Gigabyte G1 Sniper M5 Gaming Motherboard Unboxing & Overview
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,493 words · ~7 min read
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buy a qualifying Intel product and get entered in the Intel Dynamic ticket
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giveaway for a chance to win great prizes visit Intel gamingpro tocom to
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learn more so if you happened to look at our unboxing of the G1 sniper 5 from
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Gigabyte their Flagship gaming lga1150
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board and thought well I like that but
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it's a little expensive it's a little big I don't know if I need quite all the
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those features this is the board for you
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my friends this is the G1 sniper M5 which is the Micro ATX version slightly
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fewer Bells slightly fewer whistles same
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gaming oriented features so when I say gaming oriented features I'm talking
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about things like better on board audio as well as Bigfoot
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e2200 killer Nick on board so that
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prioritizes your gaming packets as well as having some other cool software
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features like limiting the bandwidth available to certain programs and stuff
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like that but at a lower cost in a
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smaller form factor and without some of the extras like the integrated uh
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Wireless and Bluetooth card and stuff like that so let's go ahead and run
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through the accessories that are included really quickly we've got an IO
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Shield there you go looks a little something like that conveniently labeled
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we've got an SLI Bridge it's the flexible SLI Bridge type and actually
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that's kind of a unique layout for it that's okay I'll talk more about the
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slot layout after we've got two right angle SATA cables
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and two straight SATA cables so a smaller accessory package a Gigabyte
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sticker a manual a driver disc download the latest off the Gigabyte website and
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this right here this is where shiz starts to really get real guys because
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when I say better on board audio I mean better onboard audio so they're using
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soundcore 3D which is a creative technology there's an audio processor
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here under what is a gold shield however
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it's sort of debatable how much of a difference that's going to make in terms of isolating it from Emi but what's
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important is that it's on a separated part of the PCB that actually has a
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green line that draws a serious business
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line between well here's the audio stuff and here's everything else so rather
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than having it on a riser card it's still on the motherboard so you don't use up a PCI Express slot which is
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particularly important for an matx board but that doesn't change the fact that
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it's a very high-end audio solution now this right here is upgradable opamp kit
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opamp up up GR kit that's what they call it sorry excuse me so there's an opamp
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socket and basically what an opamp does is it amplifies the audio signal this is
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important particularly if you have high impedance headphones that require a
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stronger signal in order to drive them however some people like to swap the off
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amps because it can change the way that the sound the the sound quality and when
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I say quality I don't mean in terms of goodness or Badness I means in terms of
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the qualities of it the uh the color the subtleties so it comes with with a pull
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as well as an additional different opamp and you can upgrade to other different
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aftermarket ones I'm not necessarily saying that I think it's the best use of
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your time and money but if you're one of those people who wants to Tinker and
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wants to play with it Gigabyte gives you the choice so there you go we've got an
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LGA 1150 socket right here supporting the latest fourth generation Haswell in
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core i5 I3 and i7 processors that means
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you've got full support for high-speed DDR3 memory running in dual Channel up
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to 32 gigs with the currently available 8 gig dims that are on the market we've
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got a high-end vrm solution under a
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pretty straightforward cooling Solution that's got a Gigabyte branding as well
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as Ultra durable branding on it they are using what they're calling their durable
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black solid cap so this is part of their whole Ultra durable 5 concept which
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includes better quality components their
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2 oz copper PCB concept as well as their
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glass fabric PCB which should in theory make the boards more resistant to
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humidity which might be more of a factor for people in climates other than where
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I live but hey it's good to have the features as opposed to not having them
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there are five fan ports on the board itself so there's CPU as well as CPU
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optional many people do use multifan cooling Arrangements on their CPUs these
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days and then down at the bottom you find an additional two and then here
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where you'd plug in a fan at the back of your case you find an additional one
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your eight pin connectors in its ideal location at the top left and your 24 pin
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connectors in its ideal location along the right your onboard switches are up
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here at the top right I like this better than having them down at the bottom of
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the board and the reason is that particularly on an open test bench and
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honestly even in a case you start installing graphics cards down here boom
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all this is covered having the connect having the front panel connectors or
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front panel buttons up here is more convenient so there is a simos switch so
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you can clear your seos there's a reset switch there's a power switch as well as
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a bio switch so there are two dedicated BIOS chips on this board and an LED
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indicator that tells you which one you're using so there's a main BIOS as
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well as a backup BIOS on the board itself and then over here we've got
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voltage read points which is extremely handy if you want to get into some
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extreme overclocking and you want to be able to get more accurate numbers than you can get out of the BIOS a post
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indicator LED as well as a USB 3 front
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panel header round out the right side of the board with six SATA 3 6 gbit per
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second connectors along the bottom right Edge this is enabled by Intel's new
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chipset that finally has lots of support for Native USB 3 and Native SATA 3 very
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good Intel you're not too late on that one anyway we've got our front panel
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connectors here two front USB 2.0 ports the audio which I talked about before as
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well as if I could find it whatever I can't find it anyway there's a killer
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e2200 Network chip on here somewhere that handles that prioritized gaming
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features and whatnot out of that gigabit Ethernet port right there 2 USB 2.0
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ports 4 USB 3.0 ports and a PS S2 keyboard mouse combo Port round out the
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USB on the back we've got a DVI port HDMI another HDMI and DisplayPort which
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is a pretty complete complement of ports back there as well as goldplated 7.1
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audio ports and an optical digital audio
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port now I wanted to talk about those PCI Express slots this one right here
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and this one are wired up for 16x or 8X
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8X operation with this one wired up for 4X that means you're going to want to
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carefully select your chassis if you want to run a dual graphics card
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configuration on this board particularly SLI because SLI will not run in PCI
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Express slots 1 and three because NVIDIA specifies you have to have at least PCIe
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8X operation this slot right here is running off of the chipset not directly
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off the CPU and it is running at 4X speed so make sure whatever case you use
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has an additional slot or an empty spot
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nearby so that there's room for this one to overhang if it's a dual SL lot card
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which they pretty much all are these days thank you for checking out my
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unboxing and overview of the G1 sniper M5 from Gigabyte don't forget to
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