GIGABYTE Z87-D3HP Review

Are you looking to upgrade to Intel Haswell / LGA1150 / Z87 but on a tight budget? We look at a budget-oriented motherboard from GIGABYTE.

Product on Review: Z87-D3HP
Manufacturer: GIGABYTE
Street Price: £110

We began our Intel Z87 venture by looking at GIGABYTE’s premium overclocking motherboard Z87X-OC. But today we will be looking at the opposite end of the scale by taking on an entry level model which focusses on helping those on a tight budget move to the new Haswell platform.

GIGABYTE’s Z87-D3HP will surprise many because it looks more expensive than it actually is. Many lower-end motherboards tend to cut back not only on features but also aesthetics but D3HP still oozes the quality of a higher-end model with its sleek matt black PCB and gun metal heatsinks. Ultra Durable 5 Plus comes as standard on this motherboard so consumers needn’t worry about the quality either. Can this really be too good to be true? Let’s find out!

About GIGABYTE

GIGABYTE was founded in 1986, establishing our uncontested position in continuous technological innovation. By focusing on key technologies and achieving strict quality standards, GIGABYTE has been regarded as an innovative and trusted motherboard leader in the globe. To keep pace in a rapidly changing world, we have offered a comprehensive product line covering Motherboards, Graphics Cards, PC Components, PC Peripherals, Laptops, Slate Devices, Desktop PCs, Network Communications, Servers and Mobile Phones. We are dedicated to building up a full-range digital

Technical Specifications

CPU
– Support for Intel® Core™ i7 processors/Intel® Core™ i5 processors/Intel® Core™ i3 -processors/Intel® Pentium® processors/Intel® Celeron® processors in the LGA1150 package
L3 cache varies with CPU
Chipset
Intel® Z87 Express Chipset
Memory
4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 32 GB of system memory
Dual channel memory architecture
Support for DDR3 1600/1333 MHz memory modules
Support for non-ECC memory modules
Support for Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules
Onboard Graphics
Integrated Graphics Processor:
1 x D-Sub port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920×1200@60 Hz
1 x DVI-D port, supporting a maximum resolution of 1920×1200@60 Hz
* The DVI-D port does not support D-Sub connection by adapter.
1 x HDMI port, supporting a maximum resolution of 4096×2160@24 Hz
* Support for HDMI 1.4a version.
Maximum shared memory of 1 GB
Audio
Realtek® ALC892 codec
High Definition Audio
2/4/5.1/7.1-channel
Support for S/PDIF In
Support for S/PDIF Out
LAN
Intel® GbE LAN chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)
Expansion Slots
1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16)
(The PCIEX16 slot conforms to PCI Express 3.0 standard.)
* For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16 slot.
1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x4 (PCIEX4)
2 x PCI Express x1 slots
(PCIEX4/PCIEX1 slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)
2 x PCI slots
Multi-Graphics Technology
Support for AMD CrossFire™ technology
Storage Interface Chipset
6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3 0~SATA3 5) supporting up to 6 SATA 6Gb/s devices
Support for RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10
USB Chipset
Up to 2 USB 3.0/2.0 ports (available through the internal USB header)
Up to 6 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (2 ports on the back panel, 4 ports available through the internal USB header)
Chipset + 2 Renesas® uPD720210 USB 3.0 Hubs:
Up to 8 USB 3.0/2.0 ports (6 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB header)
Internal I/O Connectors
1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector
1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector
6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors
1 x CPU fan header
3 x system fan headers
1 x CPU_OPT fan header
1 x front panel header
1 x front panel audio header
1 x S/PDIF Out header
1 x S/PDIF In header
2 x USB 3.0/2.0 headers
2 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers
1 x serial port header
1 x Clear CMOS jumper
1 x Trusted Platform Module (TPM) header
Back Panel Connectors
1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
1 x D-Sub port
1 x DVI-D port
1 x HDMI port
6 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports
2 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
1 x RJ-45 port
1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector
5 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out, Rear Speaker Out, Side Speaker Out, Line In/Line Out, Microphone)
I/O Controller
iTE® I/O Controller Chip
H/W Monitoring
System voltage detection
CPU/System temperature detection
CPU/System fan speed detection
CPU overheating warning
CPU/System fan fail warning
CPU/System fan speed control
BIOS
2 x 64 Mbit flash
Use of licensed AMI EFI BIOS
Support for DualBIOS™
PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.0, SM BIOS 2.6, ACPI 2.0a
Unique Features
Support for Q-Flash
Support for Xpress Install
Support for APP Center
@BIOS
EasyTune
EZ Setup
USB Blocker
Support for ON/OFF Charge
Bundle Software
Norton Internet Security (OEM version)
Intel® Rapid Start Technology
Intel® Smart Connect Technology
Intel® Smart Response Technology
cFosSpeed
Operating System
Support for Windows 8/7
Form Factor
ATX Form Factor; 30.5cm x 22.4cm

