Hardware Award
GIGABYTE Z77X-UP7
ERP: $399.99 | Website: www.gigabyte.com
Test Machine
Intel Core i7 3770K
Corsair Dominator Platinum
2666C10
Kingston HyperX 3K SSD
GIGABYTE GV-N680OC-4GD
Cooler Master M2 Silent Pro
1500W PSU
Windows XP SP3/Windows 7
64-Bit SP1
I
t’s never easy justifying
why one should buy a $400
motherboard when a $150
one like the Z77X-UD3H does
the job equally well. If you
look back at that review, you’ll
see that we loved that board
and even to this day we still
wonder how GIGABYTE ever
managed to make any money
10 The OverClocker Issue 21 | 2012
of it if only because of the
ridiculously low selling price.
On the opposite end of the
scale we have the Z77X-UP7.
This one is the most expensive
Z77 board from GIGABYTE
and certainly the most
expensive Z77 motherboard
on the market period. For
that however you get 4-way
SLI support via PLX switching
chips, but before you express
your disappointment. Realize
that should you use a single
graphics card you’ll suffer
no performance hit because
of the latency involved with
linking the PCI-Express hub
directly to the switching chip
first. On the UP7, the black
primary PCI-Express slot links
directly to the CPU so you’ll
get maximum performance
every time and all the time.
The rest is your typical
package, Bluetooth and WiFi
connectivity, V-check points,
Bclk and CPU multiplier on the
fly adjustments. It’s great and
we wouldn’t expect any less
from GIGABYTE right now. So
feature wise it’s packed. The
BIOS though is more of what
we’ve grown familiar with.
with the UP5TH, UD3H and the
like. It’s the familiar 3D BIOS
with all the setting we’ve seen
before. Oddly enough what
we learned during this review
is that, if you save a BIOS
to disk with this board (and
we suspect other GIGABYTE
boards) not only is the BIOS
file saved but the profile as
well and the settings that were
applied when said BIOS was