- Intel Z97
- Celeron / Core i3 / Core i5 / Core i7 / Intel Core 4th Gen (LGA 1150) / Intel Core 5th Gen (LGA 1150) / Pentium / Xeon (LGA1150)
- DDR3 3200*(*O.C.)/ 3100*/ 3000*/ 2933*/ 2800*/ 2666*/ 2600*/ 2500*/ 2400*/ 2200*/ 2133*/ 2000*/ 1866*/ 1800*/ 1600/ 1333
Giabite Back!
08/05/2014
This review is from: GIGABYTE G1 Gaming GA-Z97X-Gaming 5 (rev. 1.0) LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Pros:
Ultra durable motherboard. Awesome Audio on-board. M.2 mini SSD attachment. Excellent thermal cooling. Excellent overclocking abilities. Duel UEFI bios. OPAMP switch out capability. Clean Audio. UEFI BIOS Options
Cons:
UEFI BIOS still not as polished as Asus' implementation. Red Light can be annoying in a window case.
Overall Review:
This motherboard holds up to the ultra durable branding. UPS had left this on the porch of my house while the wife and I were at work. By the time I got home at 6:00 PM that night, my wife told me UPS dropped off your package. She said your lucky I got home and got it away from Abby as she was having a field day with the box. My dog chewed through the Newegg box and through the best part of the motherboard box, the back. She didn't quit get through the ESD Safe motherboard packaging but no matter, she was gnawing away. I take the board out to inspect it and it is flawless. Not a scratch or dent on it. My dog is teething and still a puppy (A huge puppy but still) at 6 months old but she has destroyed woof, plastic, and small metal with her chewing. This motherboard withstood her punishment and has earned the ultra durable moniker.
Another thing that I noticed was overclocking. Of course I am new to Intel so I had some issues getting it working right. The AsRock board I tested worked pretty good as it is an Asus subsidiary and has the same BIOS layout as AMD type boards do so it made it easier to feel my way along. Gigabyte has an awesome UEFI BIOS that gives you plenty of options but I found myself reading and trying more things that I had no clue what to do (manual and bios descriptions didn't help) so it made it confusing as to what I was needing to do. In the end I did get it clocked stably to 4.5 GHz (intel Core i5 4690k http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117372). Needless to say I am really digging the Intel setups.
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