Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H Motherboard – packs a punch at £80

I was extremely impressed with the Gigabyte Z77X-US5H last month, and was intrigued when Gigabyte offered me the GA-Z77-D3H for review, especially when they told me it was being sold for £80, or half the price of its bigger brother.

Obviously there have been compromises to meet such an aggressive price point … firstly it doesn't have SLI support and when running in Crossfire the user will be limited to x4 PCI E bandwidth. The PCB isn't heavily populated with high grade heatsinks either so we would recommend a case with decent air flow, especially when running overclocked.

For those people who want a no frills, Ivy Bridge system build with a single graphics card then the GA-Z77-D3H delivers mega performance for little money. We overclocked our Core i7 3770k to 4.7ghz with a Thermaltake Frio Extreme Cooler, and temperatures never rose past 68c under load. 4.8ghz was possible, and potentially more, if you are using a high end liquid cooler.

Gigabyte's strategy is enticing, they have removed as much from the board to meet the price point, but haven't compromised on overclocking capability. The GA-Z77-D3H achieved the same overclock as any of the high end motherboards we have in our labs and supported the high grade Corsair 2,400mhz memory without a single problem.

As the foundation for an extremely low cost Ivy Bridge system this is probably the best choice on the market. If you only need two SATA 6Gbps ports, have no desire to run Crossfire or SLI configurations then this one of the best deals you can get right now.

There is no doubt that this budget board is an overclocking monster able to hit the same heights as competing boards at twice the cost. Just be sure to flow some cool air over the components if you crank it high.

You can pick it up from OCUK for £79.99 inc vat

Pros:

• Only £80.
• Overclocks to the same level as many high end boards.
• Rock stable.
• Good bios.
• Did we say, only £80 ?

Cons:

• Won't win any beauty awards.
• only two SATA 6Gbps ports.
• no SLI.
• Crossfire will drop to x4 bandwidth.
• needs air flow in high overclock situations.

Kitguru says: If you have no interest in many of the ‘frills' then the Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H concentrates on delivering a rock solid overclocking experience.

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