GIGABYTE Z77X-D3H Motherboard Review

[siopao1984]

---

Introduction & Specifications

Ivy Bridge has finally landed and accompanying Z77 motherboards have been available for a few weeks now. As one of the largest motherboard manufacturers, Gigabyte is ready with a full range of motherboards covering every price point from entry level to high end. The Z77X-D3H sits in the middle of the range. It has an affordable price and a feature set that should appeal to a significant section of the market.The Z77X-D3H is ATX sized and is, of course, a Z77 chipset motherboard supporting socket 1155 processors from the Sandy Bridge line and more importantly, the all new 22nm Ivy Bridge series. The major additions over the Z68 chipset are the addition of integrated USB 3.0 ports and native PCI-Express 3.0 capability.

We'll start off with a general overview of the Z77 Panther Point chipset. Note that some features including Intel's Thunderbolt interconnect are not available on most motherboards at this time.

Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Specifications

CPU	Support for Intel® Core™ i7 processors/Intel® Core™ i5 processors/ Intel® Core™ i3 processors/Intel® Pentium® processors/Intel® Celeron® processors in the LGA1155 package L3 cache varies with CPU (Some Intel® Core™ processors require a graphic card, please refer "CPU support List" for more information.)
Chipset	Intel® Z77 Express Chipset
Memory	4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 32 GB of system memory * Due to 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 4 GB. Dual channel memory architecture Support for DDR3 2400(OC)/1600/1333/1066 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	Chipset: 1 x D-Sub port 1 x DVI-D port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920x1200 * The DVI-D port does not support D-Sub connection by adapter. 1 x HDMI port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920x1200
Audio	VIA VT2021 codec High Definition Audio 2/4/5.1/7.1-channel Support for S/PDIF Out
LAN	1 x Atheros GbE LAN chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)
Expansion Slots	1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16) (The PCIEX16 slot conforms to PCI Express 3.0 standard.) * For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16 slot. * The PCI Express x16 slot supports up to PCI Express 2.0 standard when an Intel 32nm (Sandy Bridge) CPU is installed. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX * 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 PCIEX1_1/2/3 slots. The PCIEX1_1/2/3 slots slots will become unavailable when a PCIe x4 expansion card is installed. 3 x PCI Express x1 slots (PCIEX4 and PCIEX1 slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard.) 1 x PCI slots
Multi-Graphics Technology	Support for 2-Way AMD CrossFireX™/NVIDIA SLI technology (PCIEX16 and PCIEX * The PCIEX16 slot operates at up to x8 mode when AMD CrossFireX™/NVIDIA SLI is enabled.
Storage Interface	Chipset: 2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3 0/SATA3 1) supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices 4 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (SATA2 2~SATA2 5) supporting up to 4 SATA 3Gb/s devices 1 x mSATA connector * The SATA2 5 connector will become unavailable when the mSATA connector is installed with a solid state drive. Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10 * When a RAID set is built across the SATA 6Gb/s and SATA 3Gb/s channels, the system performance of the RAID set may vary depending on the devices being connected. 1 x Marvell 88SE9172 chip: 2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (GSATA3 6/GSATA3 7) supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices Support for RAID 0 and RAID 1
USB	Chipset: Up to 4 USB 3.0/2.0 ports (2 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB headers) * In Windows XP, the Intel USB 3.0 ports can support up to USB 2.0 transfer speed. Up to 6 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (2 ports on the back panel, 4 ports available through the internal USB headers) VIA VL800 chip: Up to 4 USB 3.0/2.0 ports on the back panel * Due to a Windows 7 limitation, please connect your USB device(s) to the USB 2.0/1.1 port(s) before the VIA USB 3.0 controller driver is installed.
Internal I/O Connectors	1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector 1 x 4-pin ATX 12V power connector 4 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors 4 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors 1 x mSATA connector 1 x CPU fan header 3 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
Back Panel Connectors	1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port 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 1 x RJ-45 port 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector 5 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out, Rear Speaker Out, Side Speaker Out, Line In/Mic In, Line Out)
I/O Controller	iTE I/O Controller Chip
H/W Monitoring	System voltage detection CPU/System temperature detection CPU/System fan speed detection CPU overheating warning CPU/System fan fail warning CPU/System fan speed control * Whether the CPU/system fan speed control function is supported will depend on the CPU/system cooler you install.
BIOS	2 x 64 Mbit flash Use of licensed AMI EFI BIOS Support for DualBIOS™ PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.0, SM BIOS 2.6, ACPI 2.0a
Unique Features	Support for @BIOS Support for Q-Flash Support for Xpress Install Support for Xpress Recovery2 Support for eXtreme Hard Drive (X.H.D) Support for Auto Green Support for ON/OFF Charge Support for Q-Share Support for 3D Power Support for LAN Optimizer (Intelligent optimization network management tool)
Bundle Software	Norton Internet Security (OEM version) Intel® Smart Response Technology Intel® Rapid Start Technology LucidLogix Virtu MVP * Make sure the monitor cable has been connected to the integrated graphics port on the back panel.
Operating System	Support for Microsoft® Windows 7/XP
Form Factor	ATX Form Factor; 30.5cm x 24.4cm

