Gigabyte G1.Sniper 3 Review
Conclusion
Published: 18th June 2012 | Source: Gigabyte | Price: £335 |
Conclusion
Any review that we do, because of the nature of hardware testing, tends to be largely focussed upon the performance of the component in question. Maybe it comes with a nod towards the price and design, but this is a business that places a heavy emphasis on the final numbers above all else so, barring something exceptional, how much we enjoyed testing it doesn't often crop up. With the G1.Sniper 3 this focus upon performance is as large as ever, but we also need to draw your attention to the ease of our experience.
Starting with the design, and with such a clear theme as we've seen from the Sniper range it's a good place to start, it's all rather disappointing if we're honest. The packaging leads us to expect the same gun/rifle themed design as we've seen before, but the heatsinks are now exactly the same as we'd find on any other motherboard. It's gone from being a motherboard that was instantly recognisable, to a generic one that happens to be green. Maybe the difficulty of shipping something that looked like a gun around the world caused too many problems, but even still it's a shame that a design which was so very different, ends up looking so very similar.
However, this is the only disappointing thing about the whole package. The actual layout of the board is fantastic, with plentiful connection options, lots of fan headers, and a wealth of displays, probe points and the like. Everything is very clearly labelled and exactly where you'd expect it to be. It's a joy to work with. The 3D BIOS continues this trend of providing an exceptionally user-friendly experience. If you're new to BIOS tweaking the 3D display is clear and easy to follow, and yet if you want to tweak a near infinite array of things you can do that too. This is made even easier because the labels in the BIOS are clear and even if you don't know where to find a certain option you just need to read and be reassured that if you want Loadline Calibration, that's exactly what it will be called.
Performance is yet another box ticked. Overclocking the Sniper 3 was a breeze. There was no need to tweak a near-infinite array of settings to obtain a stable overclock, and my goodness was the overclock stable. The Sniper 3 didn't have any headroom manually adjusted and yet still could give us a 5GHz overclock, and a bulletproof 4.8GHz one. Not only were the overclock results excellent, but the stock results were streets ahead of anything we've seen so far. The only thing to always remember is auto settings can also mean its over volting areas far to much so for the extreme end of the spectrum its always safer to manually set as many volts as possible. If you don't know, get in the forums, ask and learn.
The only flies in the ointment are the slight one about the vanilla design, and more importantly the big price-tag. We're big fans of getting great value for money here at OC3D, and will always prefer a decent performance/price combination over a wallet-emptying sledgehammer, but the Sniper 3 is leagues ahead of the other Z77s we've tested.
To keep with the Sniper theme, it's an instakill headshot. A great looking motherboard, with fantastic performance, a true joy to actually use, more accessories than you could hope to utilise and a bombproof BIOS. It can be everything from a simple stock runner all the way up to a sub-zero overclocking beast and we love it. The Gigabyte G1.Sniper 3 is a bona fide, unquestionable, Gold award winner. Fantastic.
Thanks to Gigabyte for supplying the G1.Sniper 3 for review. Discuss in the OC3D forums.
Most Recent Comments
|
Originally Posted by SieB
Love this board, just wish it wasn't so damn expensive. With boards like the GD65 you have to ask if paying over double the price is worth it. |
someone has to pay for the nextgen research, that'll be available this xmas
Gigabyte have certainly done something right with this board.
A great review, Tom - looks as though I may have to devote more attention to the Sniper boards from now on.
|
Originally Posted by willsk
Looks like an amazing board but as the others have said, way out of my price range. I'm actually a fan of the fact they've not gone for gun shaped heatsinks etc. but that's prob just me |
What a waste of I/O space. Gigabyte dun goofed.
|
Originally Posted by C C
Someone please tell me why such an expensive board should have VGA (or even DVI, for that matter)? What a waste of I/O space. Gigabyte dun goofed. |
|
Originally Posted by C C
Mhm... And you're going to buy a board like this, but not buy a graphics card? |
but if said graphics card failed, not having on board video would really be annoying, as it would shut you down from your computer until you got a replacement.As Josh said though the onboard video would come into play if your GPU failed.
Just a thought, imagine how sexy this board would look with dual 690s *drool
|
Originally Posted by Josh Weston
Ha, no but if said graphics card failed, not having on board video would really be annoying, as it would shut you down from your computer until you got a replacement. |
And even if your primary monitor and GPU BOTH failed at the SAME time, I'm sure you've got one of those DVI to VGA things you could use, I've got at least three of them around the place.
|
Originally Posted by C C
The chances of your primary monitor and GPU both failing at the same time are pretty slim. Gigabyte (or anyone) should not be catering for scenarios like this if it means wasting I/O space with an archaic connection. And even if your primary monitor and GPU BOTH failed at the SAME time, I'm sure you've got one of those DVI to VGA things you could use, I've got at least three of them around the place. |
|
Originally Posted by VengeanceUK
actually i have had this happen in the past, albeit part and parcel of a lightning strike, but nonetheless, the fact remains that BOTH my monitor AND GPU were trashed in an instant and i would have welcomed this feature back then so don't suggest "IT CAN'T HAPPEN" as it clearly can |
This should've been different with the WiFi module though, as a built-in module shouldn't have made the board so cramped.
Very value board in my opinion. 300 bucks for a board with so many features. It's essentially a thunderbolt port away from the P8Z77-V Premium from ASUS for 120 bucks less. Very fast board, good for HPC as far as I've used it, the 2 Gigabit LAN ports are great, temps are fine and overclocks great. Dual BIOS is cool but doesn't match ASUS's, power cosumption is terribly inefficient, and is sort of bloated for a board. Works well with my Gentoo Linux and Windows 7 and pretty much all of its software works on at least one of those OSes. Wish it had FireWire and eSATA in the back. Shame it was E-ATX, I was going to get it crammed into the CoolerMaster 430.
Board looks rather silly, and the color scheme is weird.
and thanks... love the youtube vids, and hard work you put in to educate noobs like me!!!
|
Originally Posted by Noobalert
Hey TTL what temps were you seeing @ the 1.092v, 4.8GHz OC on air?
and thanks... love the youtube vids, and hard work you put in to educate noobs like me!!! |
1.092v wasnt the vcore... And it wasnt me that wrote the review.
CSS Valid
With the latest Z77 chipset on board we take a look at the Gigabyte Sniper 3 and see if it matches its predecessors.
Continue Reading