The GIGABYTE Z77X-UP4-TH is based on Intel's Z77 Express chipset which supports Intel’s LGA1155 based CPUs. The board itself doesn't support a lot of features from a connectivity standard. You won't find a ton of SATA controllers, LAN ports, Wi-Fi etc. And while it's not a "super high end" motherboard, it does support those features offered by the Z77 chipset such as PCI-Express 3.0, SATA II 3Gb/s, SATA III 6Gb/s, Intel's Smart Connect, Rapid Response Technology, NVIDIA® Quad-GPU SLI™ Technology, AMD Quad-GPU CrossFireX™ Technology, and LucidLogix® Virtu™ MVP Technologies. In addition to all of this Gigabyte has included support for Intel's Thunderbolt connection. In fact unlike the ASUS implementation, the Gigabyte solution offers support for two ports instead of one.

So while this motherboard may not be a power house of features it's hardly what I'd call stripped down either. The board box advertises additional Gigabyte specific features like 2oz. copper PCB, Ultra Durable 5, lower RDS MOSFET, Digital power, and more. That's marketing speak which is something Gigabyte does a lot of. So let me translate that for you. Gigabyte means to say the board is well built. More specifically Ultra-Durable 5 is Gigabyte's highest quality electrical implementation to date. New ICs used in this design can handle a lot of current and as a result fewer power phases are necessary in the design. This explains the barren nature of the board's PCB around the CPU socket. It may look like it is missing some enthusiast backbone, but that is not the case.

And indeed one of the first things you'll notice if you ever pick one up is that the Z77X-UP4-TH weighs a ton for a board with so little in the way of integrated hardware. While not always true, I've often associated motherboard weight with quality in some odd way.