Introduction and Technical Specifications
The GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H is their mid-range solution, offering a great mix of features and performance at a price that won’t break the bank…
Introduction
Courtesy of GIGABYTE
The Z97X-UD5H motherboard is one of the middle tier offerings in GIGABYTE's channel line of boards. GIGABYTE updated the previous revision of their UD5H board, integrating the Intel Z97 Express chipset as well as updated heat sink and power circuitry design. At an MSRP of $189.99, the Z97X-UD5H offers a premium feature set at an affordable price.
Courtesy of GIGABYTE
Courtesy of GIGABYTE
GIGABYTE designed the board in accordance with the latest revision of their Ultra Durable design specifications, integrating a 12-phase digital power system so that the board would remain stable under any operating conditions. Ultra Durable brings several high-end power components into the board's design: International Rectifier (IR) manufactured PowIRstage™ ICs and PWM controllers, Nippon Chemi-con manufactured Black Solid capacitors with a 10k hour operational rating at 105C, 15 micron gold plating on the CPU socket pins, and two 0.070mm copper layers embedded into the PCB for optimal heat dissipation. The Z97X-UD5H motherboard includes the following integrated features: six SATA 3 ports; one SATA Express 10 Gb/s ports; one M.2 10 Gb/s port; dual Gigabit NICs – an Intel I217-V NIC and a Qualcomm® Atheros Killer E2201 NIC; three PCI-Express x16 slot; two PCI-Express x1 slots; two PCI slots; 2-digit diagnostic LED display; on-board power, reset, and CMOS clear buttons; Dual-Bios and active BIOS switches; integrated voltage measurement points; and USB 2.0 and 3.0 port support.
Courtesy of GIGABYTE
Technical Specifications (taken from the GIGABYTE website)
| CPU | Support for Intel® Core™ i7 processors/Intel® Core™ i5 processors/Intel® Core™ i3 processors/Intel® Pentium® processors/Intel® Celeron® processors in the LGA1150 package L3 cache varies with CPU (Please refer "CPU Support List" for more information.) |
| Chipset | Intel® Z97 Express Chipset |
| Memory | 4 x DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 32 GB of system memory * Due to a Windows 32-bit operating system limitation, when more than 4 GB of physical memory is installed, the actual memory size displayed will be less than the size of the physical memory installed. Dual channel memory architecture Support for DDR3 3200(O.C.) / 3100(O.C.) / 3000(O.C.) / 2933(O.C.) / 2800(O.C.) / 2666(O.C.) / 2600(O.C.) / 2500(O.C.) / 2400(O.C.) / 2200(O.C.) / 2133(O.C.) / 2000(O.C.) / 1866(O.C.) / 1800(O.C.) / 1600 / 1333 MHz memory modules Support for non-ECC memory modules Support for Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules (Please refer "Memory Support List" for more information.) |
| Onboard Graphics | Integrated Graphics Processor: 1 x D-Sub port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920×1200@60Hz 1 x DVI-D port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920×1200@60Hz * The DVI-D port does not support D-Sub connection by adapter. 1 x HDMI port, supporting a maximum resolution of 4096×2160@24Hz or 2560×1600@60Hz * Support for HDMI 1.4a version. Support for up to 3 displays at the same time Maximum shared memory of 512MB |
| Audio | Realtek® ALC1150 codec High Definition Audio 2/4/5.1/7.1-channel Support for S/PDIF Out |
| LAN | 1 x Qualcomm® Atheros Killer E2201 LAN chip (10/100/1000 Mbit) (LAN1) 1 x Intel® GbE LAN phy (10/100/1000 Mbit) (LAN2) * Teaming is not supported. |
| Expansion Slots | 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16) * For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16 slot. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8) * The PCIEX8 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX16 slot. When the PCIEX8 slot is populated, the PCIEX16 slot will operate at up to x8 mode. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x4 (PCIEX4) * The PCIEX4 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX8 and PCIEX16 slots. When the PCIEX4 slot is populated, the PCIEX16 slot will operate at up to x8 mode and the PCIEX8 will operate at up to x4 mode. * When installing a x8 or above card in the PCIEX4 slot, make sure to set PCIE Slot Configuration in BIOS Setup to x4. (Refer to Chapter 2, "BIOS Setup," "Peripherals," for more information.) (The PCIEX16, PCIEX8 and PCIEX4 slots conform to PCI Express 3.0 standard.) 2 x PCI Express x1 slots (The PCI Express x1 slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard.) 2 x PCI slots |
| Multi-Graphics Technology | Support for 3-Way/2-Way AMD CrossFire™ and 2-Way NVIDIA® SLI™ Technology |
| Storage Interface | Chipset: 1 x M.2 PCIe connector (Socket 3, M key, type 2242/2260/2280 SATA & PCIe SSD support) 1 x SATA Express connector 6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3 0~5) (M.2, SATA Express, and SATA3 4/5 connectors can only be used one at a time. The SATA3 4/5 connectors will become unavailable when an M.2 SSD is installed.) Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10 Marvell® 88SE9172 chip: 2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (GSATA3 6~7) Support for RAID 0 and RAID 1 * Due to system limitation, Intel RAID and Marvell RAID can only use either one. |
