Caporegime
**Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H-WB WiFi Review**
So Intel recently released the latest Z77 chipset (Codenamed Panther Point) for socket 1155 Sandybridge 2nd Gen Core and Ivybridge 3rd Gen Core based CPU's, this new chipset features,
• Native USB3.0 support
• The ability to run three independent displays from the IGP, the previous Z68 chipset could manage just two.
• Lucid MVP is another feature found.
Product Homepage - http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4167#ov
Outer box and packaging.
Ultra Durable 4
• 2X Copper PCB, gives better signaling and thermals on the PCB.
• Glass fabric PCB, provides humidity protection
• High temperature protection, solid capacitors and lowRDS MOSFETS.
• Electrostatic protection, a bunch of IC's protect against static electricity.
• Power failure protection, anti-surge IC's protect against say electrical storms.
Included accessories.
• Six SATA cables, three with angled heads.
• SLI bridge
• IO shield plate
• 3.5" drive bay device with two USB3.0 ports and an internal USB3.0 header cable.
• WiFi/Bluetooth expansion card.
• Two aerials.
• One USB cable to connect the card to the motherboard.
• Instruction/user guides
• Driver/Utility CD's for the motherboard and WiFi card.
The board.
When I first saw the pictures of this board I thought the Blue would spoil it, especially after using a GA-Z68XP-UD4 that is Black/Grey, but it does grow on you.
12 VRMs for the CPU, 2 for the IGP and 1 for the memory controller, for reference the GA-Z68XP-UD4 had 16 VRM's for the CPU and 2+1 for the IGP/memory controller but rated at a lower current handling ability.
8pin ATX/EPS power connector and system fan header.
The CPU fan header, theres also a power connector (small white thing) provides power to the LEDs on the chipset heatsink if want to install any.
Reset switch, ClearCMOS switch, Power button, Debug LED to check error codes, another system fan header and voltage measuring points if you have a digital multimeter.
24pin ATX connector, a USB3.0 19pin header, the SATA power connector is for supplying extra power to the expansion slots in multiple GFX card solutions.
4 Intel SATAII, 2 Intel SATAIII and 2 Marvel SATAIII connectors, note one of the SATAII ports will be disabled if the mSATA is used.
Another system fan header, 2 more USB3.0 19pin headers, another Marvel controlled SATAIII port, the little switch is to select between the two BIOS's...a nice touch
The front panel connection block to wire your case buttons to and yet another system fan header (bringing the total to 4).
2 USB2.0 headers (the Red one is 3X power for quick charging) a trusted port Modual connector and next to this a Firewire header.
Audio connector for a cases headphone/microphone port, also a digital audio connector for connection to a graphics card/sound card etc.
This is the mSATA , useful for adding a small SSD that can be used for SRT (smart response technology) caching or just a small OS drive located on the board itself.
• PCI Express x1
• PCI Express x16 (switches to 8X if a second card is added to the 2nd 16X slot)
• PCI Express x1
• PCI Express x1
• PCI Express x8 (physically 16X long. it drops to 4X if the bottom PCI-E slot is used)
• PCI if you still have an old add-in card
• PCI Express x4 (physically 16X long, only available with an Ivybridge CPU)
This motherboard supports Dual SLI+Crossfire at 8X/8X, it also supports Tri Crossfire at 8X/4X/4X (with a Ivybridge CPU)
This is the Realtek ALC898 onboard sound chip, it has X-fi emulation, has a very high 110dB S/N ratio, two amplifiers are also present to improve the sound quality. It's as good as, if not better than the solutions found on ASUS Republic Of Gamer boards.
Left to right,
• Dsub and DVI-D
• Optical S/PDIF, HDMI and Displayport
• Two USB2.0, Firewire and eSATA
• Gigabit LAN and two USB3.0
• Gigabit LAN and two USB3.0
• 7.1 Audio
The two LAN ports are provided by a Intel and Qualcomm Atheros chips, both very well regarded.
http://ark.intel.com/products/52963/Intel-82579V-Gigabit-Ethernet-PHY
http://www.qca.qualcomm.com/technology/technology.php?nav1=48&product=97
Heatsink fitment.
Ok, I don't have a large air cooler anymore, instead using a closed loop water cooler, but if you remember back to my review of the GA-Z68XP-UD4 then you will see that using a Titan Fenrir cooler caused issues with the mounting plate interfering with the first RAM slot, and the fan itself overhanging even the 2nd RAM slot, meaning I could only fit the cooler with the fan on the left hand side as I have tall Dominator RAM , not ideal.
