GIGABYTE Z87X-UD5 TH Intel Z87 Thunderbolt Motherboard Review

Final Thoughts and Conclusion

The GIGABYTE Z87X-UD5 TH was a great board to play around with. I’ve come to expect a lot from GIGABYTE boards over the years and the Z87X-UD5 TH lived up my expectations throughout the testing. To top it off, the Z87X-UD5 TH carries a street price of only $254.99 which is a great deal for all the features that you get! Since the GIGABYTE Z87X-UD5 TH is part of the Ultra Durable 5 Plus you can be sure that there was quite a bit of testing and engineering that went into the board, and throughout the day the performance paid off.

It’s not surprising that the Z87X-UD5 TH was at the top of the charts in most of the benchmarks that were run today, at least when it comes to graphics and CPU benchmarks. Of all of the games that I ran today, the GIGABYTE Z87X-UD5 TH was the dominating force in all of them in at least one of the resolutions. When the Z87X-UD5 TH wasn’t at the top it wasn’t far from the top.

While the Z87X-UD5 TH was sitting pretty at the top of the charts in the games and CPU test, it wasn’t as strong of a contender in the SATA III 6Gbps and SuperSpeed USB 3.0 testing. To be fair though, it wasn’t exactly a night and day difference in the performances.

The GIGABYTE Z87X-UD5 TH was right on par with most of the Intel Z87 chipset boards that we have tested so far. ECS seems to have nailed down the average read performance as they are a full head above the rest of the group. These are similar to the results that I saw in all of the USB 3.0 testing and SATA III 6Gbps testing. The Z87X-UD5 TH was right on par with our otherboards, it may not be breaking any records but the GIGABYTE Z87X-UD5 TH is easily holding its own.

Despite not being part of the Z87 OC or G1.Killer series of motherboards, overclocking was a breeze on the Z87X-Ud5 TH. In no time at all I was able to bring the Intel Core i7-4770K to a rock solid 4.8GHz. I’ll admit I wasn’t exactly surprised by this result though. We have had a number of Intel Z87 motherboards able to take the 4770K to 4.8GHz at right around 1.28-1.3 Volts. Nor was I surprised to see the voltage increase when I used the CPU Performance Upgrade, I’ve seen that range in most of the motherboards that have come across my bench.

I wouldn’t expect the GIGABYTE Z87X-UD5 TH to ever have any issues with reliability or need to be sent back to GIGABYTE. If however it does need to be warrantied, GIGABYTE has backed the Z87X-UD5 TH with a three year warranty for a little peace of mind with your investment.

Legit Bottom Line: The GIGABYTE Z87X-UD5 TH offers a whole lot of bang for the buck. The performance I saw in the gaming and CPU testing alone is worth the $254.99 to me. Add in the features like Thunderbolt and WiFi 802.11ac and it’s just the icing on the cake!