Gigabyte has been producing G1-Killer branded motherboards for every*platform since X58, targeted at gamers and power users. Is the feature-packed Sniper 5 worth the considerable premium over regular Z87 motherboards?
In a nutshell, yes and no, depending on your specific requirements.
One thing that immediately stands out when you look at the board is the four green PCIe x16 slots, which uses a PLX switch like the Asus Maximus VI Extreme to enable up to 4-way GPU operation on the regular Haswell platform. I don’t know why anyone would build such a rig with Haswell except for the purposes of competitive benchmarking, since it would most certainly be bottlenecked by the CPU/memory subsystem and additional PCIe latencies induced by lane switching – the X79 high end desktop platform is more purpose-built for this.
There is also green LED backlighting under the motherboard which should look spectacular inside a windowed case.
One thing that immediately stands out when you look at the board is the four green PCIe x16 slots, which uses a PLX switch like the Asus Maximus VI Extreme to enable up to 4-way GPU operation on the regular Haswell platform. I don’t know why anyone would build such a rig with Haswell except for the purposes of competitive benchmarking, since it would most certainly be bottlenecked by the CPU/memory subsystem and additional PCIe latencies induced by lane switching – the X79 high end desktop platform is more purpose-built for this.
There is also green LED backlighting under the motherboard which should look spectacular inside a windowed case.
Glancing at the rear I/O panel, we see the usual plethora of ports, with the connectors carrying analog signals getting the gold-plated treatment to prevent oxidation, which is a nice touch. The board designers also ditched the the legacy display options, deploying two full-sized HDMI and one DisplayPort to enable IGP triple monitor outputs.
Considering the premium positioning of the motherboard, we were tad disappointed not to see the inclusion of Thunderbolt here.
Considering the premium positioning of the motherboard, we were tad disappointed not to see the inclusion of Thunderbolt here.
An Atheros based 802.11N/Bluetooth 4.0 wireless expansion card is also bundled with the package, together with a 2×2 antenna.
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(test conducted with RMAA 6.2.5 loopback, 24-bit, 96 kHz)
As with previous G1.Assassin/Sniper offerings, the Creative based onboard audio solution is a major selling point of the motherboard. This time, Gigabyte is using a Creative Core3Di DSP (hidden under the metal shield) augmented by low profile Muse capacitors, a couple of discrete operational amplifiers and special PCB isolation to deliver “close to audiophile” experience. It is also the first time they’re pushing a swappable opamp gimmick – choice of either OPA2134 (bassy and coloured) or LM4562 (neutral) depending on your listening preference.
There is a dedicated “headphone port” at the back which is serviced by a TI DRV632 line driver, but I couldn’t find any hardware or software to toggle the output gain for anything other than 600 ohm headphones (typically super high-end end), rendering it useless (too loud and audible background hiss) for the regular 32-300 omp users.
Another marketing bullet point that has also found its way on this board is the inclusion of the Killer E2200 Gigabit NIC, advertised to offset some load from the CPU and reduce gaming latencies by sub-milliseconds, ostensibly with 300MB QOS driver/utility bloat. Thankfully, a no-frills Intel I217V PHY services the other available Gigabit connection.
There is a dedicated “headphone port” at the back which is serviced by a TI DRV632 line driver, but I couldn’t find any hardware or software to toggle the output gain for anything other than 600 ohm headphones (typically super high-end end), rendering it useless (too loud and audible background hiss) for the regular 32-300 omp users.
Another marketing bullet point that has also found its way on this board is the inclusion of the Killer E2200 Gigabit NIC, advertised to offset some load from the CPU and reduce gaming latencies by sub-milliseconds, ostensibly with 300MB QOS driver/utility bloat. Thankfully, a no-frills Intel I217V PHY services the other available Gigabit connection.
**
In addition to the six SATA 3.0 ports (black) provided by the Z87 Lynx Point PCH, the Sniper 5 also uses a Marvell 88SE9230 controller to provide another two SATA ports (grey), which is nice as the typical buyer of this board is most definitely also a prolific filesharer. Two internal USB 3.0 headers service enclosures with more of such connectors.
System builders and overclockers will be pleased with the optimal placement of the Power/Reset buttons, voltage probe points and PORT-80 diagnostic LED, unobstructed and near the edge of the board. A pair of switches (near the DIMM slot) controls dual-BIOS selection and failover behaviour.
A large hybrid heatpipe/waterblock covers the VRMs, with a small 40mm fan providing active airflow in that area.
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The G1.Sniper 5′s very, very over-engineered CPU VRM department includes sixteen 60A inductors, 60A rated IR3550 PowerIRstages and a 8-phase IR3563B digital PWM capable of 2MHz switching, augmented by a IR3599 doubler… all these best in class arsenal just to service Haswell which consumes around 130W under the typical 4.5GHz air/water overclock. Only sub-zero cooling enthusiasts like Gigabyte’s very own HiCookie can really put it through its paces.
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Moving on to the UEFI BIOS department, we’re pleased to see that Gigabyte has ditched the “3D Touch BIOS” fail-bloat design of old and replaced it with a functional interface which even has native 1080p widescreen support. Navigating through the menus with keyboard or mouse was snappy and the options were well labelled. A conventional fall-back GUI is also accessible by hitting F2 key.
After some hours of experimentation, we concluded that the AUTO parameters for the iR PWM and Haswell FIVR were fairly aggressive already and most air/water users only need to just raise vCore and change the CPU multiplier for the typical 4.5GHz Haswell (1.2-1.25v) overclock. Alternatively, one could just use the provided factory OC presets.
At time of writing (with BIOS F7), we had difficulty getting Samsung-based memory kits to work reliably in dual channel (same ones worked on on Asus/MSI Z87 boards). Meanwhile, Hynix/PSC based generic or XMP modules worked flawlessly. Somebody at Gigabyte ought to look into this.
The old and obtuse ET6 software suite which has been around for the previous few generations has been replaced by the all-new Easytune, which has the tunables and monitoring values arranged coherently in one window. Due to chipset limitation, memory timing values are read-only and we were also sometimes prompted to reboot the system after making some changes.
Overall, my impression of the Gigabyte G1.Sniper 5 is that it is a fairly competent motherboard – I’m just not convinced that it should command a fairly pricey US$369.99 (NewEgg) / SGD$749 (Cybermind) with its rough edges, especially when you can get the average decent Z87 motherboard for half its pricetag.
After some hours of experimentation, we concluded that the AUTO parameters for the iR PWM and Haswell FIVR were fairly aggressive already and most air/water users only need to just raise vCore and change the CPU multiplier for the typical 4.5GHz Haswell (1.2-1.25v) overclock. Alternatively, one could just use the provided factory OC presets.
At time of writing (with BIOS F7), we had difficulty getting Samsung-based memory kits to work reliably in dual channel (same ones worked on on Asus/MSI Z87 boards). Meanwhile, Hynix/PSC based generic or XMP modules worked flawlessly. Somebody at Gigabyte ought to look into this.
The old and obtuse ET6 software suite which has been around for the previous few generations has been replaced by the all-new Easytune, which has the tunables and monitoring values arranged coherently in one window. Due to chipset limitation, memory timing values are read-only and we were also sometimes prompted to reboot the system after making some changes.
Overall, my impression of the Gigabyte G1.Sniper 5 is that it is a fairly competent motherboard – I’m just not convinced that it should command a fairly pricey US$369.99 (NewEgg) / SGD$749 (Cybermind) with its rough edges, especially when you can get the average decent Z87 motherboard for half its pricetag.
Read More: http://vr-zone.com/articles/gigabyte...iew/57486.html
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