We’ll now move in for a closer look at the different features found on Z87X-OC, 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.

Z87X-OC uses an 8-digital phase power design which takes advantage of a whopping 12-pin CPU EPS power allocation. As you can well imagine, this motherboard means business, it has the means to harness plenty of power. 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. A substantial single-heatsink covers the MOSFETs, resulting in plenty of space at the upper end of the motherboard where GIGABYTE have placed dual CPU cooler fan headers which we are very pleased to see, since most high-end air coolers (and ALCs) require dual fan power.



Moving over to the memory slot region there are an abundance of high-end features that have been strategically placed. The memory slots are dual channel DDR3 compliant and can accommodate up to 32GB capacity and DDR-2400.



Beneath this there are a variety of controls to take advantage of which are perhaps deemed as being designed for high-end users. Rather than go through each specific control, below is a diagram showing you exactly what these options are.


With this unique panel of controls, overclock features can be modified on-the-fly. Settings can be cleverly locked, memory timings can be lowered to avoid problems and on next bootup you can have the BIOS load up straight away.

We like that GIGABYTE have also integrated the PCI-E switch so that specific slots can be disabled for multi-GPU configurations so that you do not need to physically remove the card. This is ideal for those looking to perform advanced cooling analysis.

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.

Also next to the HDD storage ports are dual USB 2.0 ports which are handy for those using the system on a test bench, a clear battery switch is also present right beside the USB ports.



GIGABYTE have opted for a large but uniquely styled heatsink for the Intel Z87 chip which is situated just behind the SATA ports. This heatsink is substantial and more than sufficient in dissipating unnecessary heat.



Z87X-OC is designed for multi-GPU configurations and has support for NVIDIA SLI (2-way) and AMD CrossfireX (4-way). This region is packed with functionality and has the following slots:

1 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots (Running @x16)
1 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots (Running @x8)
2 x PCI Express 3.0 x16 slots (Running @x4)
1 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 slot
2 x PCI slots

There is an additional power PEG slot at the top for the PCI-E slots should those using more than one card require it.

Next to the lower PCI slot are the dual UEFI bios chips. These also have LEDs to signify which one is currently being used – dual BIOS is obviously essential for Overclockers since you can often come unstuck and need to have a backup.



Lastly we come to the rear IO section and again this is jam-packed with features and plenty of USB 3.0 ports too. Included on this panel are the following:

6 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports , 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
1 OC Ignition button
1 x Coaxial S/PDIF Out connector
2 x HDMI connector
1 x Display ports
1 x LAN ports
6 x audio jacks, 1 x PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse port

The OC ignition button is exclusive to GIGABYTE’s motherboards; this is what GIGABYTE have to say about this particular feature: