Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H Motherboard Sandy Bridge Review

I hate doing conclusions sometimes as I never know where to start, and with this board there is so much to talk about and all I really want to do is shout from the rooftops about how good it is, as it simply is.

The styling is second to none with a great colour scheme and a layout that will keep you constantly looking at it from the corner of your eye with a big smile on your face. This comes down to the black and blue colouring that has been adopted onto the board. The layout is nice and simple and some key features including overclocking buttons and debug LED have also been featured to give that little bit extra to you.

Cooling has been really thought about with this board as we find large blue heatsinks connected via heatpipes to give a completely silent operation with style and substance at the top of Gigabyte’s priorities.

Functionality is at an all-time high with plenty of options for expansion cards, with three x16 sized lanes, three PCIe x1 lanes and a legacy PCI slot for older generation cards. USB 3.0 is packed onto this board with a whopping 3 native headers and of course more USB 3.0 on the rear I/O.

Also, we find that included is a USB 3.0 front panel bay which gives even more functionality to the end-user where they need it most. Over front panel connectors include a nifty BIOS switch with corresponding LEDs for the extreme clockers and tweakers.

Overclocking was something I was really keen to see on this board, as we were unsure how a board aimed at the higher-end of the mainstream market would compare with other boards that are clearly aimed at overclockers in mind. With that in mind, we were amazed to see a top result of 5.2GHz from our 2700k, as these speeds should be reserved for the likes of the G1 series, which gives us the question, of wondering how the G1 Sniper boards will do when we get them in for testing.

In terms of pricing, you’ll find this board at a remarkably low price of £167.72 from Scan, or with a bundled Wi-Fi adapter for £182.12 from Scan. It’s also worth noting that the first 30 customers to buy this board from Scan will get a FREE Antec Kuhler 620 All-In-One watercooling unit for the same price of £167.72.

This board really does seem to tick every box on the list, with a great style, fantastic functionality with plenty of configuration options, an amazingly easy to use BIOS, extreme overclockability and a simply attractive price tag that will leave us asking what the catch is? We can’t find one, and we honestly believe that this will be one of the best selling boards on the market, not just from Gigabyte, but from every company jumping on the Intel Z77 bandwagon.