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<div><span style="font-size: small;">The G1 series from GIGABYTE has seen a recent expansion of late – from the previous socket to new chipset releases, GIGABYTE is now attempting to provide a model at almost every reasonable price point in the market. The purpose of this is to provide a gaming platform for any budget, using gaming features such as OP-AMP, USB-DAC.UP and Gain Boost. At the mid point of the spectrum is the G1.Sniper Z87, which we are reviewing today.</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small;">As we have discussed in previous publications on AnandTech, attempting to decipher the benefit of an audio solution can be a difficult task. On a recent post where we asked for our reader input, there were substantial numbers in all three categories – (i) Onboard audio is good enough, no need to test it; (ii) Keep going with similar tests, it is good to see some data; and (iii) These tests show almost nothing about the audio that audiophiles care about. So when GIGABYTE is supplying us with their gaming motherboard that has a frontal focus on audio, trying to quantify the audio gains as such can be difficult. Luckily, the focal points of GIGABYTE’s audio engineering additions are actually tangible that we can play with, rather than merely ‘part of the design’.</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://anandtech.com/show/7762/gigabyte-g1sniper-z87-review" target="_blank">Read more...</a></span></div>
Gigabyte GA-Z87X-OC motherboard is targeted for open testbeds and overclocking experiments. That is why it has a bunch of special and very interesting distinctive features. But this mainboard is not optimal for ordinary desktops and in this review we tell you why.
<p><span style="font-size: small;">Breaking into the X79 game at this late stage is a rough business. The major action was at the Sandy Bridge-E launch, and the Ivy Bridge-E release was a minor bump in comparison. Due to the lack of a new chipset, only a few motherboard vendors put a new product onto the market for the IVB-E launch. One of them was MSI, with the slightly non-conventional X79A-GD45 Plus, which we are reviewing today.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/7752/msi-x79agd45-plus-review-building-up" target="_blank">Read more...</a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;">The TUF range from ASUS is a different sort of blip on the motherboard radar – they come with a five year warranty. ASUS will mention that the hardware is built around the idea of stability, using upgraded components in order to do so. I have rarely had the chance to look at the TUF range, but today we look at ASUS’ first micro-ATX TUF motherboard, the Z87 Gryphon.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/7720/asus-tuf-z87-gryphon-review" target="_blank">Read more...</a></span></p>
<div><span style="font-size: small;">Alongside their line of channel and ROG motherboards, ASUS also has business (B/Q chipset) and Workstation (WS) lines for professional markets. The goal of these products is compatibility and stability – the desire to be a rock solid product in the face of any computational conundrum. Today we are reviewing hopefully the first of many ASUS WS motherboards – the P9X79-E WS, for the socket 2011 / performance Xeon market. This is an upgrade over the P9X79 WS, featuring a PLX chip giving seven full length PCIe slots.</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small;">The goal of the P9X79-E WS is to be able to tackle anything a user wants to use in it: in order to ensure this, ASUS try to validate as many RAID cards, 10 GbE cards, FPGA and PCIe devices as possible. The goal of the P9X79-E WS is to be the final frontier in single socket performance, suggesting that a 12 core Xeon E5-2697W and several of the latest Xeon Phi cards is just a walk in the park, as well as any consumer level CPU. If a user needs to run seven RAID cards should not be a problem here.</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small;">Several of the main features of workstation motherboards are hard to test from a review point of view. Compatibility is wholly taken from the QVL list: either a device works or it does not – if I find a device that does not and tell ASUS, chances are it will probably be working in the next BIOS update. Stability and longevity is hard to test as well – these motherboards are built to withstand several years at full throttle in high ambient temperatures, so if I tested it like that and it fails or works, then it might be up to the sample and I would have to take a statistical look at MTBF (mean time between failures) – a test not within my remit and could take a while to perform! Feature comparisons and performance are thus vital to our testing – aesthetics for gaming motherboard evaluations are not required here. It needs to work, ideally out of the box, and work well.</span></div>
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<div><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/7613/asus-p9x79e-ws-review" target="_blank">Read more...</a></span></div>
<p><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-family: Arimo, sans-serif; line-height: 21px; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);">When Ivy Bridge-E arrived, there was discontent at the lack of a new chipset. Users who wanted to migrate to the high performance end of the spectrum received a relatively small bump in performance over Sandy Bridge-E and Haswell on the mainstream was offering better IPC. To compound all this, the X79 chipset looks dated, with no native USB 3.0 and only two SATA 6 Gbps. ASUS have tried to address this balance somewhat by releasing an upgrade to the bestselling X79 motherboard: the Rampage IV Black Edition is an evolution of the Rampage IV Extreme, incorporating as many aspects of the Maximus Z87 series as possible into an antiquated chipset.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/7612/asus-rivbe" target="_blank">Read more...</a></span></p>
The motherboard is based on Intel Z87 but powered with a lot of additional controllers. Some features of Gigabyte G1.Sniper 5 are typical for high-end platforms and some are unique. The board has many advantages and a very few disadvantages.
Asus Z87-Deluxe is good and balanced model for powerful LGA 1150 system. It has additional SATA 6 Gb/s and USB 3.0 controllers, Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth support dual Gigabit Ethernet, two CPU fan headers and two POST-codes indicators. However we had seen some problems with it.
This is a very well-made mainboard model with classic feature set. The functionality includes: additional USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gbps ports, IEEE 1394 (FireWire) and Thunderbolt ports, two network adapters, wireless technologies, AMD CrossFire and Nvidia SLI, as well as a special connector for mSATA and mini-PCIe cards.
<p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arimo, sans-serif; line-height: 21px; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);">In the office I am currently running through a series of smaller sized motherboards – both micro-ATX and mini-ITX. Due to the size, there is plenty of scope to push towards something niche, something that works, or something that slips comically on a banana by missing the point entirely. Today we have in the ASRock Z87E-ITX, </span><strike style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Arimo, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(68, 68, 68); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);">$150</strike><span style="font-family: Arimo, sans-serif; line-height: 21px; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: 1px; background-color: rgb(246, 246, 246);"> $140 motherboard that flew under my radar until it landed on my test bed.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.anandtech.com/show/7484/asrock-z87eitx-review" target="_blank">Read more...</a></span></p>