Read more: GIGABYTE Z77X-D3H Motherboard Review by VR-Zone.com

[siopao1984]

A Closer Look

The Gigabyte Z77X-D3H ships in a compact box that is refreshingly free of snarling beasts and mythical warriors.



The rear of the box is jam packed with every conceivable piece of marketing information on the board, and then some more!





The list of accessories is small as is typical with budget minded boards. There are the manuals and software/driver CD, rear I/O panel, single SLI bridge and four SATA cables. If you want all the bells and whistles, you will have to move up in the range.







The first thing that caught our attention when looking over the board is the presence of a four pin CPU power connector. Although it's adequate for the moderate power consuming Ivy Bridge processors, there is really no reason not to use an eight pin connector on anything other than entry level H77 or business oriented models. As we'll show in our testing later on, fortunately this has no impact on air cooled overclocking performance.

There's plenty of space for a huge graphics card, a mSATA connector, eight SATA ports, free PCIe 1x slots (even with a pair of dual slot graphic cards) and a legacy PCI slot for those unwilling to move on with the times. The look is clean and tidy featuring the good looking blue on black theme that Gigabyte have adopted in recent times. The Z77 heatsink is a decent size, yet for some reason only half of the bank of MOSFETs are covered by a heatsink. An extra buck or two added on to the price for another heatsink would be worth the additional cost in our opinion.



No problems with the back of the board. The soldering is immaculate and there no components present to interfere with large backplate CPU coolers.

We also see that the single MOSFET heatsink is of the push-pin variety. This is understandable on entry level boards but surely a pair of screws instead would be optimal to ensure maximum contact pressure.







The rear I/O connectors are shown below. We have a PS/2 port still preferred by many gamers and overclockers, a pair of USB 2.0 ports (black), six USB 3.0 ports (blue), two of which are provided by the Z77 PCH with the other four controlled by a VIA VL800 chip. There's a single gigabit LAN port coming from a tiny Atheros LAN controller, optical S/PDIF and the usual five analogue audio jacks. The plastic protectors cover the video outputs. There are D-SUB, DVI-D and HDMI ports.

[siopao1984]

A Closer Look Part II

The CPU PWM is controlled by an International Rectifier IR3567 digital controller which has been used with many recent Gigabyte boards. It's a 6+2 phase controller that offers fine granularity and control of features such as switching frequency, load line calibration and voltages themselves. This solution offers dynamic phase control (perfect for the variable turbo and C-state features of Intel CPU's) and I2C support for software control from Gigabyte's 3DPower Windows application..









The Z77X-D3H features two BIOS chips seen between the PCIe slots.







Below are the PCIe slots. The primary 16x slot is wired 16 x electrically, the second 8x and the third is 4x. The first two share 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes between them. All other slots are PCIe 2.0. There is an additional ITE 8892E bridge chip that operates the single PCI slot.





Gigabyte have added a mSATA connector in the area traditionally taken up by a northbridge heatsink. A space saving SSD can be placed here and would be useful for something like a SSD caching solution. When this connector is in use, one of the regular SATA 3GB/s connectors becomes unavailable.







Memory slot area with its own dedicated digital PWM.





This VIA (VIA Labs Inc.) VL800 chip provides four of the six USB 3.0 ports on the back I/O panel. The other two ports plus the front panel header come from the Z77 chipset.





The VIA VT2021 provides the audio for the Z77X-D3H.





The ITE IT8728F is the I/O controller chip responsible for features such as monitoring and fan control.

To the right of the grey SATA ports is a Marvell 88SE9172 SATA 6GB/s controller chip supporting RAID 0 and 1





This tiny chip below is an Atheros gigabit LAN controller that provides the single ethernet port.

[siopao1984]

The UEFI BIOS

Below is the default screen that is seen when entering the BIOS. Gigabyte calls this "3D BIOS". Moving the mouse around the picture of the board highlights different sections and components which are selected with a click. This allows a user not experienced with a traditional BIOS interface to quickly navigate to the settings they wish to change instead of wandering through menus. The interface works well and is a good implementation for inexperienced users.



At the bottom on the main page is the advanced tab on the left. This option takes you to the traditional BIOS pages.

