Overall, Gigabyte have put together one heck of a feature rich board and it’s no surprise that this board is also becoming a strong favourite amongst overclockers and users who like to kit out their rigs with as much power as they can. The UP7 is one of the few Z77 boards on the market that can handle four way GPU configurations and I’m sure this again will prove to be popular amongst users who like to break records on the likes of HWBot with multi GPU systems.
Looking over the performance, I’d have to be honest and say that if you’re going to keep your CPU at stock speeds, then there are equally good motherboards out there from Gigabyte, but let’s face it, if you’re spending a good amount on a board like this that has an extremely high level of build quality from the ground up, then you know what you’re after. In a similar fashion you would most likely be overclocking the system and consequently unleashing the huge boost in performance that is to be had.
Whilst the price does seem steep, putting the board aside, we do find one of the most comprehensive accessory packages that gigabyte has to offer with USB3.0 and eSATA panels, Bluetooth and WiFi on a plug in card and a number of SLI bridges for those multi-GPU configurations. Where most of the cost lies is with the overclocking features on hand and we know that Gigabyte have made sure this board can overclock well, that is proven by its world record 7.102GHz result and items such as the OC buttons, industry leading thirty two phase power delivery design and more efficient cooling design of the phases with a new ‘thin fin’ heatsink design.
We know that for the vast majority of users this is going to be overkill, but for those out there that are looking at this level of board, it’s feature rich spec list, beautiful design, and top level overclocking performance easily justify the price tag and we expect to see a number of additional records broken in the future with one of these boards, it really is the dream board for Z77 overclockers at the current time.
Gigabyte has always been my favourite brand of mobo. now if only they would jack up their software suite to Asus standards. What puzzles me is the inclusion of the eSata plugin board. Who the hell uses eSata? I’ve yet to meet anybody who does. If they removed that superfluous thing they could drop the boards price by a few bob.
Gigabyte is all i use in my builds.They look so damn good and the quality is superb.I agree with wayne to a point,I have never used esata,But hey nothing wrong with having extra features available just incase.;)
There are pro’s and con’s of eSATA, mainly it is one of those interfaces that generally doesn’t get used by the vast majority of people, but there are a number that can see a benefit. Take myself for example, I build and fix PCs as well as writing reviews on here and to save having an open system on my desk, I use the eSATA interface to conenct up hard drives to my system for testing and/or data backup.
Think of it a little like FireWire 400/800 that interface again is another that many didn’t see the need for but some did use, for the likes of hard drives and video cameras (pre USB 3.0) due to its slightly faster data transfer speed.
On the bright side, you could say that at least Gigabyte didn’t put the eSATA on the rear I/O, leaving space for more USB 3.0 and the display outputs.