Gigabyte G1.Sniper X58 review

Gigabyte G1.Sniper gaming edition X58 motherboard

In a previous review I already mentioned that the Intel X58 chipset is a gift that keeps on giving, like a Duracell battery that keeps on going. Well, it's not so much the chipset rather then the stuff designed around it that keeps it going.

Two and a half years after its release new products still flood the market based on this chipset and as it seems, it's getting more and more high-end with each motherboard release we receive and test.

I mean you guys read the ASUS rampage III Black edition review not to long ago, and now it's time to go to Gigabyte. They decided to spice up and refresh their X58 series motherboards as well, armed with a snazzy marketing theme they wanted to build something for the true gamer and not so much the uber hardcore overclock -- and that might just work out really well for them.

And with much success, the Killer series was born, with good looks, excellent performance, great overclockability and then in addition to it all extra's, adding a SATA 6G controller, USB 3.0, but also the BigFoot KillerNIC has been integrated into this motherboard, and... Realtek audio? Heck it's been kicked out. There's actually a fully fetched Creative Labs X-Fi (20K2) DSP mounted into the motherboard to bring better audio capability into your PC. All in all it's a very impressive motherboard not only features wise, yet also in terms of sheer design. The motherboard as tested today actually brings back memories of the early X58 motherboards from eVGA styling wise with the black PCB and the green colored PCie slots. And considering these are good memories, heck have a look yourself, meet the Gigabyte G1 Sniper gaming edition motherboard as the design is a sheer class on its own.

The motherboard piece by piece

Right, there we have the G1.Sniper. That's a very appealing looking motherboard alright. The focus on this motherboard is dark/green rugged, sturdy looking design whilst remaining competitive with pricing.

We dig the two tone (black/green) design a lot, dark colored PCBs are the trend these days. What immediately catches the eyes are the sheer looks and heatsinks sitting on top of the PCH, in the form of an ammo clip.

We received the final retail sample and as such it comes packed with a "decent" product bundle, its a little scarce on the extra's though. Among the gear inside the kit you'll find the following:

• X58 Motherboard
• 1 x 2-Way SLI Bridge
• 1 x 3-Way SLI Bridge
• Driver Disk
• Manual
• Four SATA cables
• I/O shield
• 3.5" Front panel with 2 USB 3.0 / 2.0 port headers

You'll also receive a poster and transparent stickers with bullets and logo etc which you could place on your chassis.

So here we have the motherboard itself, it's an impressive and overwhelming looking motherboard alright. Some of the more notable features are its design, three PCIe x16 (mechanical) slots, out of which 2 can run full speed x16 SLI (x16/x16 and then x16/x8/x8), The mobo has DDR3 2200 MHz support straight out of the BIOS, USB 3.0 and SATA 6G. We'll cover it all though, let's begin with the IO panel.

From left to right, that's a combo PS2 keyboard/mouse connector, a coaxial digital audio output, an OC button that auto overclocks the CPU a little bit, then a total of six USB ports of which the two blue colored ones are USB 3.0, the lower weird looking ports are 8.2 x eSATA/USB Combo connectors, the one ethernet jack is a Gigabit, the KillerNIC. Then all the way to the right multi-channel audio controlled by Creative Labs X-Fi with an optical TOSLINK there as well.

When we flip the board around we stumble into the processor area. Nice and spacious thanks to the cooling, a big cooler like the Noctua NH-D14 will fit there, in fact we'll be using one of these coolers today. Reasonably clean looks surround the LGA 1366 socket alright. To the upper middle of the photo we see a CPU fan header.

The board comes with 8 phase power VRM design with Dual Power Switching Technology.

We spot one 8-pin CPU power headers just behind the back panel connectors; we see quality solid core chokes and obviously the LGA 1366 socket for Core i7 based processors. The board incorporates the latest Ultra Durable components like solid capacitor, ferrite core chokes, quality components and nothing else. This ensures stability -- but also reliability and extended lifespan.

Once we flip the board around once more, we again stumble into the six DIMM slots, DDR3 of course. There is 6 x DIMM support with a maximum of 48 GB, DDR3 2200(O.C.)/2133(O.C.)/2000(O.C.)/1800(O.C.)/1600/1333/1066 Non-ECC,Un-buffered Memory.

There is support straight from the BIOS and XMP profiles, and of course then higher with overclocks. All the way down we stumble into connectors, and SATA ports. What I miss on this mobo are power/reset buttons.

Overall board design is just great. Everything is positioned really well. Let's move onwards to the left side where we stumble into a bunch of SATA connectors, let's zoom in a little.

The motherboard features six right-angle SATA II (3Gb/s) ports which are supplied by the chipset and they support AHCI and RAID 0/1/5/10. In addition to the regular SATA II ports, colored in white we see another two additional SATA 3 (6 GBit) ports, powered by a Marvell controller. Then a Jmicron controller supplies 2 x eSATA backpanel connectors.

They support RAID 0/1 and JBOD. To achieve RAID, select AHCI in the BIOS then during boot access the Marvell controller where you can set RAID levels. Yet another JMicron controller brings support for two eSATA / USB combo ports on the I/O panel.

Very eye catching is of course the overall design. We can see that a bit better on this photo where we can look at the passive coolers a little, the lower cooler is shaped after an ammo clip.