The layout is identical to what we saw wth Gigabyte's X79 range which was their first to feature a UEFI BIOS. Below is the Motherboard Intelligent Tweaker page which contains the overclocking settings







There are three major submenus containing the various overclocking controls. The first is the advanced frequency settings page seen below. CPU multiplier, base clock and memory frequency can be set here.







The second menu on the M.I.T page contains the memory settings including the timings selection menu. The Z77X-D3H has a considerable range of secondary and tertiary subtimings for the tweakers to play with.







The third M.I.T. page contains the various power and voltage controls of the board. The comprehensive 3D power menu controls various PWM functions such as load-line calibration for the CPU, memory and IGP, voltage and temperature protection mechanisms and PWM switching frequencies.

The CPU and memory voltage control menus are self explanatory and also offer control over the various VTT, IMC and IGP voltages.







The final important page of the M.I.T section is the PC Health Status page which displays the monitoring information.







Moving over to the System page shows the basic motherboard information.







The BIOS features page is shown below. The boot settings and the CPU technology settings are shown here.







The Peripherals page is shown below and has a complete range of options to configure.







The Power Management page is shown below where the sleep and wake-up settings can be found.





The last of the major menus is the Save and Exit page which contains the profile selections. The Z77X-D3H now allows profile names to be saved which is a welcome addition.





Overall the BIOS feels matured and gives the impression of being quite polished. Already we are up to the F7 bios with dozens more betas seen since the board entered production. The work Gigabyte has put in over several months has paid off giving a polished feel in terms of functionality and compatibility. The menu layout is logical with good contrasting colour selections, feature descriptions and fully featured overclocking control. The memory multipliers work well with our test kits. Another thing worth mentioning is that the board has a very fast POST time, it's so fast that if you want to enter the bios, hit del quick as if you blink you'll be entering the OS in no time.

Nice one Gigabyte.



Software

Gigabyte has a range of accompanying software for the Z77X-D3H. There's the long used Easytune, Lucid MVP and applications for several Intel technologies

Gigabyte 3D Power utility

As we mentioned when talking about the IR digital PWM system, one of the benefits is the ability to adjust settings via Windows based software.

Gigabyte offers a program that allows users to adjust aspects of the system. Below is the default screen upon opening the 3D Power utility. Clicking on one of the three sides of the cube takes the user to voltage, frequency or phase control menus. These three menus offer control over every important aspect of the power delivery system. Although an impressive implementation of these features, most users that are likely to be altering settings such as these will probably do so from the BIOS.





Gigabyte GTL

Most vendors offer some sort of system control and overclocking utilities. Gigabyte is no different and have continually updated their Easytune software for several years. It works well for the most part, but power users and overclockers have always preferred lightweight, simplified programs. Gigabyte have listened to this feedback and have produced just such an app called GTL or Gigabyte Tweak Launcher. This great little portable app gives full control over clocks, voltages and memory timings. Basically everything an enthusiast overclocker needs.



The app should be available for download later and still needs a little work, at least when it comes to the Z77X-D3H. Core multiplier, voltage and memory timing adjustment work perfectly, but the frequency readouts still need a bit work. We have no doubt that these will be fixed upon the release of the app. We applaud Gigabyte for producing such an app free of bloat and a garish interface.

[siopao1984]

Test Setup & Benchmarks Part I

Our Ivy Bridge test systems included the Gigabyte Z77X-D3H and a Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe. We also threw in a Z68 system with a 2600K processor. Unless otherwise indicated, all benchmarks were run with the CPU's at 4.5ghz.

Test Setup:

CPUs
Intel i7 3770K @ 4.5Ghz
Intel i7 2600K @ 4.5Ghz

Motherboards
Gigabyte Z77X-D3H w/BIOS F7H
Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe w/BIOS 0906
Asus P8Z68-V Pro w/BIOS 1109

Memory
2x4gb G.Skill ARES 2133 @ 2400Mhz 10-12-11-30 1T (3770K)
& 2133 9-11-10-27 1T (2600K)

Graphics Card
Asus HD7970 Direct CU II TOP (1000/1400)

HDD
Western Digital Velociraptor 150gb & Kingston 120gb HyperX SSD

Power Supply
Antec HCP-1200

OS
Windows 7 64bit w/SP1

Driver
AMD Catalyst 12.3 WHQL


CPU Tests











Memory Tests





We expect mature motherboards to benchmark very closely to one another. This is also the case here. It must be noted though, the Z77X-D3H wins almost every CPU and memory focused test by the narrowest of margins.



I/O Tests

We began SATA 6GB/s testing with our regularly used SSD which unfortunately perished. We were forced to go to plan B using a 60gb Intel 520 series drive. While still a high performance drive, its 60gb capacity hurts its outright theoretical performance compared to the larger capacity drives in the range. This is quite noticeable with this benchmark's use of incompressible writes like those seen here. Nevertheless we have included the results for comparison here.





