Gigabyte Z87X UD4H Motherboard Review

As overclockers we often demand more from our hardware and want something that is specially built to help us reach insane levels regardless of what hardware we are planning to run.  The drawback of these products is often cost and availability.  Causal overclockers and hardware enthusiasts will look to the mainstream for a suitable alternative.  The GA-Z87X-UD4H does not disappoint and features some great benchtop options like voltage test points, onboard buttons for power and reset and a sizeable PWM for better stability.  There is no doubt that a properly cooled "K" edition processor can run great on this board and there are plenty of heatsinks to ensure it can maintain that level for quite some time.
 
Motherboard layout is quite good and follows, what appears to be, a standard design layout that was established back with the Z68.  The design will support up to three graphics cards but is clearly optimized for dual card operation and supports the new PCI Express 3.0 standard which is native to the Haswell processor.  

The Z87X-UD4H comes with a completely redesigned UEFI interface that overlays the classic/advanced menu system.  The new Dashboard design is designed to help system tuners configure the UEFI and monitor key aspects of the system including real-time CPU and Memory clocks, voltage and temperature.  Much to our disappointment this enhanced dashboard is only usable for those with a monitor that will do native 1080p.  

Overclocking the GA- Z87X-UD4H was pretty straight forward due in part to the familiar Gigabyte UEFI.  The larger Power IR Digital PWM really helped stabilize the system at higher speeds and produced very little heat compared to what we had expected.   It should be noted that memory overclocking on this motherboard is quite good thanks to the Haswell architecture and support for 3000Mhz memory modules.