Introduction

My motherboard reviews over the past few months have almost solely been of high-grade enthusiast products from various brands. There are a lot of board options for those looking to spend $200 or more, and I will cover more of those soon, but there are just as many options if you want to spend a bit less. Gigabyte was one of the first to send me such a relatively inexpensive board option focusing on basic functionality with a few additional things thrown into the mix for good measure.

Gigabyte has been around for a long, long time, and their years of experience in designing board products and other consumer-grade devices give them a level of expertise that might be overlooked by some. In an effort to solidify their product offering and deliver clear and concise design choices catering to certain users, Gigabyte has now launched a whole new esthetic design with their Z87-based product lines. Each Z87 product features a different color to separate it and its functionality from all the other Gigabyte boards. Many recognize Gigabyte's orange-themed OC products, and we now have gold, red, black, and blue boards following the same pattern.

The blue board, the Gigabyte Z78X-UD3H, is an entry board for enthusiasts. Purpose-built to provide a strong, stable computing platform to all users, including gamers who like a slight overclock, it is very much a "sand-bagging" board to me, a board built with many enthusiast OC features that come together to give very decent long-term overclockabilty. None of its overclocking features are actually advertised, but Gigabyte's UD3H boards have been hidden overclocking gems for many generations now. One key indicator of the Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H not exactly being what it appears to be is in the bottom PCIe slot; it is connected to the Z87 PCH. Add in its minimalistic esthetic design with just a few slashes of color and the Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H really is "The Sleeper".

Specifications

Intel Z87 Chipset

New and fresh on the scene for June of 2013 is Intel's latest Socket 1150 platform, with Intel's Z87 chipset taking the top-tier spot in chipset functionality and for performance options on this platform.


Most of the basic functionality offered by Intel's new Z87 chipset is quite similar to what was offered with Intel's Z77 Express, but there are more USB 3.0 ports, and they are faster too. All of the SATA ports provided offer SATA 6 Gb/s functionality. Intel's Z77 Express only had two ports at those speeds. There are also new power-saving features to keep power consumption at a bare minimum, and Z87 also includes all the features of the Intel Z77 Express. The chipset offers PCIe speeds of up to 5 GT/s for fast access to peripheral devices and networking with up to eight PCI Express 2.0 x1 ports that can be configured to act as x2-, x4-, or x8 ports. Intel's functionality diagram for the Z87 chipset is shown above.


The new 4th Gen Intel Core CPUs are 64-bit, multi-core chips built on a 22nm process; pairing with the Intel Z87 chipset enables the performance-tuning features of "K"-SKU CPUs, allowing independent changes to core-, graphics-, "ring"-, and memory frequencies. This allows you to clock up one part of the chip while running any other part of the chip at stock speeds, which is extremely useful for enthusiasts that like to overclock, as each part can be clocked and tested independently for the absolute most out of your chip if the time is taken to test everything fully. Users who prefer the simpler approach of past platforms can use it instead, ensuring everyone's needs are met. For PCIe connectivity, Intel Z87-based platforms allow the processor's PCI Express 3.0 port to be configured into three different configurations: 1x16, 2x8, or 1x8 and 2x4. The third x8 and 2x4 configurations are primarily meant for use with Intel Thunderbolt Technology but can be used to support other devices as well.

Other TPU reviews cover the CPUs themselves in more detail. We will now also separate those reviews. One will cover iGPU performance and the other will cover CPU performance.

Packaging

The first hint of the Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H being a hidden gem is in the box design. It closely resembles that of the Gigabyte Z87X-OC, but comes with a slightly different color scheme. The big "Ultra Durable 5 PLUS" logo on the bottom-right refers to the board's overall feature set, rather than just the board's power-delivery section as I had first thought. Gigabyte has a fancy website explaining all of the Ultra Durable 5 PLUS features HERE.


The Z87X-UD3H is the entry-level version of this "Ultra Durable 5 PLUS" product design, so what you find in the box is pretty simple, with just the board on top and a few accessories below.

Contents

In an attempt to keep costs down, only the essential accessories are included, but there is definitely enough here to get most users started. A full list is below:

• 1 x User's Manual
• 1 x Multilingual Installation Guidebook
• 1 x I/O shield
• 4 x SATA 6 Gb/s cable
• 1 x SLI bridge
• 1 x Gigabyte case badge
• 1 x Driver disc