With Intel’s Next Generation chipset just around the corner, it’s time to give you folks a quick look at what’s coming down the pipe. A little while ago, MSI leaked their line-up, and now we’ve got a new board from GIGABYTE called the GA-Z97X-UD5H. One of the newest features of this board is SATA Express, which doubles up PCI Express lanes to increase bandwidth to SSDs. This feature alone is worth its weight in gold, especially for those who are regularly buried in large amounts of data and need to move it quickly.
While we aren’t allowed to provide any benchmarks or go in to new chipset specifics just yet, we can give you a taste of what might be, one of the higher performance, bang-for-buck motherboards, when Intel’s Next Generation chipset launches. The new GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-UD5H gives you updated features, and tweaks.
The Newest Feature – SATA Express
Higher performance SSDs are on the way which offer much higher bandwidth. And that’s why this new feature exists. Even if you don’t have one of those higher performance SSDs today, users will appreciate the added bandwidth that should give current SSDs the maximum capable performance. I haven’t been able to confirm if firmware updates can give current SSDs more performance as of yet. Still, this will help push current generation pricing down, resulting in pricing for SSDs that will finally make them affordable for all.
Even though this is a new feature to motherboards in this generation, it was discussed at the last Intel Developer Forum, mainly because engineers knew that standard PCIE and AHCI support was maxed out for SSDs. This new feature pairs the PCI Express lanes, providing a lot more bandwidth. Future SATA Express implementations will undoubtedly involve new controllers and chipsets to better manage PCI Express lanes and push bandwidth even higher. You can bet data centers and server administrators are drooling for what’s coming next.
A Closer Look at the GA-Z97X-UD5H Motherboard
The GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-UD5H is an ATX form factor board, and borrows from its Z87 predecessor in terms of cosmetics, which includes the yellow/gold colors. However, it looks a bit better this time. There’s plenty of room around the CPU socket for even the largest, high end CPU coolers. It still uses the LGA1150 socket, which means that your existing CPUs from that socket should be compatible as well.
User Controls
The board continues to offer users onboard controls, just in case your board isn’t in a conventional computer enclosure. There’s an unmistakable red power button, light blue reset button, and black CMOS reset button. Next to those are the Single and Dual BIOS dip switches. These will give users some extra ability for tweaking to reach some nice overclocks. Next to those are the voltage leads if you feel the epic need to zero in voltages for some insane overclocks.
The only thing that could cause an issue is the proximity of the two bios and system reset switches. They should be a bit further apart, just in case.
Storage Features Support
Expansion Slots – Game On
The GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-UD5H supports 2-way NVIDIA SLI and 3-way AMD CrossFireX, which is inline with the board’s price point. USB, audio, TPM, and front panel headers line the bottom of the board. The bottom left of the board holds the black capacitors GIGABYTE added to clean up the integrated Realtek ALC1150 audio. There is also a rear amplifier as opposed to a front. Given the number of users that prefer the rear audio connectivity, it’s a good idea to have both.
To date, GIGABYTE’s original Z87 series offered one of the best audi0 performances, and it looks like the Z97 series looks to be right on par again.
IO Connectivity – Is There Enough?
The back of the board offers 8 USB ports: 6 blue USB 3.0 ports, and 2 black USB 2.0 ports. The board has dual gigabit Killer NICs, though they are not the same as the ones on the G1.Killer series. Still, they’re plenty capable and work with bundled software to help shape traffic for gaming. The video connectivity includes a VGA port, DVI port, and an HDMI port. We haven’t seen a VGA monitor in many years now so I think it would be perfectly safe to eliminate this port and replace it with something more useful, like perhaps a Displayport.
New Software and UEFI BIOS Tweaks
The App Center gets some tweaks to clean up installation and make it easier to add new tools to the utility. While the DVD comes with options to install everything all at once or select just what you need, we aren’t sure what will be offered on the support website. Either way, the App Center features a lot of tools for managing fans, power consumption, and system tweaking through Easy Tune. It is a huge improvement over GIGABYTE’s efforts, prior to the Z87 series.
Continuing on, Easy Tune contains so many more options than ever for tweaking memory timings, voltages, power consumption, and offers pre-programmed overclocking settings. Simply select the option you want and the board’s resilient UEFI BIOS will apply all the settings at restart. Users with Haswell K series processors can expect very similar results. We still aren’t able to give you any numbers with any upcoming processors but we will soon as we get them.
The GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-UD5H’s stability depends on the UEFI BIOS. It’s more detailed and categorized than ever. It’s easier to navigate, and simpler to figure out. As for overclocking options, the GA-Z97X-UD5H has plenty of VREG to support a hefty, nuclear level overclock. There are presets that thus far have worked with extremely good CPU cooling. Therein lies the best method for overclocking success.
Final Thoughts Before Launch
The GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-UD5H may seem like a simple refresh, but the SATA Express feature gives it some legs to manage storage faster and more efficiently than ever. It also supports Intel next Generation processors, which are just around the corner. Granted, the Z97 does its best work with the latest upcoming high performance SSDs coming down the pipe, but it still supports existing ones perfectly, maximizing their potential. Thus far, the M.2 mSATA slot has been more handy than ever. Adding a 480GB mSATA SSD gives me the freedom to load up the SATA ports with other things. We’ll be ready very soon to reveal our findings.
For anyone interested in other models, GIGABYTE will be offering updates to many of your Z87 series favourites. These include a new GIGABYTE Z97X-SOC Force, UD5H-BK Black Edition, and Z97X-GAMING G1 Killer with and without Wi-Fi. We expect pricing to be very similar to the Z87 line when they first launched. Stay tuned and we’ll bring you benchmarks as well as the latest news as it becomes available.
What do you of GIGABYTE’s new board so far?