Gigabyte Z77X UP7 Overclocking Motherboard Review

Dual channel memory comes standard on the Ivy Bridge and the Z77X UP7 supports DDR3 modules at 2400Mhz+ with a maximum of 32GB usable.  24pin ATX power is located in the traditional location near the upper edge of the motherboard and is accompanied by a USB 3.0 header in the background.

Internal SATA connections number ten.  The black connections are SATA3 spec while the white connections follow the new SATA6 connection standard direct from the Z77 chipset.  Gigabyte has included a secondary Marvell SATA controller that gives you four additional SATA6 connections or can be disabled completely in the UEFI.  To use them connect your drives to the grey connections shown here.

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 have another option, onboard mSATA.  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-UP7 I/O panel follows the overclocking motherboard path and only provides you with the bare essentials.   This includes a single combined PS/2 keyboard and mouse plug, six USB 3.0 ports (blue), dual gigabit Ethernet connections 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 you can disable the onboard video completely.