Packaging, Bundle & First Look

Z87-D3HP arrives in a large, attractive motherboard box which has been designed to catch the eye. The blue which GIGABYTE has been used signifies that this particular model is featured in the lower-end of the GBT product line. Nevertheless, the D3HP still retains the Ultra Durable 5 Plus features which the higher end boards also specialise in, which is great to see. As is typical of this type of packaging the rear contains more feature-set coverage and specifications for users to take in.

Inside, all of the items are well packaged and the motherboard itself is protected inside an anti-static bag.

The packaging for D3HP

Along with the motherboard, there are just a few items included, these are:

• 4x SATA3 6GB/s Cables
• Rear IO shield
• Case Badge
• Documentation: user manual
• Driver CD/Utilities

With this board being at the lower-end there are significantly less items included within the bundle compared to the higher end models.

The bundle includes various items

For a motherboard that costs so little – the D3HP oozes style. It looks considerably more expensive than it actually is.

The D3HP features a matt black PCB, black and grey ports/slots and grey/blue heatsinks. Due to the colour-scheme used this will combine especially well with a variety of different coloured hardware. The eagle eyed amongst you will notice that this board is still thinner than standard ATX (30.5cm x 22.4cm) and the SATA ports are facing upwards as opposed to the usual implementation of facing away from the PCI-E slots.

Sleek and pleasing to the eye aesthetics

On the next page we will take a closer look at the various aspects of this board.

Closer Look

We’ll now move in for a closer look at the different features found on D3HP, starting with the socket area. This motherboard is of course designed to work with Intel’s 4th Generation of processors – Haswell. The socket is LGA1150 but has the mounting holes for LGA115X so if you have a cooler that has been used on another socket such as LGA1155 then it will work fine here too.

D3HP uses a 4-digital phase power design and has 8-pin EPS power for the CPU. As with other GIGABYTE Z87 motherboards the D3HP has only a single heatsink covering the MOSFETs – the top of the motherboard has plenty of available space; especially useful if you are planning to install a water-cooling radiator in the top of your computer chassis. GIGABYTE have furnished this motherboard with Ultra Durable 5+ components – black solid CAPs are featured throughout and the board itself has a 2x copper PCB GIGABYTE have placed dual CPU cooler fan headers at the top of the motherboard which we are very pleased to see, since most high-end air coolers (and ALCs) require dual fan power.

LGA1150 socket with8-pin EPS Power

Moving over to the memory slot region there is support for dual channel DDR3. D3HP can accommodate up to 32GB capacity and DDR-2600.

GIGABYTE have generously put dual USB 3.0 headers beside the 24-pin power in order to deliver front panel USB 3.0 connectivity at the front of your computer case.

Dual channel DDR3 support – up to 32GB

Further along the motherboard are six SATA 3 (6GB/s) ports. No longer do we have SATA 2, and since SATA 3 is backwards compatible older SATA 2 devices will work fine anyway, their speed will just be capped. All of these ports are controlled via Intel Z87.

Rather than have these ports facing away from the PCI-E slots (on a right angle) the ports are facing upwards – this could present more of a challenge for cable management.

Neighbouring the SATA ports are the dual BIOS chips – these two chips offer a safe haven should you get into any trouble. Having dual BIOS is especially useful nowadays and it is fast becoming a prerequisite, even on lower end motherboards like this one.

SATA 3 (6GB/s) ports – no SATA 2 present

GIGABYTE have used a large gun metal grey/blue heatsink for the Intel Z87 chip which is situated just next to the SATA ports. This heatsink is substantial and more than sufficient in dissipating unnecessary heat.

A large heatsink covers Intel Z87 chip

The PCI Express region on D3HP has a variety of different slots, supporting AMD CrossfireX. The following are available:

1 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 slot (Running @x16)
1 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots (Running @x4)
2 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 slot
2 x PCI slots

So if you are using a single graphics card then it is best to use the top slot since this operates at x16. By using a dual graphics card configuration, the overall speed will drop to x4.

