Overclocking - The Hardware

Gigabyte has offered Dual-BIOS implementations in the past, but what I found on the Z87X-UD3H definitely takes what was offered and improves upon it. The end user has full control of what BIOS is in use via switches on the board itself, and you can even disable the secondary BIOS to simplify the boot process; and a handy dual-digit POST LED display lets you know what is going on as the board boots up.


There are measuring points on the board's upper-right edge, and although there are no plugs here, soldering some cables or probing with a multi-meter should work just fine for those using this board for a bit of hardcore overclocking, or to compare software and hardware voltage readings. Close-by ON/OFF and RESET buttons allow you to use a test bench only without having to wire in switches—just install what you need and hit the button. A CMOS Clear button and switches for controlling how the Dual-BIOS works are here as well.


Power delivery on the Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H is a bit more robust than it might appear after a quick glance. There is an obvious dual-phase DIMM VRM design, but the CPU VRM with just eight phases fits into a small corner of the socket area. The coolers for the VRM section almost cover more than twice the length of all the important bits, and I noticed that the thermal pad makes contact with the surrounding board's surface as well, so there is more than ample cooling to push this board hard for 24/7 use. I also noticed a SATA power plug at the board's right edge for additional power to the PCIE slots when clocking VGAs hard. The 3.3V rail can be an important part of clocking VGAs, and using a SATA power plug allows additional power to be delivered specifically to that part of the PCIE power design, which eliminates the need for a custom VRM section to switch from 12 V on, say, boards using PCIe 6-pin power plugs, or the 4-pin MOLEX solution.


Here is something else I noticed, and it might help put a comment in a past review into perspective. Gigabyte uses a 6-layer PCB for the Z87X-UD3H, a board that is $100 cheaper than the MSI MPOWER MAX I reviewed a short while ago, and MSI's board was almost FLAUNTING its use of a 6-layer PCB. I'm not sure why MSI would put a spotlight on its PCB when many boards use 6-layer designs, but if there is something important to it, Gigabyte's Z87X-UD3H clearly covers it as well.


Another shocking find for me was the inclusion of not one but two Super I/O chips, pictured above. All those 4-pin PWM fan plugs and the monitoring functions have to come from somewhere, but it is still possible to provide such features with one Super I/O chip. The Gigabyte Z87X-OC uses a very similar design, another hint that this board might be more than first meets the eye, and overclocking is clearly a big part of its overall design, even if it is not exactly advertised. (Thanks to a forum member, it was pointed out that the ITE IT8892E is a PCI Express to PCI bridge which obviously powers the PCI slot.)