Intel's latest platform launch brought us many new things from board makers: new SKUs, new design focuses, and an overall increase in quality from all brands, top to bottom. I have reviewed many different board options available for purchase right now over the last few months, and many are available on discount when purchased with a new Haswell CPU. The focus in design and marketing from the part maker to the retail store makes this a very interesting and exciting time for me personally, as it shows the market progressing into what I think is the right direction. Companies are focusing on delivering exactly what customers want in ways we have never seen before, and that focus is needed to secure the market's success.

Every generation I pick one board I think everyone should at a bare minimum have. With Intel's Z77 Express, the Biostar TZ77XE4 is probably one of the best options for a decent OC experience if you want to keep a few pennies in your wallet. It simply offers more than many other similarly-priced boards, only lacking a bit in power consumption and high-end memory support. Most users are more than willing to accept those drawbacks since CPU overclocking with the board is the same as with any other Z77 Express product—it works, and works well. But things are much different with Haswell. There is no board I could comfortably recommend to everyone. MSI's GAMING series of boards is pretty damn good if you are a gamer, too good to overclock. For overclocking, ASUS provides a lot for very little with their MAXIMUS VI products, and other board makers also have great value-centric OC boards on offer. Then, I played with the Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H. Nowhere is overclocking mentioned. Not on the box, not in the manual, not even on their website. It really is "The Sleeper".

If you buy the Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H and just want some decent performance at stock with good features and efficient power consumption, you made the right choice. The benchmarking numbers show great performance at all times, it is pretty reasonably priced, and does not come fitted with a bunch of stuff most users will never use. And if you then decide to squeeze more out of your system by overclocking a bit, or a lot, you can, since everything you need is ready and waiting—on-board buttons, measuring points, special fan headers for watercooling units, added power plugs for PCIe ports. Options for VRM settings and memory timings...those are here too. What makes it perfect is that you are not paying for it. Those options are there like they were meant to be, no questions asked.