Different options for expansion slots

Lastly we come to the rear IO section, here there are plenty of ports to take advantage of, including the following:

1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
1 x D-Sub port
1 x DVI-D port
1 x HDMI port
6 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports
2 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
1 x RJ-45 port (Gigabit LAN)
1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector
5 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out, Rear Speaker Out, Side Speaker Out, Line In/Line Out, Microphone)

With Intel Haswell featuring an IGP there are outputs should the user require onboard graphics. Here there are three options to choose from, VGA, DVI and HDMI.

The Rear IO with lots of USB 3.0

Ultra Durable 5 Plus Features

GIGABYTE have extended their notorious Ultra Durable feature-set to 5 Plus to extend the lifespan of the motherboard and also deliver stability in extreme conditions. Below are a series of slides which demonstrate some of the features Ultra Durable 5 Plus brings.

GIGABYTE UEFI BIOS

GIGABYTE’s BIOS for Z87 has been given a much improved facelift. Compared to Z77, it is much more accessible and fluid which we are pleased to see. Gaining access to key areas couldn’t be easier thanks to the layout. GIGABYTE have left no stone unturned with this new revision, within each section there are options to tweak Haswell to your hearts content. Performance and voltage sections are a particular interest for overclockers and we have shown this below.

Test Setup & Overclocking

Test Setup

CPU Intel Core i7 4770K (Haswell) 3.50GHz
Cooling Noctua NH-U14
Motherboard GIGABYTE Z87-D3HP
Memory 16GB Corsair Vengeance Pro 2400MHz CL10 DDR3
Graphics XFX R7970 Black Edition
Storage Kingston HyperX 240GB SSD
PSU Corsair HX1050 80 Plus Gold Certified PSU

Benchmarks

Cinebench 11.5 – CPU Score
x264 HD 4.0 – 1st and 2nd pass encoding
SiSoftware SANDRA 2013 – CPU & Memory benchmarks
AIDA64 – CPU benchmarks
3DMark FireStrike – DX11 3D Benchmark
3DMark 11 – DX11 3D Performance and Extreme preset
Games – Tomb Raider, Crysis 3, Metro Last Light

Other Software

Temperature Analysis: Core Temp
Stress Testing Software: LinX
CPU Specification Monitoring: CPU-Z

Overclocking

The introduction of Z87 brings a return to BCLK overclocking. This will in turn deliver more flexibility for Overclockers compared to previous generations where the BCLK was locked to 100MHz and only the ratio could be adjusted.

For our overclocking tests we indulge in both practises – leaving BLCK on auto (100MHz) and only adjusting the ratio and adjusting the BCLK to establish how much flexibility there is.

We managed to squeeze 4.6GHz out of the 4770K with Z87-D3HP. It did struggle to beat the record currently set of 4.7GHz by Z87X-OC but nevertheless, this is a great result. The overclock required 1.34v. Increasing the vcore wouldn’t allow for 4.7GHz – although we could boot the LinX stress test generated a BSOD after 30 minutes in.

With the 4.6GHz overclock being our best, we will take this into our benchmark suite and test both stock and overclocked results on the subsequent pages. Our comparison results will obviously grow in the forthcoming weeks as we review more and more Z87 motherboards.

Power Consumption

It’s interesting to note the power consumption across all motherboards. Although they are using Z87 chipsets, energy results can fluctuate between manufacturers due to the features and specifications that are integrated. First of all, for the idle tests the system is cold booted into Windows and no additional applications are executed – the watts are noted on the external energy monitor we use and then the system is loaded with 3DMark FireStrike – watts are again monitored for the duration of the test and the highest rated wattage result is then noted down. Below are the results of this energy test.

Benchmarks: X264 HD

Simply put, this test measures how fast your machine can encode a short, DVD quality MPEG-2 video clip into a high-quality x264 video clip. What’s x264, you ask? It’s more or less the next-generation Xvid/DivX codec. I think it’s ideal for a benchmark because the application (x264.exe) reports fairly accurate compression results (in frames per second) for each pass of the video encoding process, and it uses multi-core processors very efficiently.

