Gigabyte has also revealed their upcoming GA-Z97X-UD7 TH featuring the next generation Intel Z97 Express Chipset, Thunderbolt 2 connectivity and many more. Gigabyte’s Z97 Ultra Durable motherboards are their legacy lineup featuring most of the features that a regular consumer needs in a board. Check out more details about the Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD7 TH below.
The Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD7 TH features the next generation Intel 97 Express chipset and Intel socket 1150 that supports 4th Gen Haswell, Haswell Refresh, Devil’s Canyon and 5th Gen Broadwell processor as well. Some of the main features of this board is that is has Thunderbolt2 connectivity, SATA Express connectors and a Dual BIOS chip. Unfortunately this board doesn’t have a built-in M.2 PCIE port for NGFF SSD, which is supposed to be one of the main features of a Z97 motherboard.
Anyway, the Gigabyte Z97X-UD7 TH draws its power from an 8pin power connector and a standard 24pin ATX power connector. There’s a power button on the board and some other switches, and LED code indicator. But there are no OC buttons like in the Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SOC Force. There are voltage checkpoints though right beside the CMOS switch button near the DIMM slots.
It has 4x DDR3 DIMMS slots, 4x SATA 6GBp/s ports, 2x SATA Express ports, a SATA power port, some USB headers and lots of fan headers. It has 3x PCIE 3.0 x16 slots supporting NVIDIA SLI and AMD CrossFireX, and 3x PCIE 3.0 x1 slots for add-in expansion cards. There are two BIOS chips on this board, but I don’t see any Sound Core audio chip despite having an IME shielding or the LED path coming from the Audio ports down to the F_Audio header (separating the audio components from the other components of the board).
I can’t see the real I/O panel, but for sure there are a number of USB ports, a VGA and DVI port, audio ports, Thunderbolt port, LAN and others ports I am not sure of. The Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD7 TH is expected to be officially launched together with the other Gigabyte Z97 motherboards, probably on May 10.
Check out the other Z97 motherboards that were recently revealed:
Gigabyte GA-Z97X-G1 Gaming G1 WiFi Black Edition Z97 Motherboard Revealed
Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SOC Force Z97 Motherboard Revealed – Made For Overclockers
Asus ROG Z97 Motherboards – Maximus VII Gene, Maximus VII Hero and Maximus VII Ranger Revealed
Asus Z97-WS, Z97 Deluxe, Z97-Pro, Z97-A and Z97I Plus Mini ITX
Asus TUF Z97 Motherboards Revealed – Includes Sabertooth Z97 Mark I, Sabertooth Z97 Mark 2 and Asus Gryphon Z97
Entire MSI Z97 Gaming Motherboard lineup Revealed