It looks like this issue has been amended on this board and the extra space has been achieved by removing the gap between the RAM slots, an extra 5mm increase will make the world of difference
GA-Z68XP-UD4,
GA-Z77-UD5H,
BIOS.
So Gigabyte have now got a UEFI whereas previous Z68 boards had a EFI with the old style White on Blue background style layout, this BIOS is packed full of options, great fan control, also the mouse response selecting options is quick and smooth.
3D BIOS.
This is interesting, a 3D model of the board, hovering the mouse pointer over different parts gives you a description and control of those features, a quick explanation of these features appears underneath.
Switching between this 3D mode and the previous is quick and painless.
• Memory multipliers of 10.66x, 13.33x, 14.00x, 16.00x, 18.00x, 18.66x, 20.00x, 21.33x, 22.00x, 24.00x, 26.00x, 26.66x, 28.00x, 29.33x, 30.00, and 32.00x.
• 8 nameable profile slots that can be imported/exported via USB/SSD or HDD disk.
Bundled software/utilities/drivers.
• Splashtop Connect
• INF Update Utility
• Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000 Driver
• Creative SB X-Fi MB2
• Intel 825XX Series LAN Driver
• Atheros AR81Family PCI-E Gigabit/Fast Ethernet Controller Driver
• Marvell GSATA AHCI Driver
• Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver
• Intel USB 3.0 Driver
• ON/OFF Charge
• EasyTune 6
• Acrobat Reader
• Lucid Virtu GPU Virtualization Software
• Win ZIP
• AIWI Game 64 bit
• Intel Smart Connect Technology
• Splashtop Streamer
• GIGABYTE 3D Power Utility
• EZ setup
• Cloud Station
Bluetooth/WiFi.
Bluetooth 4.0 and IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n support from this little card, a spare USB port so you dont lose the bandwidth of the PCI Epress slot its in.
Bluetooth works perfectly, the WiFi was able to pick up a lot of signals from neighbours houses that are a distance away, impressed a lot.
Creative software.
There are more sections, but the ones above are the more interesting sections.
Gigabyte 3D Power Utility.
Easy tune 6.
Same as before, three selectable OC presets (Green/Yellow/Red) control of the frequencies/voltages/ratios but if you click on the Autotune button (circled) it takes you to another feature,
These needles on the dials sweep around a few times while checking the CPU ratio stability, BCLK stability etc, then after a few restarts and Bluescreens, it finally presents you with its idea of an Overclock, I found this final overclock to not be stable for me, I do actually wonder if I just have a bad overclocking CPU as my manual overclock isnt spectacular either.
It can also save this profile for loading into the BIOS and storing.
Lucid MVP.
This is improved on the Lucid Virtu found on the Z68 boards, it has two more features,
• HyperFormance.
• Virtual Vsync.
Testing.
Test setup,
i5 3570K
GA-Z77-UD5H-WiFi
GA-Z68XP-UD4
Corsair Dominator 1600Mhz (2X2Gb) DDR3
Corsair Force GT 120GB
GTX570
Antec Kuhler 920
Corsair TX750M
SSD performance,
Lucid VirtuMVP with CPU at 4.5Ghz,
AIDA64 at 3.4Ghz (Turboboost/Speedstep disabled),
Overclocking,
Using a i5 3570K as mentioned, getting to 4Ghz was easy, all I had to do was set the CPU ratio to 40X, disable Turboboost (or leave the CPU ratio alone and set all four Turbo ratios to 45X if you want the power saving feature) and save+exit the BIOS.
Next up was 4.5Ghz, using these settings,
4.7Ghz with more Vcore,
Wprime,
SuperPI,
Conclusion.
The UD5H is a stunning board, the new UEFI BIOS is easy to use and the mouse cursor is smooth within it, the board is built like a rock, lots of features to aid overclocking within the BIOS and found on the PCB itself, a great amount of connectivity (SATA ports/USB ports) having four display connectors means you can run three monitors using the onboard GFX. The audio quality from the Realtek ALC898 chip is so much better than previous sound solutions on motherboards I have used before.
I have had my GA-Z68XP-UD4 for nearly 9 months and in that time its been an absolute beast compared to the Asrock that came before it, I can see this UD5H continuing in the same fashion.
Pros.
Build quality.
Connectivity.
UEFI is fast and smooth, 3D mode is simple to use.
Brilliant sound quality, makes me miss my X-Fi sound card less.
Cons.
Wish it still had the Black/Grey theme of the previous Z68 boards.
So Intel recently released the latest Z77 chipset (Codenamed Panther Point) for socket 1155 Sandybridge 2nd Gen Core and Ivybridge 3rd Gen Core based CPU's, this new chipset features,
• Native USB3.0 support
• The ability to run three independent displays from the IGP, the previous Z68 chipset could manage just two.
