GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD3H LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Gigabyte does another excellent job - and I'm back in Intel territory for the first time in a long time. Paired this with an Intel 320 SSD, i5-3570K, 16GB RAM, and a Radeon 7870 and this is one blazing fast machine. Love the 3-D visual BIOS - it's unlike anything you'll ever see on any other board in the market. All it takes is a few clicks to do anything you need - it even runs turbo boost with just a few clicks. With my SSD, my PC boots in nearly an instant - it's amazing. It just took a couple of clicks to disable the onboard video so I could use my GPU. This is my 4th Gigabyte board and I have yet to get a bad one, I think I'll be sticking with them.

Cons: None really except for the fact that there's only 6 SATA ports where most boards in this price range use 8 - and I have 5 SATA devices (2 HDs, 2 optical, 1 SSD). You also have to be quick on the trigger finger in order to access the BIOS - if you're using an SSD as your boot drive. But that's nothing to knock it down an egg.

However, I will say one thing - and that is that Gigabyte still refuses to dump that annoying Splashtop connect software on its' driver disc that sneaks its' way into owning your web browers. Please, Gigabyte - dump that annoying Splashtop connect software!!!

Overall Review: The system (a work in progress the last couple of years - now complete!) :

- Corsair Graphite 600T
- PC Power & Cooling Silencer MKII 950W
- Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD3H
- Intel Core i5-3570K @ 3.4GHz (will OC)
- EVGA Supercooler M020
- 16GB Corsair XMS3 1600MHz 1.5V RAM
- Intel 320 SSD
- Western Digital Caviar Green 1TB
- Plextor B940
- Sapphire Radeon HD 7870
- Windows 7 Home Premium
- Vizio 42" LED

Pros: Obviously Gigabyte quality. If you set a ASRock board next to a Gigabyte board you can see the difference. The Gigabyte board is cleaner, straighter, better lines and the overall quality is better. Came with the latest BIOS, installation was painless, booted first time, a lot of detailed setting in the BIOS.

Cons: Overclocking was disappointing. It did reach 4.5 with a i5 2500K but occasionally would get in a boot cycle. Temps were 72c with Prime and a 212 EVO. Even backing of on the memory to 13333 didn't help. It would even do it with a small overclock. Tried everything, voltage change, timings. But at stock speeds it ran flawlessly. Maybe it will do better with an Ivy Chip. Virtu MVP crashed every time

Overall Review: Its a nice board but for the same price the ASRock Z77 Extreme6 overclocks like a boss and comes with more extras. Plus Virtu MVP worked great in the ASRock board.