| USB | Chipset: 4 USB 3.0/2.0 ports (2 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB header) 6 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (2 ports on the back panel, 4 ports available through the internal USB headers) Chipset + Renesas® uPD720210 USB 3.0 Hub: 4 USB 3.0/2.0 ports on the back panel |
| Internal I/O Connectors | 1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector 1 x PCIe power connector 1 x M.2 PCIe connector 1 x SATA Express connector 8 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors 1 x CPU fan header 1 x water cooling fan header (CPU_OPT) 4 x system fan headers 1 x front panel header 1 x front panel audio header 1 x S/PDIF Out header 1 x USB 3.0/2.0 header 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers 1 x serial port header 1 x Clear CMOS jumper 1 x Trusted Platform Module (TPM) header 1 x power button 1 x reset button 1 x Clear CMOS button 2 x BIOS switches Voltage Measurement Points |
| Back Panel Connectors | 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector 1 x D-Sub port 1 x DVI-D port 1 x HDMI port 6 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports 2 x RJ-45 ports 5 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out, Rear Speaker Out, Line In, Line Out, Mic In |
| I/O Controller | iTE® I/O Controller Chip |
| H/W Monitoring | System voltage detection CPU/System/Chipset temperature detection CPU/CPU OPT/System fan speed detection CPU/System overheating warning CPU/CPU OPT/System fan fail warning CPU/CPU OPT/System fan speed control * Whether the fan speed control function is supported will depend on the cooler you install. |
| BIOS | 2 x 128 Mbit flash Use of licensed AMI UEFI BIOS Support for DualBIOS™ PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.7, WfM 2.0, SM BIOS 2.7, ACPI 5.0 |
| Unique Features | Support for APP Center
Support for Smart Switch Support for Xpress Install * Available applications in APP Center may differ by motherboard model. Supported functions of each application may also differ depending on motherboard specifications. |
| Bundle Software | Norton® Internet Security (OEM version) Intel® Rapid Start Technology Intel® Smart Connect Technology Intel® Smart Response Technology |
| Operating System | Support for Windows 8.1/8/7 |
| Form Factor | ATX Form Factor; 30.5cm x 24.4cm |
As usual great review Morry,
As usual great review Morry, Like! Like! 🙂
“For the PCI-Express x16
“For the PCI-Express x16 slots, the board supports full x16 bandwidth with a single card, x8 bandwidth with cards in the primary and secondary slots with two cards populated, and x8 / x8 / x4 in all PCI-Express x16 slots with three cards populated.”
If I am reading the specs correctly, it is x8/x4/x4 with three cards rather than x8/x8/x4.
What a strange way to go
What a strange way to go about it, a better way would be gen 3 x8, gen 3 x8, gen 2 x4 which is what my board does.
I don’t know if that is
I don’t know if that is better. I am assuming that socket 1150 boards are limited to one x16 connection to the processor. This gigabyte board connects through a pci-e switch (some plx chip?) such that all three cards are sharing the single x16 link direct to the cpu at gen3 speeds. With the x8/x8/(x4 gen 2) set-up you are describing, the x4 link probably comes from the PCH (southbridge), so this shares bandwidth with every other IO device (SATA, network, usb, etc.) instead of the other video cards. I believe the DMI link from the PCH to the cpu is similar bandwidth to x4, gen 2 pci-e. This is cheaper as it does not require a pci-e switch chip. The performance difference may be minimal since 3-card set-ups do not scale well anyway. Best to just run 2 cards with this board though. I have wondered if it would work to run a pci-e ssd in one of the slots connected to the switch.
You are correct, tri-card
You are correct, tri-card mode is x8/x4/x4. Thank you for pointing that out….
“GIGABYTE designed the
“GIGABYTE designed the Z97X-UD5H’s rear panel with the following ports: … an HDMI video port, a DisplayPort video port, a DVI-I video port…”
The photos do not show a DisplayPort video port.
I do not believe that the GA-Z97X-UDH5 has DisplayPort connectivity onboard.
Fixed. Thanks for pointing
Fixed. Thanks for pointing that out…
great review, but i prefer
great review, but i prefer the looks of previsios z87x-ud5(which i have for my g3258)the heatsinks on this one are a bit to much golden yellow, on the old one they are more blacks in there which ads to the visual look a lot, makes it look a loth better in my opinion
Morry,
Thanks for yet another
Morry,
Thanks for yet another great review! I’ve a 4770K right in front of me that needs a cheap place to run! Your expertise, and experience it appreciated!!!
By the way, I really want to win that car!!!
KingKookaluke
Morry,
Thanks for yet another
Morry,
Thanks for yet another great review! I’ve a 4770K right in front of me that needs a cheap place to run! Your expertise, and experience it appreciated!!!
By the way, I really want to win that car!!!
KingKookaluke
Morry,
Thanks for yet another
Morry,
Thanks for yet another great review! I’ve a 4770K right in front of me that needs a cheap place to run! Your expertise, and experience it appreciated!!!
By the way, I really want to win that car!!!
KingKookaluke