GIGABYTE GA-Z77-D3H LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Four 4 pin fan headers 3 year warranty 4 USB 3.0 ports and a USB 3.0 Header Right angle SATA III connectors Dual Bios that automatically takes over when failure occurs. Has a temperature probe for their voltage regulators which is something I’ve never seen before. Very durable features such as humidity protection, electrostatic protection, and surge protection. Another interesting feature is the one fuse per USB port which is another way this board will protect itself from getting damaged as it prevents USB port failure by having a fuse for each port rather than one fuse for all of the ports. 3D Bios looks really cool and is a fairly intuitive way off going about changing settings in the bios. The only downside is that it is a little slow and lags along with the mouse cursor speed being way too slow and choppy. The user’s manual has a helpful description of all of the RAID modes its supports, how they work, the benefits of each and how to set each of them up. Also features a very useful troubleshooting section at the back of the user’s manual for diagnosis hardware or boot related problems.

Cons: Gigabyte’s old ugly looking color scheme (New models don’t have this problem) The SATA II connectors are not right angle Poor USB 3.0 Read Performance: Intel controller: Read = 213 MB/s Write = 145.7 MB/s Etron controller: Read = 197 MB/s Write = 144.5 MB/s USB device’s actual speed on different system: Read = 247.7 MB/s Write = 143.2 MB/s Mediocre built in audio with a tested dynamic range of 78.3 dB and a noise level (interference from surrounding parts) of -54.4 dB (Most motherboards I’ve tested get around -75 dB). The Auto tuning feature is nice as it sets settings and then runs stability tests to ensure the system is stable but it tends to play it overly safe and overvolt the CPU. I would recommend using it as a starting point if you aren’t that good at overclocking and then take its number and just lower the voltage till it isn’t stable which I’m sure is a lot lower like mine was. CPU was an Intel 3770K. • Auto Tuning OC @ 4.43 GHz • Voltage: 1.38 volts on Vcore • Load: 194 watts • CPU Temperature: 180 °F • Voltage Regulators: 136.4 °F • Manual OC @ 4.5 GHz • Voltage: 1.284 volts on Vcore • Load: 171 watts • CPU Temperature: 162 °F • Voltage Regulators: 122 °F

Overall Review: There is a Beta bios and new audio driver that if both in place are supposed to improve the audio conditions but as the bios is a beta I did not test it but once they release a stable version hopefully the audio will improve. I got the Revision 1.2 of this board in case any of it varies from others such as some getting an 8 pin supplemental CPU power connector whereas mine only has 4 pin.

Pros: I have built two systems now with this board. Extremely easy--no difficulties with either. Fast, stable, great performer.

Cons: The only real con is the placement of two components: the 6 Gbps SATA ports come off the side of the motherboard, which is a bit awkward, and the PCIe X1 slots are clustered round the primary PCIe graphics card slot...any decent sized cooler will block the two on the right, and any card with a backplate will either block the one on the left or make it a very tight fit.

Overall Review: Some supplemental info: rev 1.0 boards have 4 pin supplemental power; rev 1.1 boards have 8 pin. I have one of each. The 1.0 board shipped with BIOS F16; the 1.1 shipped with BIOS F18. I inquired of Gigabyte regarding the "On-Off Charge" function; per Gigabyte's response, the USB headers don't support this, only the USB ports on the back panel do.

Pros: Fast and feature rich board for the price. Lots of USB3 ports. Graphical BIOS UI is nice, but a little weird if you're used to the old blue text BIOS layout. Updating the BIOS was a breeze, and the auto-overclocking tool worked exactly as advertised.

Cons: The on-board system fan controller will only work if the fans are connected to the headers in order (FAN1, FAN2, FAN3). Took me a while to figure out that this is why my fans were all running full speed despite the BIOS being set for silent operation. Given this requirement, the order of the fan connectors is really stupid. The placement is almost perfect, but what should be FAN1 (the pin out closest to the processor) for the rear system fan is actually FAN2. What should be FAN2 (the pin out closest to the front of the case) is actually FAN3. FAN1 is at the bottom of the board, on the opposite side of the PCI bus. To get the fan controller to even work I had to route my rear fan cable over my PCI cards. My front fan couldn't even be connected to its pin out, the cable wasn't long enough. I was forced to use a secondary fan controller to slow it down. So if you aren't going to have three fans connected to this board, I suggest buying some fan cable extensions

Overall Review: I installed this board along with a Core i5-3570K, a Crucial M4 SATA3 SSD, and a Radeon 7850 2GB. After overclocking, the Windows Experience Score was maxed at 7.9, the machine runs super fast, I'm loving Ivy Bridge. Note, if you plan to use the on-board raid at all (non-boot disks), make sure you have the BIOS set to RAID before installing Windows. I didn't, and Windows refused to boot after enabling the raid controller even tho the boot drive was unchanged.

