Gigabyte Z87X-UD7 TH Motherboard Has 2 Thunderbolt 2.0

Gigabyte has officially announced that its upcoming Z87X-UD7 TH motherboard is now Thunderbolt certified. The certification stands for two channels, allowing for a data transfer of up to 20 Gb/s.

Thunderbolt 2.0 also incorporates the DisplayPort 1.2 specification, meaning that natively you'll be able to drive a 4K display, though only with a refresh rate of up to 20 Hz.

"Gigabyte is delighted to announce official certification of Intel's latest Thunderbolt technology on our flagship 8 series motherboard," commented Henry Kao, Vice President of Gigabyte Motherboard Business Unit. "This underlines our commitment to offering our customers the absolute fastest connectivity options, placing Gigabyte at the forefront of technological innovation."

"Thunderbolt delivers unparalleled performance, flexibility and simplicity to personal computing," said Jason Ziller, Intel's director of Thunderbolt Marketing. "As the first Dual Thunderbolt 2 motherboard from Gigabyte, the Z87X-UD7 TH introduces new and exciting possibilities for enhanced media creation processes and 4K video workflows."

Other features of the motherboard include a 16-phase VRM circuit, Gigabyte's UltraDurable 5 Plus feature set, Wireless 802.11ac along with Bluetooth 4.0, an integrated headphone amplifier able to drive up to 600Ω headphones, as well as Intel Gigabit Ethernet.

The motherboard is coming to retailers soon, and it is expected to feature a street price of about $430.

Niels Broekhuijsen

Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.

  • matter37
    20 Hz. How useful.
    Reply
  • UVB076
    Shouldn't it be able to do more than 20Hz if it's 20Gb/s
    Reply
  • JOSHSKORN
    came close to buying the ASUS version. Then, I heard about the new USB standard where I wouldn't have to worry about plugging it in backwards, which I always do. When that comes out, I'm getting myself one along with a Haswell-E CPU. DDR4 RAM will be expensive, though.
    Reply
  • The Greater Good
    $430 dollars? You could almost buy a dual socket server board for that price.
    Reply
  • teodoreh
    Cost of motherboard: 150$
    Cost of Thunderbolt cable: Priceless...
    Reply
  • HKILLER
    well it's for some one who wants a 3000 and up build in my opinion.cuz it has 3xPCIe3.0 which is able to run Triple SLI/CrossFire in 16x16x16.it's a very nice board for enthusiasts.for normal consumers....there are many other consumer friendly boards out there.
    Reply
  • mavroxur
    20Hz, how useless.
    Reply