DPC Latency is a measure of the ability of the system to handle real time data streams. We tested the boards using two scenarios. Desktop idle and streaming a youtube video with sound. These results are best case scenarios but can be used as an indicator for gamers looking for the lowest possible ping times and minimal lag. Each system had its latest available network and audio drivers installed. It goes without saying that a system loaded up with accumulated windows junk will result in significantly higher DPC latency which can lead to drop outs, lag and freezing.

[siopao1984]

Benchmarks Part II

3D testing





The physics test was the main difference between the boards. The Z77X-D3H and P8Z77 Deluxe are very close with both physics scores easily beating the Z68/2600K system. The story repeats itself in the extreme test although graphics are by far the limiting factor here.



















3DMark Vantage Feature Tests




In these mostly GPU limited tests, the Z77 boards are mostly within the margin of error. The Z68 system is marginally behind in most tests. The combination of slightly lower IPC and PCIe 2.0 generally doesn't penalize the Z68 system as much as expected.

[siopao1984]

Overclocking

Ivy Bridge overclocking is proving to be something of a double edged sword. It's possible to overclock very well with low voltages compared to previous Sandy Bridge processors though it would seem Intel is yet to fully optimize their new 22nm tri gate transistor technology. Temperatures when pushing to the limits on air cooling are very high.

The extreme cooling crowd is loving it though. In the days since the launch, almost every competitive benchmark has been obliterated. Extreme cooling is something we will pursue in a future article. For now though, our attention is on the Z77X-D3H to see what it can do using a high end air cooler, in this case a Noctua NH-D14 with high RPM fans.

With this processor, we settled on a final stable CPU overclock of 4.6Ghz at 1.21v with default PLL voltage, and 'turbo' level of LLC (1 step below maximum). After 10 minutes of Linx, temperatures stabilized in the mid 70's.

4.6Ghz @ 1.21v



Beyond this point, sharp increases in vcore are needed. To pass SuperPi 32m at 5ghz we needed to set 1.41v which causes temperatures to hit the mid 70's, even for a single threaded benchmark! Anything multi threaded sees temperatures shooting into the 90's instantly, at which point we aborted any attempts to push further. Going above 5ghz will require ever larger voltage increases and unacceptable temperatures.

5ghz @ 1.41v gettin' a little hot under the collar..



In the end, Ivy bridge overclocking would seem to be limited by the capabilities of the chip more than the motherboard. As always with overclocking, your mileage may vary.

Moving on to memory overclocking, the Z77X-D3H was easily able to push our G.Skill ARES kit to well beyond 2600Mhz at 11-13-12-33-1T. Not bad at all from a 2133Mhz rated kit! Once the new wave of high speed Ivy Bridge optimized memory kits arrive en masse, we have no doubt that the D3H can push well beyond this range.

DDR3-2642 11-13-12-33 1T



Finally onto base clocking. We were able to hit 110Mhz straight boot from BIOS. With an effective 10% overclock from base clock alone, any Ivy Bridge CPU can get a nice overclocking bump on top of its highest turbo multiplier.

110Mhz base clock

[siopao1984]

Conclusion

The Z77X-D3H sits in the midrange segment of Gigabyte's Z77 line up. It has an impressive set of features for a board in this price range. Several competing boards lack features such as the extra pair of 6GB/s SATA ports, extra USB 3.0 ports and the mSATA connector. Add in its highly capable and stable overclocking ability with very good CPU and memory efficiency, a nice colour scheme and Gigabyte clearly has a very strong contender in the hotly contested mid range segment.

The BIOS is quite mature with no noteworthy flaws. Our tested memory kits worked very well and air overclocking was quite good. When pushing voltage, current E1 stepping CPUs will hit temperature limitations before we get to the point where the board is stressed. The 4-pin CPU power connector and partially heatsink-less mosfet section didn't appear to hinder overclocking in any way. Nevertheless, we can't understand why a common 8pin connector with full mosfet heatsinks weren't used. They may not be needed, but omitting them is likely to create the perception that the board is not designed to be capable of overclocking well. Perhaps Gigabyte wants to steer overclockers toward the higher end boards.

The Z77X-D3H left a good impression. It is currently selling for $149.99 at Newegg making it a very good choice for highly capable and highly affordable system.



Pros
Refined, quality BIOS
Plenty of USB 3.0 ports
Eight SATA ports
Easy and stable overclocking capabilities
mSATA connector
Great pricing
Very good CPU/memory efficiency

Cons
Why not use a 8 pin CPU power connector and full cover mosfet heatsink?
No onboard power and reset buttons.
Could do with a few extra SATA cables