• Lucid MVP is another feature found.
Product Homepage - http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4167#ov
Outer box and packaging.
Ultra Durable 4
• 2X Copper PCB, gives better signaling and thermals on the PCB.
• Glass fabric PCB, provides humidity protection
• High temperature protection, solid capacitors and lowRDS MOSFETS.
• Electrostatic protection, a bunch of IC's protect against static electricity.
• Power failure protection, anti-surge IC's protect against say electrical storms.
Included accessories.
• Six SATA cables, three with angled heads.
• SLI bridge
• IO shield plate
• 3.5" drive bay device with two USB3.0 ports and an internal USB3.0 header cable.
• WiFi/Bluetooth expansion card.
• Two aerials.
• One USB cable to connect the card to the motherboard.
• Instruction/user guides
• Driver/Utility CD's for the motherboard and WiFi card.
The board.
When I first saw the pictures of this board I thought the Blue would spoil it, especially after using a GA-Z68XP-UD4 that is Black/Grey, but it does grow on you.
12 VRMs for the CPU, 2 for the IGP and 1 for the memory controller, for reference the GA-Z68XP-UD4 had 16 VRM's for the CPU and 2+1 for the IGP/memory controller but rated at a lower current handling ability.
8pin ATX/EPS power connector and system fan header.
The CPU fan header, theres also a power connector (small white thing) provides power to the LEDs on the chipset heatsink if want to install any.
Reset switch, ClearCMOS switch, Power button, Debug LED to check error codes, another system fan header and voltage measuring points if you have a digital multimeter.
24pin ATX connector, a USB3.0 19pin header, the SATA power connector is for supplying extra power to the expansion slots in multiple GFX card solutions.
4 Intel SATAII, 2 Intel SATAIII and 2 Marvel SATAIII connectors, note one of the SATAII ports will be disabled if the mSATA is used.
Another system fan header, 2 more USB3.0 19pin headers, another Marvel controlled SATAIII port, the little switch is to select between the two BIOS's...a nice touch
The front panel connection block to wire your case buttons to and yet another system fan header (bringing the total to 4).
2 USB2.0 headers (the Red one is 3X power for quick charging) a trusted port Modual connector and next to this a Firewire header.
Audio connector for a cases headphone/microphone port, also a digital audio connector for connection to a graphics card/sound card etc.
This is the mSATA , useful for adding a small SSD that can be used for SRT (smart response technology) caching or just a small OS drive located on the board itself.
• PCI Express x1
• PCI Express x16 (switches to 8X if a second card is added to the 2nd 16X slot)
• PCI Express x1
• PCI Express x1
• PCI Express x8 (physically 16X long. it drops to 4X if the bottom PCI-E slot is used)
• PCI if you still have an old add-in card
• PCI Express x4 (physically 16X long, only available with an Ivybridge CPU)
This motherboard supports Dual SLI+Crossfire at 8X/8X, it also supports Tri Crossfire at 8X/4X/4X (with a Ivybridge CPU)
This is the Realtek ALC898 onboard sound chip, it has X-fi emulation, has a very high 110dB S/N ratio, two amplifiers are also present to improve the sound quality. It's as good as, if not better than the solutions found on ASUS Republic Of Gamer boards.
Left to right,
• Dsub and DVI-D
• Optical S/PDIF, HDMI and Displayport
• Two USB2.0, Firewire and eSATA
• Gigabit LAN and two USB3.0
• Gigabit LAN and two USB3.0
• 7.1 Audio
The two LAN ports are provided by a Intel and Qualcomm Atheros chips, both very well regarded.
http://ark.intel.com/products/52963/Intel-82579V-Gigabit-Ethernet-PHY
http://www.qca.qualcomm.com/technology/technology.php?nav1=48&product=97
Heatsink fitment.
Ok, I don't have a large air cooler anymore, instead using a closed loop water cooler, but if you remember back to my review of the GA-Z68XP-UD4 then you will see that using a Titan Fenrir cooler caused issues with the mounting plate interfering with the first RAM slot, and the fan itself overhanging even the 2nd RAM slot, meaning I could only fit the cooler with the fan on the left hand side as I have tall Dominator RAM , not ideal.
It looks like this issue has been amended on this board and the extra space has been achieved by removing the gap between the RAM slots, an extra 5mm increase will make the world of difference
GA-Z68XP-UD4,
GA-Z77-UD5H,
BIOS.
