Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H (Z77) Motherboard Ivy Bridge Review

As we’ve already looked at this board before, with pure Sandybridge performance results, it’s hard to say anything new that is specific to the board, but instead, more focussed on the processor. With that in mind, we didn’t want to turn this review into an i7 3770k review, as that will take away the whole point of looking at the Z77X-UD5H from Gigabyte and that’s not our intention in the slightest.

We want to let it be known that we’re really big fans of this board as it offers something that other boards don’t. Sure it gives fantastic performance, no matter whether you’re using Sandybridge or Ivybridge, and yes it can keep up in terms of overclockability, but the thing it does more than most; is that it does all of this on a budget.

We love it when a manufacturer is able to offer a high-end board, for a mainstream price and that’s where this board falls into the market. It’s currently priced at £161.72 from Scan which allows it to be considered as a mainstream board as it’s only marginally more expensive than the Asus Maximus V Gene Micro ATX board which is aimed at overclockers but on a small form factor, and for the most part; that may put consumers off.

You may be the type of user who detests Micro ATX and feels that you are paying the same amount but for a lot less, and that all comes down to a personal decision of your own, and we’re not saying we agree or disagree with it. Instead, we want you to know that the Z77X-UD5H offers great functionality, almighty features and a price tag to boot, while not compromising performance or overclockability.

When we first laid eyes on this board, we knew from the start that it would be a big seller, and from our sources, we’re told that this is currently one of the best, if not the best selling Z77 motherboard on the market at the moment, and that gives Gigabyte a great position to be in and helps them push forward and tailor their products to the consumer, without offering gimmicks and tricks that they simply don’t want.

We set this review out to see how the Z77X-UD5H could cope with Ivybridge and if it was able to harness that power from the new range of 3rd gen processors, and while they did offer some noticeable increases, we feel that BIOS revisions and driver updates should unlock more performance as time goes on, and that’s something we’re very keen to see happen in the coming weeks.

We still stand by our original feelings towards this board, saying that it’s one of, if not the best boards we’ve ever looked at, and Gigabyte really have done a great job on this board as they haven’t sacrificed anything apart from one thing; the price, and you’re not going to moan about that, are you?