Conclusion

Performance

The stock performance of the Z87X-UD3H was solid with it appearing to be evenly matched against the competing Z87 systems. The instability seen in the BIOS did not appear to have much in the way of adverse impacts on the board's performance.

Pricing

As of June 08, the GIGABYTE Z87X-UD3H was available at Newegg.com for $169.99. The board was also available from other retailers such as Amazon.com for $169.99 with Prime shipping and TigerDirect.com for $179.99.

Conclusion

Before continuing with our final thoughts on this board, we would like to take this opportunity to give our friends at GIGABYTE a hearty “Thank You” for giving us the opportunity and pleasure of reviewing the Z87X-UD3H motherboard. The board features a clean looking black, grey, and blue color theme with shiny silver and blue overlays on the heat sinks. With the exception of the BIOS hiccups, I had no issues with the board and found its performance to be on par with the other tested Z87-based boards. Two of the nicer features were the placement of the primary PCI-Express x1 slot and the CMOS battery. Both are to the right of the primary PCI-Express x16 slot, meaning that you will always have a usable PCI-Express x1 slot when running the board with two or all three of the PCI-Express x16 slots populated. Further, the CMOS battery remains easily accessible as well. Its BIOS, while flaky, was one of the most innovative designs I've seen yet with its ability to use slide bars while in Dashboard Mode.

However, the board was not without issues, centered specifically around that innovative BIOS. I was forced to switch to the backup BIOS after the board began to destabilize. This was after attempting to clear the CMOS and pulling the CMOS battery to clear the CMOS memory. Using the BIOS was easy while in Classic Mode, but became either laggy or overly sensitive using the mouse in Dashboard Mode. Mouse related issues became very apparent in Dashboard Mode when switching between the settings entry field and the sliding bars. However, keep in mind that the issues encountered, even the board instability, are most likely due to an immature BIOS version with all issues encountered easily remedied via a BIOS update.  Note that the BIOS instability encountered had absolutely no impact on board performance after switching over to the backup BIOS.

Strengths

  • Stock performance
  • CMOS battery placement – accessible under most conditions
  • Board layout and design
  • Accessible PCI-Express x1 slot with all PCI-Express x16 slots filled
  • UEFI BIOS design
  • Motherboard manual information

Weaknesses

  • BIOS instability
  • BIOS usability in Dashboard Mode
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