Gigabyte Sniper 2 Z68 Gaming Motherboard Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2012-05-07
·
1,925 words · ~9 min read
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welcome to a very exciting and very exclusive unboxing this is the Gigabyte
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G1 snipers actually I think that's a two
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the G1 Sniper 2 I actually have not only the Sniper 2 but also the sniper one so
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we can compare them against each other but let's go over what is similar about
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them before we even get started here so number one they're both made by Gigabyte
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number two they both have three-year warranty in the US and Canada
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number four I lost track okay they're
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also both part of the G1 gaming series of motherboards from Gigabyte which
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means these are decked out to the nines
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with all the gear you need for gaming we also have XI extreme Fidelity sound on
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both of these boards killer e2100 gaming
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networking built into both of these boards and support for fast Intel
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processors built into both of these boards however they are different the G1
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sniper us the Intel x58 platform and 1366 CPUs the G1 Sniper 2 uses the z68
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platform and Intel second generation core i7 Core i5 and core I3 CPUs so that
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means it does support sandybridge processors and they have also built in
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support for upcoming Intel 22 nanom
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processors which are codenamed ivybridge so you are going to be buying a fairly
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futureproof motherboard with the Sniper 2 last but not least it is ready for for
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Native PCI Express gen 3 that is double
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the bandwidth or quadruple the bandwidth of PCI Express 2.0 and 1.0 respectively
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very cool so that means even if you're running 2-way SLI with dual 8X PCI
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Express 3.0 graphics cards that will be the same bandwidth that used to be
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available to motherboards that were running dual SLI in dual 16x PCIe 2.0
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slots so there's something to consider because it does support sandybridge we
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do have full support for Intel SRT
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technology so that's where you take your SSD you use it as a cache for your hard
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drive and you can run up to four times faster in a real world scenario uh
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honestly it baffles me that more people aren't using SRT because it really does
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work it's very very cool let's go ahead
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and start taking this box apart here and
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we'll do our typical unboxing and then I'm going to do a bit of a comparison
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between the Sniper 2 and the sniper one I'll take that one out as well and we'll
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have a we'll have a quick look at it so here's the Sniper 2 comes in a nice
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matte black box to match that gorgeous matte black
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PCB and let's look at what we've got in terms of accessories we have the
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Gigabyte G1 series poster which I have
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seen a couple of times included with G1 series boards with the original assassin
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sniper and gorilla characters on the front as well as a target with pre-
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bullet hold holes on it for you on the
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back next we have some stickers including more bullet holes a skull some
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bullets more bullets and bullet holes
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excellent stuff finally we have a Gigabyte sticker not finally there's
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still more actually this is a very rich accessory package users manual including
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some notes uh PCI Express 16x slots are
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compatible with Next Generation Intel 22 NM CPUs and support the PCI Express 3.0
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standard very cool uh driver disc throw that away download latest from the
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Gigabyte website smart response technology installation guide um
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Gigabyte actually has a much better much smarter way to install this just
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download the little utility off their website it's awesome it's so easy I
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couldn't even believe it all right next we've got four SATA
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cables remember those are going to be compatible with SATA 2 or SATA 3 doesn't
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really matter and a DVI to HDMI adapter
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remember those are signal compatible so it doesn't really matter if you use an
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adapter there is no signal degradation we have an Shield a black flexible SLI
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Bridge nice touch I hate seeing those ugly Brown SLI Bridges including on
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included on high-end boards cuz it just
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makes your build look terrible oh this is nice look at this okay so Gigabyte
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includes quick boost so I'm guessing that's a OneTouch overclocking button
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ESAT USB combo port and then two USB 3.0
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ports in a 5 and 1/4 in Bay uh adapter piece very nice because a lot lot of
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cases still don't support usb3 so you can add that to your
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existing case while you wait to upgrade it or whatever the case may be very
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nice and here it is the Sniper
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2 their G1 series boards just look so
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good like they just look so good
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Gigabyte used to be kind of uh in my eyes a bit of a joke in terms of their
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aesthetic but theyve just turned that completely around
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with this with the G1 series boards they've got a very sharp overall look so
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we're using a matte black PCB we have certain shiny components including the
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vrms including the CPU socket we've got a little bullet sticking out of I
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believe you guys were telling me this is a MAG not a clip can't remember for the
