GIGABYTE GA-H77-DS3H LGA 1155 Intel H77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Awesome board even handle my 1.65v Kingston HyperX ram @ 1600Mhz!

Cons: Nothing so far :)

Other Thoughts: Intel Core i5 3470 3.2Ghz
Gigabyte GA-H77-DS3H
Kingston Hyperx 1600Mhz @1.65v XMP
WD Cavair Blue 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gbps
Raidmax RX-500AF 500W 80+ Bronze
Silverstone RL 01
Asus 22x DVD R/W

Pros: Cheap

Cons: No 2008 drivers, called Gigabyte and told to load Win7 64 bit - but USB 3.0 drivers not available for 64 bit. Ordered 2 of these - one came in version 1.0, the other version 2.0, go figure. Did get USB 3.0 to work finally. Must upgrade Bios before using new Ivy Bridge i5. One board made it 2 hours in customers office then died!

Manufacturer Response:

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Pros: This is a great board. It seems like it would be pretty easy to overclock based on bios settings, but my processor doesn't support it. This thing with an Ivy bridge processor is super easy to setup a Mountain Lion hack on. Lots of great features for such a low priced board.

Cons: This mother board did not come with the latest bios installed which was required for an Ivy bridge processor (mine is a Xeon E3-1230 V2). The computer will boot without the latest bios, but according to the manufacturer, the F5 bios is required, so I flashed it. The first one I ordered had to be RMA'd because memory slots 2 and 4 were shot. The computer just powered up for a couple of seconds and shut off, and did this continuously until it was switched off; all without posting.

Other Thoughts: While Newegg paid the shipping, I had to purchase cleaning solution and arctic silver heat sink compound to be able to remove and then replace the heat sink on the RMA'd board. I had a bad experience with this one board, but I think it's a nice board overall.

Pros: Setup was pretty easy, System was up and running on first boot... Great control of memory timings for each RAM bank, the MB does all your voltages automatically. Loves my 4 GB x 2Corsair Vengeance 1600 MHz DDR3 1.5v. Works well with my OCZ aglility 3 SSD and WD Black 1 and 1.5TB drives. Does allow you to change the CPU multiplier and Base clock.. though, my i5-3450 no runs at 3.5GHz-3.8Ghz... Hackintosh compatible.. Most voltages are automatically set and locked so u dont have too mess wtih anything.

Cons: Came with Bios F3, current is F5, No direct way to change VTT voltage on your RAM, no manual control over voltages... MB does it automatically. Drives you up the wall, make sure your RAM has an XMP profile, it will help stabilize the system. Only 5 SATA ports. U can change ur CPU's multiplier,BCLK, and Ram voltage but any advanced voltages changes are impossible. The mobo hated my Sapphire Radeon 5670 1GB GDDR5. I liked my 5670. Oh well guess im gonna have to grab a newer more compatible equivalent like a Radeon 7750 or Nvidia GT 640.

Other Thoughts: My 4th Gigabyte board, At first i was impressed with the polished look of the UEFI bios, but as time went on, It was so pesky. This mobo is picky about Video cards, my Sapphire Radeon 5670 1GB was very much unliked, it would freeze the system for a min at a time while watching streaming video, netflix youtube etc, Removed the 5670 and switched 2 integrated video on the Core i5-3450 CPU and now its smooth as silk, no freezes. Driver issues??? MAybe. Would i buy again, no.. i would have grabbed the Z77 version of this mobo for another $10 to tweak voltages . Overall this is a good buy for a budget to midrange system that will serve u well for years.

Pros: Easy to install. Clear markings on board for connections.

Cons: CPU fan port dead out of box. Had to use one of the sysfan ports to have fan run. This causes loss of PWM functionality

Pros: Gigabyte MBs are usually fast to set up and get running.. UEFI BIOS is a nice, smooth, and easy to navigate BIOS. Runs a quad kit of G.Skill Ripjaws 4x2GB @ 1600MHz DDR3 in the XMP profile without increasing Northbridge Voltage. HACKINTOSH compatible. Has a mSATA slot for an SSD. Includes Atheros Gbe LAN, and all the video ports (HDMI/DVI/VGA) for integrated video. The Gigabyte's dimensions are a 1 inch slimmer, yet not crowded... making it super easy to swap mobos in a Antec Three Hundred ATX case. Awesome when paired with a Core i5 Ivy bridge, smooth as silk and crazy fast!

Cons: Only has 5 SATA connectors, I needed 6 of them. Only came with a single sata cable, manuals, I/O shield, and install DVD... THATS it. DDR3 speeds above 1600 are not officially supported, but can be tweeked!

Other Thoughts: This is my 4th GB Mobo, i went with ASUS for the last few (AMD Phenom builds) but I never liked the power consumption of those monsters, nor the fact that ASUS Northbridges ( 890GX, 760G, P35. P45) always needed voltage bumps for quad DIMM kits. I got sick of my Asus M4A890GX with PhenomII x4 965 kicking adze but generating 177W (yes 177W) of heat and sucking my UPS Despite having great cooling, this combo warmed up quite uncomfortably. I sought a cooler and faster solution... These 22nm Ivy Bridges paired up with cooler running H77 seemed quite appealing. For the investment if 300 and ust swapping boards my pirateship is silky smooth and responsive. Now Running a GB H77-DS3H +Core i5 3450 3.5 Ghz Quad, OCZ Agility3 120GB, 4x2GB G.skill Ripjaws @ XMP 1600Mhz, Corsair TX650, and a Stock HS with Arctic Silver 5 im running a comfortably 40C at 39 W of power comsumption.. Cool Deal, PS NEWEGG U rock, I got overnight shipping for free :) Customer since 2002!

Pros: Board did not come with already bent/broken pins! Supported Ivy Bridge right out of the box. Has Crossfire Support! Sata 3.0!

Over all a decent board at this price point.

Cons: Granted the case I have is a mid tower, so room is a premium. That being said it's kinda cramped but not terribly so. Sata connecters sit right where you would expect a decent graphic card to go, which is an issue if your going crossfire. The connecters as the previous review said are kinda close together.
The 4 pin is kinda crammed in up at the top, making it a little tougher to get the power plug in. Wasn't difficult but could be an issue for some people.

Other Thoughts: CPU: i5 ivy 3570K
Ram: 16GB RAM
Storage: 2.5TB
Video: 6870 x2 Cross-fired
MB: GIGABYTE GA-H77-DS3H

Pros: Solid featureset for the price.

Cons: First board purchased through another store was DOA. Practically no extras included in the box compared to my old EP45-DS3L. Very few USB ports compared to that old $100 board as well.

Pros: Worked right out of the box. Suports Both PCI-E 3.0 and 2.0 support. Has an awesome on board audio chipset.

Cons: Sata ports are extremely close together and in a small spot on the mobo that align with the 2.0 GPU slot. This means that if you have A rather big 2.0 graphics card you will be lucky to use 2 sata ports. Also, there are hardly any usb ports available, lucky for my my case has extras. I'm not sure if it was just this mobo but the CPU socket that came with mine took an extreme amount of force to lock correctly.

Other Thoughts: At the end of the day, I'm pleased that the mobo worked right out of the box, no DOA. I dropped in an i7 2600, GTX 480 (yeah I know it's a hog but it's an amazing card) and 8 GB G skill Rip Jaws and this machine knocks out anything I throw at it. Definitely get this motherboard.