Visual Inspection and Details

Front Shot		Rear Shot

The packaging for the Z77x-UD3H leaves nothing to be desired. The box details all the features and specifications for the potential consumer. Gigabyte has made the ultra durable and the 3D power and 3D BIOS features stand out. On the rear of the box we find more details about the board and more information on the ultra durable features of this board. Overall Gigabyte nailed the information that needs to be presented on the box.

Packaging		The Z77X-UD3H

Opening up the box there are two layers. The first layer contains the SLI Bridge, SATA Cables I/O shield and the manual. Under there sits the motherboard all wrapped up in an anti-static bag. One thing to be wary of is electrostatic shock kills components. Now this motherboard claims to have a higher resistance to static shock, but I wouldn't want to risk destroying a board to test that theory. The motherboard features a fairly standard layout with lots of room between the upper two PCIE Slots.

Socket 1155		mSATA

Taking a quick look around the CPU socket you can see the solid caps as well as the heatsinks on the VRMs. One thing to note, as will most if not all motherboards of this class, if you use tall memory modules and a large CPU cooler they will hit. Just south of the CPU socket there is an mSATA port. Basically mSATA is a smaller form factor SSD that interfaces directly with the mother board. However it's a good thing to note that if a mSATA drive is installed it will disable a SATA II port 5.

PCIE Slots		LED Panel and Dual BIOS Switch

If you will be running a multi-GPU set up with this board the spacing of the PCIE x16 slots should accommodate the set up. However, you will lose access to the PCIE x1 slots. This board is capable of running SLI or Crossfire X. On the opposite corner we have a diagnostic LED panel. This can come in handy when an overclock goes bad or memory timings aren't exactly right and the board refuses to boot. Another handy tool is the BIOS switch. If you happen to hose the BIOS and can't post, just flip the switch and move on.

Rear I/O		SATA Ports

The rear I/O panel has a plethora of connections. For video there is DVI, VGA, HDMI and display port. There are also 4 USB 2.0 ports, 2 USB 3.0 Ports, 2 eSATA ports, 1 PS/2 port, 1 optical SPDIF port, 6 Audio ports and sadly only 1 RJ-45 port. I would have liked to have had an additional NIC on the back panel but one will suffice. Moving to the SATA connectors we have 4 SATA 3Gbs connections and 2 SATA 6Gbs connections.