Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Motherboard Review
Author: Dennis Garcia
Published: Tuesday, July 03, 2012
Board Layout and Features Cont.
Front panel controls are located in the typical location near the chipset and SATA connections. Along with the benchtop controls located at the top of the motherboard you will find a Debug LED located next to the front panel connectors. The small switch to the left allows you to manually select the bootup BIOS between primary and backup. This can be helpful when overclocking in the event that the system is unresponsive.
(that doesn't happen very often with any system, but when it does having a backup handy is quite helpful)
(that doesn't happen very often with any system, but when it does having a backup handy is quite helpful)
Internal SATA connections number six. The black connections are SATA3 spec while the white connections follow the new SATA6 connection standard. All are controlled by the Z77 chipset. If you happen to be using the internal mSATA connection the #5 port will cease to function.
You may notice a SATA power connection to the right of the SATA ports, this provides extra power to the PCI Express slots which is helpful when running more than one card or when the cards pull extremely high amounts of power. Again, this is another overclocking crossover to a mainstream motherboard offering.
For those of you who really want to take advantage of the new Intel Smart Response technology but are a little hesitant of SSD drives because of their price and limited storage capacity you can take advantage of the onboard mSATA option. This connection will look and react like any connected SATA SSD so you can use it like a regular drive or dedicate a smaller and cheaper SSD to HDD caching and really speed up total system performance.
You may notice a SATA power connection to the right of the SATA ports, this provides extra power to the PCI Express slots which is helpful when running more than one card or when the cards pull extremely high amounts of power. Again, this is another overclocking crossover to a mainstream motherboard offering.
For those of you who really want to take advantage of the new Intel Smart Response technology but are a little hesitant of SSD drives because of their price and limited storage capacity you can take advantage of the onboard mSATA option. This connection will look and react like any connected SATA SSD so you can use it like a regular drive or dedicate a smaller and cheaper SSD to HDD caching and really speed up total system performance.
The Z77X-UD3H I/O panel is quite full and rather unique for a mainstream motherboard. You will find a single combined PS/2 keyboard and mouse plug, six USB 3.0 ports (blue), a single gigabit Ethernet connection, 2x eSATA (sata3 spec) and 8 channel analog audio with digital connections over optical. Onboard video is handled by 1x DSUB, 1x DVI-D, 1x HDMI, 1x DisplayPort. Of course installing a discrete video card will enable the Virtu feature allowing dual video paths or the onboard can be disabled completely.
Note: Four of the USB 3.0 ports are controlled by a VIA VL800 chip which is not recognized by Windows 7 and will not work until the driver has been installed. The two ports located under the Ethernet connection are provided by the Z77 chipset and accessible without a driver.
Note: Four of the USB 3.0 ports are controlled by a VIA VL800 chip which is not recognized by Windows 7 and will not work until the driver has been installed. The two ports located under the Ethernet connection are provided by the Z77 chipset and accessible without a driver.
Included Goodies
Mainstream motherboards never come with many included goodies and the Z77X-UD3H is no exception. You will get everything you see here including a very detailed users manual.
This motherboard does support dual card SLI using the included bridge cable so you will no longer have any excuse for why that secondary GTX 560ti isn't in your system.
