Intel Z97 Motherboard Roundup with ASUS, Biostar, Gigabyte and MSI
GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H Intel Z97 Motherboard
One of the boards that I have on hand is the GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H. The Z97X-UD5H is a slick looking board with quite a lot to offer. Perhaps the most important, as well as the most obvious features is the Intel Z97 chipset and the LGA1150 socket.
The GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H is one of the top motherboards in the GIGABYTE Z97 Ultra Durable product stack, just behind the Z97X-UD7 TH and the Z97X-UD5H-BK. The UD5H hit the street with a price tag of $189.99, though you can find it for $187.11 shipped right now. The GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H offers a number of features that can really make the board stand out. One of the newest features that has really hit the market with the Intel Z97 chipset is the M.2 socket. The M.2 Socket offers 66% more performance than the current generation of SATA III SSD’s.
The back of the GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H retail packaging has no shortage of marketing text. Here it talks about the various features of the board as well as providing a layout of the board and I/O panel.
The bundle that is tucked into the retail packaging for the GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H isn’t the most inclusive that I have ever come across, but it will certainly include all the accessories that are needed to set your system up. The bundle includes the manuals, driver disc, two pairs of SATA cables, I/O shield, SLI Bridge, and the ever important GIGABYTE Ultra Durable case badge.
The GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H Intel Z97 motherboard will support memory up to 3200MHz(O.C) and a maximum of 32GB in a 8GB x 4 DIMM configuration. This corner of the GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H has a pretty typical layout that we see on many of the GIGABYTE motherboards, it falls into the category of ‘if it aint broke, don’t fix it’. Just above the DIMM slots there is a pair of 4pin fan headers for the CPU fan and an optional CPU fan. Along the bottom edge of the board we can see the power button, CMOS switch, and the reset switch. Just to the bottom left of the onboard switches, there is a series of voltage measuring points. From these points we can manually check the voltages of the VCore, VDIMM, VIOD, VRING, VAXG, VSA, VIOA, and the VRIN. Underneath the power button there is a pair of switches that let you switch the various BIOS modes, one of them allows you to switch between the dual BIOS mode and Single BIOS mode while the other lets you switch between the two BIOS versions. To the left of the 24pin motherboard power is the onboard debug LED display and the internal SuperSpeed USB 3.0 header.
Swinging the GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H around, there are certainly a number of worthwhile features here. Though the SATA ports and the note from GIGABYTE take the front seat here. SATA Express will take advantage of the SATA3 4 and SATA3 5 ports, which means that you wouldn’t be able to use those ports with anything else. Though if you plan on using the M.2 port, you will also lose those two ports, which also means that you can’t use the M.2 and the SATA Express port but I’m pretty sure that’s par for the course at this point in time. Next to the SATA ports, is a SATA power plug, though this is for the PCIe x16 slots and not the SATA ports. This will add some extra juice to the PCIe slots when running multiple cards. Taking a look at the left edge of the Z97X-UD5H there is a 3pin system fan, a 4pin system fan header, front panel header, a pair if internal USB 2.0 ports, and another 4pin system fan header.
The GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H has a total of eight SATA III ports onboard. The six on the left are native to the Intel Z97 chipset while the pair on the right are controlled by a Marvell 88SE9172 SATA III 6Gbps chip.
The Intel Z97 chipset has support for the latest storage interface, M.2. The M.2 slot offers performance that is potentially 66% faster than a SATA III port. Here we can see that GIGABYTE has situated the M.2 slot between the LGA1150 socket and the the PCIe slots.
The GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H features three PCIe x16 slots that support NVIDIA 2-way SLI and 2-way/3-way AMD CrossFire. If all of the PCIe x16 slots are populated, they will run in a x8,x4,x4 configuration. In addition to the three PCIe x16 slots, the Z97X-UD5H offers up a pair of PCIe x1 slots and a pair of legacy PCI slots. Along the leading edge of the Z97X-UD5H the audio components are segregated from the board to prevent and electrical interference from the rest of the board. The Z97X-UD5H has one of the latest audio codecs from Realtek, the ALC1150. The Realtek ALC1150 High Definition codec is capable of 2/4/5.1/7.1 channel surround sound.
The GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H I/O panel is a pretty common layout from GIGABYTE. It has plenty of USB inputs, eight of them total with six of them being the latest and greatest SuperSpeed USB 3.0. There is also a single PS/2 port for either a keyboard or a mouse. If you’re planning on using the onboard Intel HD Graphics from your chosen Intel processor you can run a 15pin D-Sub, DVI-D or an HDMI 1.4a monitor. The GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H is equipped with a pair of Gigabit Ethernet connections. One of the RJ45 ports is connected to a Qualcomm Atheros Killer E2201 chip while the other is connected to an Intel Gigabit controller.