GIGABYTE GA-Z77M-D3H-MVP LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Worked fine with my i5-3570k for 4 months

Cons: not free

Other Thoughts: I have purchased many Gigabyte motherboards, and they all last very long, but this one only lasts 4 months. Just send this board back to repair because I was out of country for 5 months. I am now using a cheap H61 motherboard while I am waiting for the repair, and it works fine. Maybe I should' have bought the H61 in the first place. Somewhat disappointed, I just have bad luck...

Pros: Very solid performance, no issues, small micro ATX form factor, UEFI BIOS.
Received board with BIOS version F1, had no problems with it but easily upgraded to F7b with @BIOS utility, upgraded from older AMD board and Windows 8 pulled it off without a hitch on 1st boot, just had to reactivate.
With i3 Ivy Bridge produces very little heat making it easy to set up a near silent machine.
Have run for a few months now without one single issue.

Cons: I read the specs on this piece of equipment before purchasing so with that in mind I see no cons.
The board could use an ieee 1394 internal connector so I can plug in a Mini DV camera (easily solved with a USB iLink adapter), the I/O serial port has proprietary pin assignments an Asus/Gigabyte header is needed if using this feature.

Other Thoughts: Nice motherboard for standard home/office PC application, will even work for high performance gaming with the right video card, CPU and RAM.

Pros: Nice board if it worked correctly. Lots of great advanced features. Nice bios.

Cons: Tried three different sets of DDR3 memory for this board and it wouldn't work with any of them. So I buy the memory specified in the Gigabyte website, it does not work either. However when I install the memory pair incorrectly into the #2 (white) and #4 (blue) memory slots the board does boot up. Still waiting for a response from Gigabyte.

Other Thoughts: Will give it 5 stars if I can get it to work. Will subtract a star if I can't get it to work.

Pros: It has a lot of nice features and makes a great office computer, or family computer. Comes with a plain jane back plate. Other Gigabyte MBs have their plate nicely labeled. This is all aluminum with the ids stamp in the metal. No real labels. Not a deal killer but a little disappointing having seen the better job they do with some of their other motherboads. Of course once you plug everything up you never look back there right?

Cons: Probably not going to use this board as a gamer setup.

Came with BIOS F3, installed windows and everything worked great! Attempted to update to F6 via @BIOS and that fluffied up Windows. All I got was "Reboot or insert boot disc". Dragged out the windows disc and restored to a previous saved point. Installed F4 via Qflash and its working fine now so I decided not to mess with it further.

Other Thoughts: Mess with the BIOS at your own peril. I've had other Gigabyte boards and updated the BIOS with no issues, just this one.

Pros: Board has performed flawlessly for the features it has.

Cons: There is nothing on the Gigabyte website that says that this otherwise fully overclockable board can't adjust the CPU's vcore voltage. Very disappointed about this lack of information on their site. You can overclock, but only with the turbo multipliers, but you'd be extremely lucky to get a i5-3570k past 45 for all cores.

Other Thoughts: I can't blame Newegg for this lack of information, as at least one other reviewer also mentioned this lack of CPU voltage control. I suggest anybody who buys anything of value at Newegg read the reviews thoroughly and carefully.

Pros: At least it boots to Windows

Cons: When I received this board about a month ago I was able to get into the BIOS the first day. Updated BIOS and now cannot access BIOS although it boots normally. Engaged Gigabyte support via email and phone but could not resolve. RMA'd to Newegg and was without my PC for two weeks. Finally received this board back from Newegg but still does not work. I bought this brand new and now I have to deal with a used board being kicked around. Been shopping with Newegg since inception and never had to return anything or go through an experience until now. I just want the thing to work so I could feel like I got my money's worth. At this point I'm angry enough to abandon the whole thing, purchase another board and leave the mess up to people's consciences.

Other Thoughts: Just fed up - that's it!

Manufacturer Response:

Thank you for your comments. Honest and constructive opinions are always welcome. We apologize for your difficulty with your Gigabyte product.

