Gigabyte Intel Z77 Dual Thunderbolt ATX Motherboard (GA-Z77X-UP4-TH)

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Price: $239.99   

Product Feature

• CPU: Intel LGA 1155 Core i7/i5/i3, Pentium and Celeron processor
• Memory: 4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 32 GB of system memory, Support for DDR3 1600/1333/1066
• LAN:1 x Realtek GbE LAN chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)
• Expansion Slots: 1 x PCI Express x16 slot running at x16, 1 x PCI Express x16 slot running at x8, 1 x PCI Express x16 slot running at x4, 3 x PCI Express x1 slots, 1 x PCI slot
• Support for AMD CrossFireX/ NVIDIA SLI technology
• Back Panel: 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port1 x D-Sub port1 x DVI-D port1 x HDMI port6 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports2 x Thunderbolt ports1 x RJ-45 port1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector5 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out, Rear Speaker Out, Line In, Line Out, Mic In)
• Internal I/O: 1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector 2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors 4 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors 1 x mSATA connector 1 x CPU fan header 4 x system fan headers 1 x front panel header 1 x front panel audio header 1 x S/PDIF In header 1 x S/PDIF Out header 1 x USB 3.0/2.0 header 3 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers 1 x serial port header 1 x Clear CMOS jumper 1 x Trusted Platform Module (TPM) header
• Storage: 2 x SATA 6Gb/s, 4 x SATA 3Gb/s, 1x mSATA, RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10

Product Description

Supports 3rd Gen. Intel 22nm CPUs and 2nd Gen. Intel Core CPUs (LGA1155 socket) Dual Thunderbolt technology support GIGABYTE Ultra Durable 5 technology GIGABYTE 3-way Digital Power Engine with GIGABYTE 3D Power GIGABYTE 3D BIOS (Dual UEFI) Onboard mSATA slot for mSATA SSDs PCI Express Gen 3.0 support SLI and CrossFireX multi-GPU support Lucid Virtue Universal MVP GPU virtualization support

Gigabyte Intel Z77 Dual Thunderbolt ATX Motherboard (GA-Z77X-UP4-TH) Review

I have only owned this for a week. Windows 7 Professional does not support much of the chipset on a fresh install, so you will need to use the provided disc. I am probably one of the first to purchase this motherboard, but it came with the 2nd revision of the UEFI (the new type of BIOS), and the third revision is available for update at the time of this post (rev. F3). Although I am planning to overclock the Intel Ivy Bridge Core i5 3570k, I have not gotten around to it yet. It does support higher clocked memory right out of the gate, so my purchase of the G.Skill 1866Mhz RAM was auto-enabled through the BIOS XMP profile, and confirmed through CPU-Z in Windows. I was surprised at the software bundles: You can turn on/tweak overclocking from inside your Windows 7 OS instead of backing out to your UEFI, 3TB hard drives are supported after running an update, you can software switch between integrated or discrete cards, control your mobo settings & OS through your iPhone, etc.

One major issue in Windows: two out of the six USB ports are controlled by the Intel chipset and are marked as "Keyboard/Mouse" inputs (the two USB ports directly under the Ethernet port). Although these two ports detect USB hubs and USB drives, they will not detect certain external hard drives or the iPhone. They are designed to be underpowered ports. Also, the other 4 USB ports are run by a VIA controller, which is unsupported by Apple OS X Mountain Lion. Another issue in Windows: upon first install, the audio from the Intel HD Audio would stutter every few seconds. The issue seemed to have resolved itself when I also noticed that the Realtek audio was set to 96000Hz instead of the standard CD-quality audio of 41000Hz; so fixing this setting might have helped. Even with this oddity, I was impressed by the driver & software package for the audio, as it detects unplugging/plugging of ANALOG audio ports and lets you set up sound profiles.

Other Thoughts: For running the alternative OS X operating system, look for the model that's a step up from this in order to avoid USB chipset and audio issues (look for the Gigabyte GA-Z77x-UP5-TH).

I will come back if any issues arise so that the community can know about the quality of this board.

Build:
*Windows 7
*OS X Mountain Lion
*GA-Z77x-UP4-TH
*Intel Ivy Bridge Core i5 3570k
*G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900)
*OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SATA III SSD
*OCZ Agility 3 90GB SATA III SSD
*Hitachi 2TB 7200RPM HDD
*Seagate 1TB 7200RPM HDD
*Sony Optiarc 24X DVD Burner
*Thermaltake Water 2.0 Performer CPU Cooler
*OCZ Technology ZS Series 750Watt PSU
*Thermaltake Overseer Full Tower Chassis

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