Benchmarks: AIDA64

AIDA64 Product Page

This simple integer benchmark focuses on the branch prediction capabilities and the misprediction penalties of the CPU. It finds the solutions for the classic “Queens problem” on a 10 by 10 sized chessboard. At the same clock speed theoretically the processor with the shorter pipeline and smaller misprediction penalties will attain higher benchmark scores. For example — with HyperThreading disabled — the Intel Northwood core processors get higher scores than the Intel Prescott core based ones due to the 20-step vs 31-step long pipeline. CPU Queen test uses integer MMX, SSE2 and SSSE3 optimizations.

Benchmarks: Cinebench

CINEBENCH can measure systems with up to 64 processor threads. This test scene contains approximately 2,000 objects which in turn contain more than 300,000 polygons in total, and uses sharp and blurred reflections, area lights, shadows, procedural shaders, antialiasing, and much more. The result is displayed in points (pts). The higher the number, the faster your processor.

Benchmarks: SiSoftware SANDRA

3DMark 11 Product Page

SANDRA isn’t always a benchmark that is included in hardware reviews but I believe it shouldn’t be ignored. SANDRA provides a vigorous package that tests your system in a rather large array of benchmarks. There are many aspects of benchmark that can be executed. We will be considering – CPU and memory tests.

Benchmarks: 3DMARK FireStrike

3DMark FireStrike Product Page

Fire Strike is our new showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for high-performance gaming PCs. It is our most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today. Fire Strike will only be available in the Windows editions of 3DMark initially.

Benchmarks: 3DMARK 11

[quote]Designed to measure your PC’s gaming performance 3DMark 11 makes extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to consistently and reliably test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.
3DMark 11 is a very popular 3D performance benchmark suite and needs little introduction. For the test settings both Performance and Extreme presets are run with ‘benchmark only’ being selected. This provides good analysis. Many will only test the performance preset, using the extreme mode we can examine the board under much more severe stressing – at 720p and 1080p.

Benchmarks: Tomb Raider, Crysis 3, Metro Last Light

It’s important for us to perform a number of game benchmarks as well as the synthetic tests because gamers will want to know if there are any significant benefits. So here we have a selection of popular gaming titles, critically acclaimed and action-packed.

Settings
Tomb Raider
– 1920×1050 2xAA – Very High Quality *Benchmark tool*
Crysis 3
– 1920×1050 2xAA – Very High Quality *FRAPS – 1st scene/gameplay*
Metro Last Light
– 1920×1050 16xAF – Very High Quality *FRAPS – 1st scene/gameplay*

The gaming titles selected demand GPU power over CPU power – in each test the difference is rather marginal. VSync is disabled in all titles.

Conclusion

Usually when picking up a motherboard at the lower-end means sacrificing on both features and also the styling, but not so with the D3HP. It retains that high-end feel, with its alluring aesthetics. GIGABYTE now have some of the best looking motherboards on the market and we are pleased that even the models which are cheaper by comparison are still being given this treatment too.

D3HP managed to maintain good overall performance in all our benchmark tests. Applying an overclock couldn’t be easier due to the now renovated BIOS. GIGABYTE have given their BIOS a facelift – the navigation is fast and we really like the layout, it makes things much easier to set up. We managed to squeeze a 4.6GHz overclock out of our Intel Core i7 4770K with just 1.34v vcore, showing that it is capable of the performance tuning you might expect from board costing much more.

We really like the fact there is lots of space at the top of the motherboard. The absence of a heatsink at the top makes way for better water cooling radiator support if the consumer decides to house one in the top of the computer case.

Just like the other motherboards in GIGABYTE’s portfolio which feature the Z87 chipset, Ultra Durable 5 Plus comes as standard. This translates to better build quality and stability compared to rival brands.

Priced at just £110 the Z87-D3HP is amazing value for money. A motherboard of its calibre with P67, Z68 or Z77 chipset would have cost much more. D3HP is ideal for those who are on a tight budget but still want plenty of features and good quality.

GIGABYTE’s Z87-D3HP is excellent value for money. A board of its calibre should really cost more, it retains the visual appearance, build quality and features of a higher-end model but is priced at only £110. Those who are wanting a slice of Haswell and Z87 and who are on a budget should look no further.

Pros
+ Looks very stylish- will combine with other hardware well
+ Performs well at stock settings
+ Easy to overclock
+ Nice layout – lots of space at top of board
+ Ultra Durable 5 Plus components/features
+ 3 years warranty
+ Very affordable

Cons
– Thin motherboard – right side mounting holes absent
– No SLI/AMD Crossfire Bridge included