Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 Motherboard Review

The new standard styling for Ultra Durable motherboards is to have a matte black PCB and let the accent colors show on the various heatsinks.  For UD3 motherboards the accent color is grey which can be seen on the PWM and chipset heatsinks.

Flipping a motherboard over can tell you a lot about its construction.  Here we can see that the back of the motherboard is virtually devoid of any surface components and only features minimal circuitry.

Moving to the CPU we can see the dark chrome CPU socket hardware positioned next to a rather small array of PWM components.  One of the first things to be downsized on a mainstream motherboard is the size of the power delivery system.  The Z68X-UD3H-B3 features what appears to be a six phase PWM using full driver MOSFET circuits for great power efficiency.

Dual channel memory comes standard on the Sandy Bridge and the Z68X-UD3H-B3 supports DDR3 modules up to 2133Mhz with a maximum of 32GB usable.  24pin ATX power is located in the traditional location near the upper edge of the motherboard and out of the primary airflow.

Behind the PWM cooler you'll find the 8 pin CPU power connector.  The connector is accessible however given the orientation and location between the PWM cooler and I/O panel you may have trouble removing the power cable.