Gigabyte Z97X-UD5H Black Edition Review

Performance Analysis

In the Media Benchmarks the Z97X-UD5H Black Edition wasn't particularly quick but was still noticeably faster than the slowest boards on test, with a similar margin between it and the top spot. It also performed averagely in the game tests too but the most it was adrift was around four per cent in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.


The storage results were a tad strange - it managed the fastest M.2 write speed we've seen but it was a little slower on the read speed. The Z97 SATA 6Gbps speeds were bang on the money though and the read speed just managed to topple the fastest we've seen at 549MB/sec. As we suspected, the additional Marvell 88SE9172 controller-powered ports were pretty dire compared to Intel's SATA 6Gbps ports, managing only 354MB/sec read and a paltry 230MB/sec write. Needless to say you should avoid these ports (coloured light grey) with any SATA 6Gbps SSDs and limit their use to hard disks and optical drives.


The 4.7GHz overclock yielded some fantastic improvements, with the Media Benchmark overall score rising from 2,447 to 2,770, although this was comparatively slow thanks to the overclock being decidedly average and the same was true in the game tests. Thankfully, the Z97X-UD5H Black Edition redeemed itself somewhat in the audio tests where it lost only to the Maximus VII Impact, Maximus VII Formula and Gigabyte's own GA-Z97N-Gaming 5 in the dynamic range test and noise level tests, while the total harmonic distortion test was a little lower down the chart. Power consumption, especially under load, wasn't a strong point, although it was never more than 10W higher than the next most power-hungry board.

Conclusion

The closest motherboard price-wise we've looked at is the Asus Maximus VII Hero and for the most part the ROG board does have an edge in quite a few departments. It's arguably better-looking, has a more attractive and much better-featured EFI that's much more suited to big overclocks, plus all the little features such as on-board buttons and illumination. It's tricky to put Gigabyte's claims of server-level testing to the test too but something you can't deny is the lure of being able to upgrade to a future motherboard for free.

If your upgrade cycle is usually at least four years, then this might not appeal, especially as the kind of upgrade we're talking about will likely involve the need for a memory upgrade too (DDR4 is expected to be supported on the successor to LGA1150). At face value, the Z97X-UD5H Black Edition is a solid effort but not quite able to topple the similarly-priced Maximus VII Hero. If the upgrade offer suits your situation and therefore floats your particular boat then this could make it much more appealing though.