Pros: The bios is solid, easy to use. So far no problem on stability issue.

Cons: This board has hard time to recognize a video card that is PCIE 2.0 or PCIE 2.1. I have tried to install a Radeon 6870 to the PCIE 16x slot which the manual says I can install it and it will still run at 2.0 mode, I could not get any image at all. The video signal still will be output to the on-board DVI. I went to the bios and try to set the "first display" to be PCIE, and I still would not have signal out of the video card. I will be trying to put a PCIE 3.0 card to the motherboard and see if it will fire up.

Overall Review: I like Gigabyte motherboard, but I this time it really make me confused. I might call gigabyte customer service.

Pros: Worked great right out of the box!! Functions worked as advertized... Installed (i7 2600k Sandy Bridge) with (G.SKILLG.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600) and nVidia 560 se gfx by EVGA...

Cons: Shipped with a non-functioning Etron 3.0 USB driver... causing conflicts under device manager... After hours of frustration and troubleshooting, it turned out that the Etron 3.0 driver was just bad and I just needed to download the newest version from their website... With the new version 1.00.0000.0112, everything works like a charm...

Overall Review: I'm still giving it 5 eggs since the driver issue was very minor... the utilities are very helpful and easy to use for both casual and advance user.. It's a great board!!

Pros: Booted right the first time with an i5-3570k and G.SKILL Ares 8GB (2 x 4GB) kit (F3-1866C9D-8GAB). Detected mem at 1600, but XMP profile 1 took it right where it was supposed to be. BIOS has the right features, but the F8 that shipped was a bit annoying, once I went to F13, it was a much better/cleaner experience with a few added options as well. The big thing for me was an mSata port at this price, which is crazy awesome.

Cons: Would like to be able to set the SATA operation per controller, but that's nit picking (and I'm not sure any let you do that). Odd that they organized the SATA 2 ports up and SATA 3 ports the side, but I guess it makes it easy/obvious which are which. Could always use more SATA ports.

Overall Review: With the features of this board, it's hard to say that it's a 'basic board', but compared to a lot of them, it really is. This is a good base for most folks with good features like the VirtuMVP, mSata, and basic overclocking options. GB is known for reliable boards and it feels solidly built. It has just the right features, at the right price. You can get more, but you'll pay a heck of a lot more. Just a cost/benefit decision. If you can, plug in your USB 3 header before the monster power plug, it'll make life easier as that's a bit tight and odd that they placed it there to begin with. Manual is laid out alright and most of the board is laid out alright as well. Not sure why the placed the FAN1 port at the bottom and FAN2 where the main rear fan would be, but not a big deal.

Pros: Gigabyte has great tech support. After enabling XMP, it set the memory voltage and CAS speed perfectly. Easy to cable. Easy to upgrade the BIOS. Win7 and Win8 drivers from GB Website.

Cons: None

Overall Review: My dual boot of Win7 and Win8 is working well with all the drivers. Combined with SSD & i5-3570K it boots and runs lightning fast. Downloaded the Win8 drivers for the GB website. This is a great board for my needs but if you need eSATA or more than 2 SATA III connections, then you will need to buy a more expensive board. Note: With a 2 DIMM Kit use both white slots to auto enable fast Dual channel. Note: Win8 wanted GPT not MSB partition table so I had to boot the Win8 install DVD first, partition the drive, then on the reboot, I booted the Win7 and installed, then I finished the win8 install later. Hope this is helpful to the folks that want to play with win7 and win8. Note: pay attention to the AHCI setting in the BIOS before you partition/format the HD or SSD.

Pros: Great motherboard. Paired with a i5 3450 processor, and 16gb of PC3 12800 memory. CAS latency timings set themselves up. Everything worked great. The 90 degree sata ports make for easy cable management in my case. And uses only a 4pin 12v adapter rather than 8pin like most boards seem to be requiring is a huge plus.

Cons: Ran into a very bizarre issue with the built-in network adapter. Upload speeds to other computers on my network would stay in the 30-50KB/sec range, while downloads would max out my switch (100-120MB/sec range). Put in a cheap intel NIC in the system, and the new network adapter worked great. Just as a test, I swapped back to the built-in network adapter, it was was working great as well. No idea how to explain this one. I used the drivers from the disk as well as checked gigabytes website (same version), reinstalled the deive multiple times, always got the same issue. After I install a new NIC, it started behaving properly. Go figure. I don't discount the motherboard, as it may have simply been a strange driver problem.