Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H and Z77X-UD5H Pictured, Too

Here are the Z77X-UD5H and Z77X-UD3H pictured up-close. The two form Gigabyte's upper-mid range and mid range offerings based on the Intel Z77 chipset, supporting socket LGA1155 "Ivy Bridge" and "Sandy Bridge" Core processors. The Z77X-UD5H is an extremely feature-rich offering, in some aspects a more complete package than even the G1.Sniper 3. It provides a 15-phase CPU and 2-phase memory VRM. Expansion slots on this board include two PCI-Express 3.0 x16 (x16/NC or x8/x8), one PCI-Express 2.0 x16 (electrical x4), three PCIe 2.0 x1, and one legacy PCI.SATA connectivity on the Z77X-UD5H includes five internal SATA 6 Gb/s (two from the PCH, three from third-party controllers), four SATA 3 Gb/s, one mSATA, and one eSATA. Display I/O includes one each of DVI, D-Sub, HDMI, and DisplayPort. There are two gigabit Ethernet interfaces (one driven by an Intel controller, one by a Qualcomm-Atheros controller), 8+2 channel HD audio driven by Realtek ALC898, ten USB 3.0 ports (four on the rear panel, six via front-panel headers), FireWire, and a number of USB 2.0 ports.Moving on to the Z77X-UD3H, we find a leaner loadout overall. A 9-phase VRM powers the CPU, 2-phase memory. The expansion slot arrangement is identical to that of the Z77X-UD5H. SATA connectivity includes two SATA 6 Gb/s, four SATA 3 Gb/s internal ports, one mSATA, and two eSATA ports. This board has even more USB 3.0 ports than the UD5H: six on the rear-panel, two via header. The rest of the connectivity includes 8+2 channel HD audio (VIA-made CODEC, we're not too sure about the 108 dBA SNR marking), one gigabit Ethernet interface (likely Realtek 8111F). Display connectivity includes one each of DVI, HDMI, DP, and D-Sub.Both motherboards support NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFire, although support for Lucid VirtuMVP was not noted. The mSATA ports give users easy access to SmartResponse technology. Both boards feature gunmetal black PCBs, with blue PCH/VRM heatsinks. Both models will likely be part of the first wave of Z77 motherboards.