Please try connecting your USB keyboard to the USB ports under the LAN port. Press the DEL key serveral times during post, and your should be able to enter the BIOS options.

If you require further assistance, please contact us at newegg-support@gigabyte-usa.com with the case number 2013011604 in the subject line. List your complete configuration. You may contact our Live Technical Support at 626-854-9338, option 3 if the matter is urgent.

GIGABYTE VIP Support Team

Pros: good quality board
nicely labled pcb
lucid onboard for mixing gpu's

Cons: forward facing sata ports are a bit annoying to plug in on smaller cases

Other Thoughts: lucid chip lets you mix and match gpu's, have a gtx 460 and a 6770 both running why? well why not?

Pros: When I install the 90 days eval version of Windows Server 2012, the OS detects the Atheros Network chip and installs the network drivers. <Prior to this motherboard, I purchased the ASUS P8Z77-V ; bad mistake, Win Svr 2012 install does not see the on board Intel NIC chip, so you have to buy an Intel PCIe x1 NIC that has the Win Svr 2012 drivers.>

Cons: This motherboard does not take just any cpu cooler. You have to buy a ZALMAN cpu cooler (instead of a Thermaltake cpu cooler) if you do not want to use the Intel retail cpu push pin cooler. The motherboard bottom's soldered wired ends get in the way of my initial Thermaltake CLP0598 92mm Contact 16 CPU Cooler. I had to purchase a ZALMAN CNPS10X Optima cooler instead. Different backplate design - ZALMAN is better, spend the money.

Other Thoughts: I guess I have to throw my Thermaltake cpu cooler in the parts bin until HASWELL cpu family comes out.

Pros: Good price, functional.

Cons: Had some issues getting it work 100%. Plugging in a PCIE video card (nvidia 650Ti, in this case) will not allow you to enter the stock Bios. Additionally, you will not be able to see boot loader menus (had an Ubuntu USB stick and it would not load the Grub menu). If you run into this same issue that I had, disconnect the power from your video card and plug your monitor into the motherboard's on-board video. It should boot just fine from here.

Once you are able to get into your OS, you can download Gigabyte's @Bios tool to upgrade your bios (if you're on Windows). I upgraded mine to F6, shut down the comp, plugged the power back into the video card and hooked the monitor up...everything was fine from that point on.

After googling around, it seems like quite a few people have had similar issues with this mobo. Hopefully newer production models of this board have the updated bios in them.

Other Thoughts: Gigabyte's site went down periodically while trying to download @Bios and the EasyTune software, and the download rate was very slow. Pick the FTP option for a more stable (and faster) download.

Pros: Worked PERFECTLY on onboard graphics with intel hd 4000 on my i5-3570k

Cons: When I finally got my graphics card in yesterday (7870 msi hawk) it took me 2 hours to figure out that my PCI-e 3.0 x16 slot (closest to the cpu) is BROKEN!!!! i was getting ZERO display but the card was spinning. I moved the card to the PCI-e 2.0 x4 slot and running, but im SEVERELY disappointed at the fact that im not at 3.0 x16 -_- .......................................

Other Thoughts: Would really like for gigabyte to get back to me if i could get a RMA replacement? i ordered it 9/10/2012 exactly 31 days ago.........

Manufacturer Response:

Thank you for your comments. Honest and constructive opinions are always welcome. We apologize for your difficulty with your Gigabyte product.

Please reconnect your monitor cable to the motherboard onboard video port, and your graphics card to the 1st PCIe slot. Boot to Windows, and check your System Device Manager. Under Display Properties, if you see two graphics card, then your graphics card is working correctly.

Assuming you've already installed all motherboard drivers, next install your PCIe graphics card drivers, then install the Lucid MP software.

If you require further assistance, please contact us at newegg-support@gigabyte-usa.com with the case number 2012101201 in the subject line. We will provide personalized service and analysis to help solve your issue as soon as possible.

Please contact our Live Technical Support at 626-854-9338, option 3 if the matter is urgent.

Gigabyte VIP Support Team