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life of me anymore uh We've also got the barrel of a pistol as part of the mosfet
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cooling up here and uh green lights here
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that look just great if you throw in something like a g TX 590 which also has
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glowing lights on the side looks just amazing in a gaming build
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um oh that's interesting okay getting
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getting to that later so why don't we look at the overall layout of the board
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first so first of all we start with the CPU socket in the middle that is an LGA
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1155 socket supporting Intel Sandy bridge and even Ivy Bridge CPUs so be
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ready for that we've got our power delivery up here in the top left exactly
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where it belongs that's an 8 Pin uh eight pin SL slot next we have our CPU
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fan connector here which is a four pin pwm CPU fan connector you can clearly
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see the vrm cooling is using a sort of a
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gun metal themed gun appearance themed
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look it's got heat pipes that are carrying from the uh well from the
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chipset up to this side and then it just has a dedicated uh non-heat piped uh
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mosfit heat sink up at the top moving over to the right hand side we have four
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DDR3 slots supporting dual Channel
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operation next we have our 24 pin power connector along the right hand Edge and
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this is something that I just don't see enough of USB 3 header on the right hand
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edge of the board this is the smartest place for it I am just tired of running
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front panel connectors way down here to the bottom when you don't have to they
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should be right here because that's where they're going to be the closest to the front of your case love it great
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designs decision next we've got two SATA
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3 connectors running off of a thirdparty chipset we have two SATA 3 connectors
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running off of the Intel chipset and then we have three SATA 2 connectors
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also running off the Intel chipset your last Intel sata2 connector is likely
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running off the back as an EA connector
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all right next we've got some more you know what I'll do a summary of The Fan
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headers at the end so that you guys can see where they all are here is the
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custom header for the OC button that was on that front panel next we've got our
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front panel headers we've got a clear seimos jumper we've got
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uh ah front USB so you see the one with the red background that means that it
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supports uh higher current so you can actually charge things like tablets with
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the utility from the Gigabyte website off of those particular ports so make
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sure you've plug those ones in first you've got a couple more front USB 2s
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front panel audio and in terms of PCIe slot layout we've got two PCIe 16x slots
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two PCIe 1X slots and two PCI slots so
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that's pretty good mix if you install two dual Slot Cards you're going to be
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covering these guys those two and those
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two so that'll leave you with one PCI e1x and one PCI slot now having fewer
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expansion slots on a board like this is far less of a concern because you
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already have a very high-end hardware sound card check that out and a very
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high-end Hardware Nick those are already built into the board so you pretty much
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don't need to replace them with with anything very very cool all right
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actually okay yeah I promised I'd do you guys the summary of all of the CPU
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connectors so our fan connectors rather we've got one two uh stay further back
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so I can just point out where they are three
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4 5 five yep fan five fan connectors it's
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a very respectable amount and they are all pwm so you don't have to fuss with
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any sort of uh linear voltage adjustments for changing the RPM of your
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fans on the back here we will find 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 USB 2.0 ports that guy is a
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combo USB 2 ESAT Port love these ports so handy everything should be this
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flexible and then two USB 3.0 ports
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personally I believe that's enough especially if you already have two in the front since most things that I'm
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using USB 3 for these days are just storage anyway which I'm plugging and
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unplugging fairly frequently we've got our OC button on the back all right that
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should be pretty self-explanatory it OC's next we have a PS2 USB U PS2
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keyboard mouse combo Port an HDMI output
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more on that in just a second and then we have gigabit Ethernet and finally 7.1
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audio with optical audio out so this is
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a feature that I didn't mention before this is Intel Quicks sync so what you
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can do is you can use that HDMI port you can use your HDMI to DVI adapter put it
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in like that and you can actually take advantage of the onboard graphics card
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built into the Intel CPU to transcode video even when you're running a
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dedicated graphics card there is a slight performance decrease but I would
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say for the incredible boost you get in transcoding performance especially if
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you have a tablet or a smartphone you want to switch your videos over to a
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compatible format it is an enormous advantage to the Intel z68 platform so
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thank you for checking out my unboxing of the Gigabyte G1 Sniper 2 don't forget
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