Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H
The Z87X-UD3H is one of Gigabyte's more affordable Z87 motherboards featuring the Ultra Durable 5 design. The board itself is a standard ATX model which features a matte black PCB with black and gray connectors. Adding a little flare are a number of large heatsinks which feature some blue highlights.
The motherboard layout and design is similar to what we have seen from Gigabyte in the past and it features the typical range of enhancements. The board features all IR Digital Power Design (IOR International Rectifier) with IR digital PWMs equipped with IR Powerstage ICs. Meanwhile the PCB itself is a 2-layer copper design and is equipped with Durable black solid capacitors.
Other features include Intel Gigabit LAN with high ESD protection using the new Intel I217-V controller. The famous UEFI and DualBIOS support exists and Gigabyte has added an LED indicator to signal any problems.
The second generation On/Off Charge feature is included for quick charging mobile devices via USB. Gigabyte has also included a gaming headphone amplifier for enhanced audio quality, while audio is provided using the Realtek ALC898 HD audio codec.
While the Z87 chipset provides six USB 3.0 ports and six SATA 6Gb/s ports, Gigabyte has upgraded both. The Z87X-UD3H offers a total of ten USB 3.0 ports thanks to the inclusion of the Renesas uPD720210 controller and eight SATA 6Gb/s ports with the help of the Marvell 88SE9172 controller.
The Marvell 88SE9172 controller can be switched to provide either two extra onboard SATA 6Gb/s ports or two eSATA 6Gb/s ports, but not both at the same time. Along with the ten USB 3.0 ports the board also provides eight USB 2.0 ports, two on the I/O panel and the rest via onboard headers.
Overclock friendly features include a Debug display near the DIMM slots and Quick buttons to allow Power On/Off, Reset, CMOS Clear, Dual BIOS, Smart Voltage and much more.
The Z87X-UD3H supports 2-way Crossfire and 2-way SLI technology using two PCIe x16 slots. As is the case with Ivy Bridge the Haswell processors only provide enough PCIe lanes for a x16/x8 configuration when using two graphics cards.
There is a third full length PCIe x16 slot, though it is only wired for x4 bandwidth. Meanwhile there is two PCIe x1 slots positioned between the primary and secondary PCIe x16 slots, followed by a traditional PCI slot.
Around the back on the I/O panel we have six USB 3.0 ports, a PS/2 port, optical digital audio, six audio jacks, Gigabit LAN and dual eSATA ports. There is also a VGA, DVI, HDMI and DisplayPort for utilizing the integrated video.