So Gigabyte have now got a UEFI whereas previous Z68 boards had a EFI with the old style White on Blue background style layout, this BIOS is packed full of options, great fan control, also the mouse response selecting options is quick and smooth.
3D BIOS.
This is interesting, a 3D model of the board, hovering the mouse pointer over different parts gives you a description and control of those features, a quick explanation of these features appears underneath.
Switching between this 3D mode and the previous is quick and painless.
• Memory multipliers of 10.66x, 13.33x, 14.00x, 16.00x, 18.00x, 18.66x, 20.00x, 21.33x, 22.00x, 24.00x, 26.00x, 26.66x, 28.00x, 29.33x, 30.00, and 32.00x.
• 8 nameable profile slots that can be imported/exported via USB/SSD or HDD disk.
Bundled software/utilities/drivers.
• Splashtop Connect
• Intel(R) Management Engine Software(1.5M)
• INF Update Utility
• Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000 Driver
• Creative SB X-Fi MB2
• Intel 825XX Series LAN Driver
• Atheros AR81Family PCI-E Gigabit/Fast Ethernet Controller Driver
• Marvell GSATA AHCI Driver
• Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver
• Intel USB 3.0 Driver
• ON/OFF Charge
• EasyTune 6
• @BIOS
•Smart Recovery 2
• DMI Viewer
• Face-Wizard
• Q-Share
• Update Manager
• Auto Green
• Acrobat Reader
• Lucid Virtu GPU Virtualization Software
• Atheros LanOptimizer
• Win ZIP
• AIWI Game 64 bit
• Intel Rapid Start Technology
• Intel Smart Connect Technology
• Splashtop Streamer
• Firefox browser
• GIGABYTE 3D Power Utility
• 3TB+Unlock
• EZ setup
• Cloud Station
Bluetooth/WiFi.
Bluetooth 4.0 and IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n support from this little card, a spare USB port so you dont lose the bandwidth of the PCI Epress slot its in.
Bluetooth works perfectly, the WiFi was able to pick up a lot of signals from neighbours houses that are a distance away, impressed a lot.
Creative software.
There are more sections, but the ones above are the more interesting sections.
Gigabyte 3D Power Utility.
Easy tune 6.
Same as before, three selectable OC presets (Green/Yellow/Red) control of the frequencies/voltages/ratios but if you click on the Autotune button (circled) it takes you to another feature,
These needles on the dials sweep around a few times while checking the CPU ratio stability, BCLK stability etc, then after a few restarts and Bluescreens, it finally presents you with its idea of an Overclock, I found this final overclock to not be stable for me, I do actually wonder if I just have a bad overclocking CPU as my manual overclock isnt spectacular either.
It can also save this profile for loading into the BIOS and storing.
Lucid MVP.
This is improved on the Lucid Virtu found on the Z68 boards, it has two more features,
• HyperFormance.
• Virtual Vsync.
Tomshardware said:
Testing.
Test setup,
i5 3570K
GA-Z77-UD5H-WiFi
GA-Z68XP-UD4
Corsair Dominator 1600Mhz (2X2Gb) DDR3
Corsair Force GT 120GB
GTX570
Antec Kuhler 920
Corsair TX750M
SSD performance,
Lucid VirtuMVP with CPU at 4.5Ghz,
AIDA64 at 3.4Ghz (Turboboost/Speedstep disabled),
Overclocking,
Using a i5 3570K as mentioned, getting to 4Ghz was easy, all I had to do was set the CPU ratio to 40X, disable Turboboost (or leave the CPU ratio alone and set all four Turbo ratios to 45X if you want the power saving feature) and save+exit the BIOS.
Next up was 4.5Ghz, using these settings,
Then 4.6Ghz with,
4.7Ghz with more Vcore,
Wprime,
SuperPI,
Conclusion.
The UD5H is a stunning board, the new UEFI BIOS is easy to use and the mouse cursor is smooth within it, the board is built like a rock, lots of features to aid overclocking within the BIOS and found on the PCB itself, a great amount of connectivity (SATA ports/USB ports) having four display connectors means you can run three monitors using the onboard GFX. The audio quality from the Realtek ALC898 chip is so much better than previous sound solutions on motherboards I have used before.
I have had my GA-Z68XP-UD4 for nearly 9 months and in that time its been an absolute beast compared to the Asrock that came before it, I can see this UD5H continuing in the same fashion.
Pros.
Build quality.
Connectivity.
UEFI is fast and smooth, 3D mode is simple to use.
Brilliant sound quality, makes me miss my X-Fi sound card less.
Cons.
Wish it still had the Black/Grey theme of the previous Z68 boards.
Last edited:
