Z77X-UD3H Review and OC Testing
- Box and Accessories
- Board Layout and Design
- Circuitry Analysis
- Overclocking on Water and LN2
- Test Setup and Benchmarks
- Included Software
- Conclusion
Box and Accessories:
The box is white, it is pretty nice.
The back of the box has all the features listed as well.
Layout and Design:
Here we have the DIMMs, they are adequately placed so that there is enough but not too much room between the socket and the DIMMs to make sure performance is up to par. We have the OC features neatly put in this position, this is a very optimum position of benchers, as they usually use the board form this angle, and having them up north makes no issue for when you run multi-GPU systems. However if you have a memory POT for LN2 you might want to use the front panel pins, but this way there are two options for you to take advantage of. In this position we also see that there is a USb 3.0 port located in the correct position for a front panel USB 3.0 hub. There is also a SATA power connector, and this is for extra PCI-E power for when extreme OCing.
It is also important to mention that the DIMMs can be replaced even with an extra-long GPU installed. I like this kind of attention to detail for the motherboard layout.
Here we can see the POST code display, however I would have preferred it farther north as on the UD5H, but for most this makes no difference. We can also see a switch near the front panel pins, and this is to switch between the main and backup BIOS.
This shot shows us the SATA ports, the white are Intel SATA6GB/s and the black are Intel SATA3GB/s. The SATA power connector here is for extra PCI-E power for OCing extreme GPUs.
That is the PCI-E a lot layout, the last 4X slot is actually from the PCH, while on the UD5H it is from the CPU. Thus here the last 16X(4X wired) is PCI-E 2.0 and on the UD5H it is PCI-E 3.0, but on the UD5H it will reduce the bandwidth of the first two slots, while it will not on the UD3H.
The back of the board is clean.
Circuit Analysis:
My favorite part of the motherboard review is the analysis of the circuits. I just really like when I can see a motherboard without the heatsinks, that way I can find out how everything works. So this time and next time I do the circuit analysis, I will lay out all the major ICs in a large chart, perhaps it is will make it easier to see what they do.
First however we need to cover the most important part, the PCH:
On the UD5H and the Sniper3 the doubler and two drivers are used as they are on the image on the right. On the Z77X-UD3H and the Sniper M3 for instance the doubler/drivers is instead used as two drivers in one chip. This conserves the switching frequency. IR3598 DataSheet
MOSFET Each Phase Consists of:
ONE X MOSFET uPI 4921N DataSheet
TWO X MOSFET uPI 4935NDataSheet
In the chart above you can see what each of the parts of the VRM does. The PWMs used are both Digital and they support all the switching power supplies on the motherboard, thus this board is fully digital powered as GIGABYTE advertises. This VRM on the UD3H is very capable; each of its phases has the same capability as 2 phases on most other motherboards. We are talking about up to 60A per phase under LN2 conditions, and an easy 30-40A during normal use per phase here. The inductors are also new compared to what GIGABYTE has used in the past, they are made by the same company who custom made the chokes on the X58A-OC. These chokes seem to support very high current output to be able to sustain high OCes like those seen on this motherboard. There is also sufficient output capacitance to support large transients, and their low-ESR allows for lower ripple.
Next we will take a look at all the other ICs on this motherboard.
BIOS:
Test Setup and Overclocking:
So please take a look at this guide to learn to OC with Z77 and Ivy Bridge: Ivy Bridge and Z77 OC Guide
So some air overclocking is really good with Ivy Bridge compared to previous platforms, except Sandy Bridge perhaps. However while my max OC with Ivy on air was higher than with my 2600K was for max valid, but Ivy isn't going to be stable just 100mhz less than max such as Sandy Bridge is. (5.3 on IB versus 5.2 on SB), my max stable ran hotter and about the same as my SB.
For this review I used this kit from Kingston, a 1600mhz Cas9 16GB kit:
This kit can actually validate 2200mhz on the memory with all four DIMMs, which is pretty good considering it's price and stock speed.
I also used the brand new Zalman AIO Liquid Cooling:
All together now:
OVERCLOCKING:
First for the OC section I will go over some very important OC points, such as max Voltages provided for extreme OC:
VCore MAX: 1.9v
VCore Increments: 5mv
VTT MAX: 1.4
VTT Increments: 5mv
IMC MAX: 1.4
IMC Increments: 5mv
CPU PLL MAX: 2.2
CPU PLL increments: 5mv
DDR Max: 2.1
DDR Increments: 5mv
Memory Multiplier MAX: 32X
LLC performance:
Max OC on Water:
Above was only done for validation.
CPU-Z Validator 3.1
Max air wPrime 1024 Stable:
Max OC on 16GB 4DIMMs occupied with the Kingston 1600mhz Cas9 Kit:
LN2 OCing:
Max CPU Clock:
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