GigabyteZ97X-UD3H Intel LGA1150 Z97 ATX Motherboard (4x DDR3, 6x USB3.0, 8x USB2.0, GBE, LAN, HDMI, DVI-I, DSUB)

I was having issues with my Asus P7P55 motherboard so decided to replace it.I chose this board as it has a fair degree of future-proofing for me including SATA Express and an M.2 socket.Well you can't just swap a motherboard alone so I bought it some presents such as an Intel i5 4690 processor and 16GB of Crucial memory.The whole kit is very fast with malware scans taking less than half the time they used to.Windows built in performance rating has gone from 6.2 to 7.7.The board package includes hardware monitoring software and also Smart Recovery 2 which I installed.Smart Recovery 2 takes an initial backup of the drive you specify (C: drive in my case) then does an hourly incremental backup.In my case the SATA sockets were a bit difficult to get at once the board was installed and I would have been better loading cables onto the board before installing it in the box but I managed.An excellent board and well recommended.

Great motherboard for the money. Very easy to set up; bios settings are easy to use. Updated bios version quicky and without any fuss. Ideal board for windows, possbily for those looking to use this for a hackintosh I'd suggest holding back until apple support this board on their own systems; maybe go for an older z87 board if that is your intention.

I can confidently say it's about as good as it gets for this price range. Wide assortment of features, easy to use and utilitarian UEFI BIOS and good looks to boot.Multiple SATA connectors, SLI and Crossfire support (though the second slot is x8 so I guess it depends on what card you will be using), USB 3.0 and generally good placement for connectors (SATA, fan headers etc) something my previous Gigabyte motherboard lacked.If you're building on a budget there's really no reason to go any higher than this.

With the exception of need ing a microscope to see the markings on the LED and switching panels it is a strong and easy to fit mother board. BIOS is straight forward enough. It has a DVI-D video output on the motherboard and not a VGA so bear that in mind if you are using an older monitor. I don`t know, being a amateur , if this is standard but the mistake I made was to fit a Asus graphics card before installing the OS. On first boot up this completely stalled the BIOS and meant I had no output to the monitor at all. Probably this is standard but I just thought I`d mention it to help out anyone else who made the same mistake.. I removed the graphics card and rebooted the BIOS and that solved it. Then reintalled the card after the OS.

I use this board in my Hackintosh/Gaming PC and it works flawlessly. It was harder than I thought it would be to get working but I won't blame that on the board.The BIOS is easy to configure and is pretty intuitive. Has plenty of expandability and good port selection. Connectors are well placed for cable management and the (paper!) manual is very complete and explains everything well.If you aren't building a Hackintosh I'd definitely still recommend this board as the included Windows software works very well and the BIOS updated I needed to carry out was made extremely simple using this.

Great motherboard, helping me keep my PCI audio interface alive and at an awesome price

BIOS is easy to understand, it looks great and it feels like a premium product. One minor note is that the heat-sinks around the VRM area feel a little loose, but not something I'd worry about.

Brilliant bit of kit, very clever bios settings allows all sorts of custom settings