It might cost more than half the price of a solid budget gaming box, but we've got to hand it to Gigabyte - the Z77X-UP7 packs an incredible amount of stuff into its own box. This is designed for those chasing the ultimate in performance, and the ability to mount four AMD or NVIDIA GPUs in this beautifully designed board is just the beginning. 32+3+2 Phase Power has to be a new record, making this a solid rig for setting world overclocking records, while the use of Gigabyte's ground-breaking PowIRstage ICs deliver much lower operating temperatures.
Onboard overclocking controls mean you can tweak the voltage and base clock without even entering the BIOS or desktop, while Gigabyte's proprietary 333 acceleration technique deliver slight increases to USB 3.0 and SATA bandwidth.
Extremely high-end material is used to build the board, which also makes it humidity-resistant, so its great for some extreme LN2 overclocking. A huge range of ports make this one of the most plug-friendly boards we've seen, while built-in Bluetooth 4.0+ and 802.11 a/b/g/n removes the need for a wireless NIC.
There are dozens of other features here too numerous to mention, and there's only thing lacking - a decent integrated sound solution. At this price we'd love to see a Creative DSR but instead we're given a Realtek cheapo to listen to. However, if you're running your own soundcard, and want the most powerful, overclockable, feature-laden motherboard on the market, this could be just what the doctor ordered.
Pros
Very Fast
Beautifully thought out
Does everything
Cons
Basic onboard audio
Rather expensive
Conclusion
Gigabyte has delivered a compelling contender for the upper end of the PC gaming market. You probably won't use half of its features, but it's nice to know they're there.
http://www.gigabyte.com/MicroSite/316/z77x-up7.html
