ivy bridge family of processors.
Bios F7-F8a has a hard time to get into the Bios. You have to hit delete 50 times or so when you start the computer.
Sometimes you have to reset the cmos on the motherboard to get into the bios. Once you save changes to the bios that is when it becomes difficult to
enter the bios. The boot menu has the same problem. Hard to access.
However windows performance is excellent and gigabyte support is great. The engineers actually email you for tech support. They are very knowledgable.
When you call gigabyte they answer the phone in an average time of 2-3 minutes. They are very helpful and they do not read you script.
I am using core i7 3770k along with a gtx 480 gpu. 16gb ram.
They asked for the components of my system and are going to build my system in their lab to find out what is causing the issues.
I give a rating of 5 stars for the exceptional customer service. They release new versions of the bios in days not months.
Eventually all issues will be resolved. This is a very good company. Companys like ECS or ASUS you can not even contact.
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|Nice motherboard, but….,
I’ve been a long time user of Gigabyte’s motherboards as they have all lasted along time for me. This new Z77 GA-Z77X-UD5H motherboard is so far very nice. Wow these new motherboards are heavier now compared to my old GA-EP45-UD3R motherboard. The dang thing feels like 2-3 lbs.
I’m just having one problem with this motherboard right now. The motherboard can’t seem to utilize the integrated GPU on my processor. I bought a Intel I5 3750k CPU along with the motherboard and I wanted to test out the Intel HD 4000, but when I went into the BIOs to set it to use only integrated graphics my PC will just constantly reboot itself just before loading Windows. I’ve sent it back to Amazon to get a replacement too bad I got to wait like 2-4 weeks for them to ship it as they seem to be terribly low on stock of these boards.
I’ll update my review and stars when I’m able to fully test out all the features of this motherboard.
*****Update 05/18/2012*****
I got the new replacements for my CPU and the Gigabyte motherboard. For some odd reason I’m still getting the problem I mentioned above. What are the chances that the replacement board is also defective? I guess I’m doing something wrong on my part and it’s not the hardware that’s acting funny. I’ve contacted Gigabyte about my specific issue, maybe they can explain to me why I can’t use my IGPU. Does anyone else have this problem? Computer will POST, but will not boot Windows 7 when IGPU is enabled.
******Update 05/20/2012******
I finally got the on-boards IGPU to work. It appears there’s a specific procedure you got to do in order to get every work. You gotta disable the IGPU in the BIOs and then install Windows while using a discreet GPU. After installing Windows and updating it then you can enable and use the IGPU without any problems. The whole process seems silly just to be able to use the IGPU. Meh, the Lucid Virtu MPV software seems to only work really well for a select few games. I don’t seen any improves at all when playing games like Diablo 3 and Splinter Cell Conviction and in fact it lowers the FPS in those games. Lucid Virtue MVP seems like a good idea, but it’s more improvement. The only games where I was getting improvements were like Team Fortress 2, Guilds Wars and other really, but still graphic intensive old games.
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