In addition to the G1.Assassin 3, Gigabyte showed off its first motherboards with Thunderbolt 2.0 connectors. Armed with 20 Gb/s of bandwidth, Thunderbolt 2.0 gives you enough bandwidth to drive high-resolution displays (beyond WQHD), and storage arrays with SSDs. Among these motherboards are the Z87X-UD7 TH. Gigabyte distinguished the "UD7" brand extension from "OC," which marks products that prioritize performance-enhancing components over connectivity, while the UD7 leads the company's mainline Z87X pack with top-grade connectivity, and electricals not too far behind the Z87X-OC.

The Z87X-UD7 TH is built in the standard ATX form-factor. It draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, 8-pin EPS, an optional 4-pin ATX, and an optional SATA power input. It uses a 16-phase VRM to power the CPU, which uses high-grade PowIRstage driver-MOSFETs. The VRM cooler is a combination of an active air-cooled heatsink, with a coolant channel that lets you make it part of your liquid cooling loop. This cooler shares some of its heat with the heatsink covering the PLX PEX8747 bridge chip, and the PCH, which also features a fan-heatsink. The board features five PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots, of which three are gen 3.0 x16 capable, and four gen 3.0 x8 capable. A mechanism lets you bypass the bridge chip, and connect a single graphics card directly to the CPU. Two PCI-Express 2.0 x1 slots complete the expansion area.Storage connectivity on the Z87X-UD7 include ten SATA 6 Gb/s ports. The biggest feature of the board, of-course, is Thunderbolt 2.0. The board features a pair of them, one of which gives out display from the processor's integrated graphics, and the other takes it in from a discrete graphics card. This way, your display+storage daisy-chains can be driven by discrete graphics cards, as well. Network connectivity includes two gigabit Ethernet connections, 802.11ac, and Bluetooth 4.0. The board features a large number of overclocker-friendly features, including onboard OC controls, voltage measurement points, manual multi-BIOS toggle, manual PCIe slot toggle, and diagnostic LEDs.

The Z87X-UD5 TH is just a Thunderbolt-equipped variant of the Z87X-UD5H. It draws power from a combination of 24-pin ATX, 8-pin EPS connectors, and optionally SATA power; and conditions it for the CPU with a 16-phase VRM, and offers three PCI-Express 3.0 x16 slots (x16/NC/NC or x8/x8/NC or x8/x4/x4). Two PCIe x1 and a legacy PCI slot make for the rest of it. Storage connectivity includes eight SATA 6 Gb/s ports. Like the Z87X-UD7 TH, it features a pair of Thunderbolt 2.0 ports, implemented the same way. Network connectivity includes gigabit Ethernet, 802.11ac WLAN, and Bluetooth 4.0.