Verdict and Conclusion
I enjoyed working with the Z77X-UD5H, it does it’s job well.
The huge number of USB3 ports is very nice, what I’d actually need 10 USB3 ports for is beyond me, but having them available is excellent.
The board overclocks quite well, I’m impressed on that front.
The board does require higher CAS for my ram at high speeds, this is disappointing. On the plus side I got a higher MHz score than ever before.
The general feature set is excellent, Gigabyte takes the normal Z77 stuff and adds on plenty of extra. More SATA3, more USB3, lots of GPU outputs, all kinds of stuff.
Gigabyte finally putting a switch for the two BIOS chips is fantastic, I’ve been wanting them to do so for quite a while. Generally this feature is only found on boards that cost over $300, so finding it on this board is very nice.
The UD5H costs ~$170 from online retail stores I trust (one site lists it for $122, good luck with that!), this puts it at the top end of mid range boards. It’s an ok price for what you get, for non-extreme benching purposes it’d be nice if it were $10-15 less expensive.
I’m very happy to find a mSATA slot on this board, it’d be nice if it was mSATA3 rather than mSATA2 though.
The heatsinks are nicely oversized and work great, they didn’t even get meaningfully warm during my OCing.
All told there are lots of pros:
- Tons of USB3 ports.
- Excellent overclocking abilities.
- Lots of SATA3 ports, SATA2 ports, and a mSATA2 port.
- Dual BIOS chips with a switch for selecting them.
- Oversized heatsinks work great.
- All modern monitor plugs are present on the rear IO panel.
There are a few cons, too:
- All the monitor plugs take up room that could be used for more USB2 or PS2 ports.
- Memory needs higher CAS than similar boards over 1866MHz.
- Price could be a bit better.
- mSATA3 would be nice, to utilize modern mSATA SSDs.
All told it is a good board, I give it a 8.5/10. It is possible that a BIOS update will solve the CAS issue, that would raise the score significantly. Even as it stands I recommend that you consider it for your next build.
SCORE
8.5/10
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