With Intel's Haswell CPUs not set to ship for another six months or so, Ivy Bridge CPUs remain the best option today for those not looking to go top-end, but still want industry-leading performance. So it's of little surprise that the Z77 market at the moment is filled to the brim with variety, making it all the more difficult to find the "perfect" board - if such a thing existed. There are always trade-offs at a given price-point, but companies like GIGABYTE make it their goal to offer the best bang for the buck in many of their products.

The Z77X-UD5H is of no exception, and for its current price of about $180, the board is stacked. What we're dealing with here is an ATX option that includes 9x SATA ports (5 of which are 6Gbit/s), three PCIe x16 slots, 10x USB 3.0 ports (internal and external) and many connection options at the back. For all it offers on paper, the Z77X-UD5H looks to be an intriguing option, much more so than the more expensive Intel DZ77GA-70K we took a look at earlier this month.

Up to this point, we haven't taken a look at a Z77 motherboard of this exact price-point, but MSI's Z77A-GD55 at $165 does come close. Compared to that board, some differences can easily be seen. MSI's loses two SATA ports, two internal USB 3.0 headers and 2x USB 3.0 ports at the back. In the motherboard game, a couple of dollars can make a significant difference in this regard.