Choices are what make life really interesting. Whether we have plenty of money and want to buy something high end or whether we have limited funds so we look for things we could afford, having the ability to pick out what is best for us is a luxury that we, unfortunately, often overlook. You’d think users with less money would take less time to decide since the options are slim, but that is simply not the case. Just in the motherboard market alone, each segment is very competitive with various configurations available to all users. In the entry-level and mainstream segment, manufacturers have a much more diverse offering because slapping on a high quality component means having to selectively reduce features, and vice versa.
Gigabyte, as one of the world’s leading manufacturers of motherboards and other PC components, knows the demand of PC users very well. They have a large selection of mainboards for Intel’s Z77 chipset, which includes motherboards of various form factors and features that are readily available in every part of the world. Their latest addition to the Z77 line is an entry-level ATX mainboard carrying the Ultra Durable 4 badge.
The Gigabyte Z77-HD4 supports the latest Intel Ivy Bridge processors as well as previous generation Sandy Bridge CPUs. The Gigabyte Z77-HD4 straddles the line between mainstream and entry-level segments. On one hand, the Gigabyte Z77-HD4 is priced lower than most ATX Z77 motherboards but it has flexible integrated graphics options in the form of HDMI and DisplayPort outputs in addition to the DVI and D-SUB outputs in the rear I/O. Unlike most entry-level mainboards, the Z77-HD4 carries the Ultra Durable 4 stamp from Gigabyte, meaning it is comprised of high quality components, including glass-fabric PCB, solid Japanese capacitors, ESD resistant ICs and Lower RDS(on) MOSFETs. The Z77-HD4’s glass fabric PCB design protects against electrical shorts caused by humidity over time, while better components ensure higher temperature and voltage tolerances, therefore resulting in a longer lifespan for the mainboard. The Z77-HD4 also comes with dual UEFI BIOS, which allows the system to recover immediately should anything happen to the main BIOS. The Gigabyte Z77-HD4 comes with a 3-year warranty.