Gigabyte is one of the oldest motherboard manufacturers that made component choice, PCB construction, and the resulting durability as a selling point, with its Ultra Durable moniker. Each succeeding version of Ultra Durable denotes a higher grade of durability, with the introduction of newer classes of components that add to the durability. Ultra Durable started off as denoting motherboards with all Solid-state capacitors (conductive polymer), that are more durable compared to electrolytic ones. Ultra Durable 2 upped it with Ferrite Core chokes that have lower energy loss to noise and head, and lower resulting RDS(on) MOSFETs. Ultra Durable 3 further upped that with a PCB that has additional copper layers that help improving signalling, grounding, and cooling.

Today, Gigabyte added the fourth version of Ultra Durable, that addresses more elements that threaten the durability of a motherboards. Ultra Durable 4, as it's called, is a set of technologies that are layered on top of Ultra Durable 3, and addresses the problems of humidity, electrostatic discharge, high temperature, and power surge. Humidity is a natural element, moisture eats into components that have pure metals such as aluminum and copper, over time. Electrostatic discharge has a devastating impact on sensitive electronics, while power surges, usually caused after recovery from a power outage, can fry power conditioning electronics of the motherboard. And then we all know what high-temperature can do to tiny capacitors and FETs.Gigabyte plans to address humidity using a new fiberglass PCB material, that provides a level of insulation. While not exactly addressing condensation, it will reduce corrosion of PCB contacts against moisture. Moving on to ESD protection, ICs used on Ultra Durable 4 motherboards will be so chosen to be highly resistant to ESD. Addressing power-surges, Gigabyte is going to use an active surge protection system that goes beyond fuses. There will be a surge-protection IC. Ultra Durable regulars such as high-grade solid-state capacitors, ferrite-core chokes, and low RDS(on) MOSFETs address the problem of temperature.

One of Gigabyte's very first Ultra Durable 4 motherboards is the GA-H61M-DS2, a micro-ATX socket LGA1155 motherboard based on the Intel H61 chipset. This board features PCI-Express 3.0 slots, is ready for upcoming 22 nm Ivy Bridge processors, and uses HybridEFI BIOS that lets you boot from volumes bigger than 2.2 TB in size. Gigabyte chose to feature this board on its poster because this segment is where the most money is, where there's the most fierce competition between motherboard manufacturers.