Pros: This board is attractive and has a nice orange LED design not shown in any photos on newegg or gigabyte website. It supports ECC memory. The UEFI Bios is nice and professional looking. you have the option to change the bios splash screen to an image of your choice. you can do that within the app center program. Sata Raid performance is quite good. I installed two Intel 730 Series 480GB SSD's in Raid0 to benchmark performance. Read speed was 1030MB/s. this is very good. each of these drives are rated to read at 550MB/s. I installed 4x WD Caviar Blue WD5000AAKX Hard Drives in raid 0 to benchmark performance and i am quite pleased with the performance. i am reaching over 232MB/s. this is better than what these same 4 drives achieved on my H87 Fatal1ty and Z86 Extreme Gen3 Motherboards even though i paired this motherboard with a modest G4400 CPU. Despite the Specifications listed here on newegg, The network adapter is not Realtek, It is actually a Server Grade Intel I219-v NIC. Having this NIC allows it to support more server based applications. however it does not appear that gigabyte had server operating systems in mind when they created the driver disk. That's ok, because Intel has the correct drivers on its website including linux and windows server 2012.

Cons: The first thing i noticed when removing it from the anti static bag. the large heatsink at the top of the board is attached only with pushpins and springs, and is very flimsy, the moment i lifted the board i could feel how loose it was. less than 2lbs of force will cause it to tip sideways and loose contact with the vrms that it is meant to cool. It is important that i mention this because the 8 pin cpu connector is right beside it. be cautious and double check your cable management, if your 8pin cpu connector lays against it you will probably wind up with a dead board. gigabyte should've done a better job here. i will be replacing these pushpins with 3x8mm nylon screws. Certain things about the board seem sloppy, mostly in the bios and manual. For example, the bios has a menu to adjust the CPU Clock Ratio, yet it does not let you, instead it teases you with the option and says this setting is dependant on cpu model. NON-K models have locked CPU Ratios. This motherboard does not support any -K model processors. Also the manual says a lot of things that seem to apply to other boards, Including that the m.2 port supports raid, and that to setup raid it requires two m.2 drives. This board only has a single m.2 port. These instructions look like they are copy, pasted from some other manual. The board only has 3 system fan connectors, And despite having an option in the bios to set the fan speed, the speed does not change at all no matter what setting you change it to. The options are normal, silent, manual, or full speed. This is a broken feature. This board currently does not support i5 or i7 processors. No sli support. no overclocking. No onboard video (due to socket c232 chipset)

Overall Review: This board with it's limited CPU support falls short of being a option for most consumers. the storage options are disappointing, You can either use the m.2 port, or sata express, not both at the same time. and with a pci device installed a m.2 SSD operates at half speed. There really isn't an ideal consumer for this board. This board is oriented towards professionals/workstations. Specifically because of the support for Xeon processors and the most recent bios update adding ECC support. however this chipset should not prevent this board from working with i5 and i7 processors. The advertising of this board is misleading. The box says "Ultra Durable" on it 9 times, yet it doesn't appear to be built better than any other motherboard. the pcb is still 1.5mm thickness like all my other boards. The audio capacitors are only rated to 85c. And the VRM heatsink is not secured in place, almost any force will make it flop around. The box says "ultimate performance" "cutting edge features" "for gaming enthusiasts who demand the highest frame rates" Yet falls short of everything listed on the box. As of right now, the best processor this board supports is a Xeon E3-1280 v5 which is only a quad core. Professionals looking for the best will probably stick with socket 2011v3 as it has support for Xeons and desktop cpu's with far more cores and higher clock speeds. Intel has a 22 core Xeon that is scheduled for release sometime this month. Gamers are going to be interested in I5 and I7 processors because of the price differences compared to Xeon Processors. At the time of this review, Both the Audio Driver and Intel Rapid Storage Driver on the driver disk are out of date. The newer drivers are available through Gigabyte. None of the operating systems i have tried with this board have network drivers by default. I tried windows 7, 8.1, 10, ubuntu, Zorin and steam OS. The windows network drivers are located on the driver disk, however it does not include drivers for linux, or windows server. I had to install a secondary network adapter to get my linux operating systems on the internet. This may change in the future. On the cpu support list (at the time of my review) it only shows cpu support for bios revision f1. however my board arrived with f2 bios. the only information about the f2 bios update says that it includes support for ECC memory. Also, under memory support information it does not indicate which memory modules are ECC or not I hate to leave anything less than perfect reviews, but unfortunately this board falls short from what i expected.

Pros: Packaging and board design looks pretty good, you most likely will not have this board in a windowed case anyway so it is a bit wasted. Has build in LED separating the audio guard and rest of the motherboard which is pretty standard on all new gigabyte boards these days. Paired with an intel i3-6100 and a amd r5 230 and it's working great. The board is almost two inches shorter than a standard ATX board, will give a little extra room for smaller cases. Supports ECC ram and supports M.2 storage drives. Bios is pretty standard, nothing flashy and gets the job done.

Cons: VRM heatsink above the cpu socket is extremely loose as another reviewer mentioned, it easily moves back in forth. This probably won't be a huge problem if you are not putting any pressure on it but I am not sure how good the passive cooling is with the heatsink that loose. My four other gigabyte boards do not have this problem. No built in video video out, really bad decision to not have video out on this chipset considering its an entry level workstation board, it could really have benefited from it. This chipset cannot be used to overclock no matter what cpu you put into the board not that it supports any i5 or i7 chips anyway. Only extra included in the box are two SATA cables, could have at least included four. Needs another two USB ports on the rear connectors.

Overall Review: Looking at this board this is obviously not aimed at general consumers but at the same time you have to question if its aimed at the sever/workstation correctly mainly due to lack of features and mostly bare bones feel to the board. This is an extreme case of entry level workstation board, more advanced users will most likely look and purchase X99 motherboards and cpu's simply due to the huge amount of options and cpu choices that chipset offers over this. This board does have a place with a certain crowd however qc issues and and lackluster chipset prevent it from being a great board.

Pros: - No Frills mobo supporting all the latest and greatest chips from intel? YES! - Cheap. - Works As you'd expect.

Cons: - Too Cheap. Poor UEFI implementation without much support from the OEM. - Not a lot of extras in the box. - Lacks some of the other features you'd find in comparable boards.

Overall Review: - Overall good budget board for a newbie or someone who just needs a cheap PC. - Wouldn't recommend to anyone who knows what they're doing or wants to do overclocking.

Pros: -Broke the rules with this one... made a budget gamer out of it. . -The Mobo not only looks really cool but is also perfect for a Desert/Camo theme. . -4 DIMM slots for a nice dual channel setup. . -C232 chipset (mainly for Xeon processors) with support for 6th Gen core, Pentuim and Celeron processors. . -A little shorter than standard ATX boards, so good for smaller cases. . -Overall a good entry level mobo for budget builders. . -This is for sure a workstation motherboard and not an overclockable gaming board, however with an EVGA GeForce GTX 950 we managed to make this workstation a workhorse to do some gaming LOL. The LED's were cool and would fool you from a distance that was in fact a gaming rig. . -Nice UEFI Bios with changeable intro/boot bios screen (cool for this converted gaming setup) but for the most part seemed to be a "general setup" bios in which is used for some boards but seemed to be just put on this board just to get it up and running like the overclock ability but yet no CPU's that can be overclocked are supported by this board. Almost generic if you will. .

Cons: -When I received the Motherboard it appeared to have been opened. So upon inquiry to Newegg Eggexperts and then finally Gigabyte, I was told by Gigabyte, "We test the boards before shipping out to Newegg’s Eggxperts—hence the opened packaging." WHY would this need to be so? To me that's not really a factor to be considered to the general public, so why spend effort in making SURE something works, when manufacture should already be confident in shipping untouched mobo's. I consider that cheating a little, because everyone that buys a board will not get theirs tested. (-3 EGGS). . -i5 & i7 processors not officially supported . -very basic board including only 2 SATA cables. . -ZERO overclocking with this deck. So be warned entry level enthusiasts. .

Overall Review: -First off I would like to appologize to both Gigabyte (Jonathan Lin) and my Newegg EggXpert Team for taking so long to complete my review. I have been off-line for well over a month and a half due to 5 crazy living situations in the past 2 months due to renting from crazy people from free ads online. . -I ended up using an Intel Pentium G4500 Skylake (6th Gen.) to do my testing for this board. At a mere 65 Watts I was just impressed beyond my wildest at how smooth and fast this setup worked with the GTX 950. . -I also used G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 2400's (not that they were running that fast lol) . -Used a CORSAIR CX550M 550 Watt 80 PLUS PSU. . -Used an OCZ TRION 150 480GB SSD (from a prior EggExpert review) for OS drive. . -Running Windows 8.1 . -Personally I think Gigabyte has TOO many versions & variation of intel motherboards, making it VERY confusing to the newcomer of PC's. and this board should CLEARLY be marked as a workstation board to help consumers purchase what they need. Overall I would say this is a very generic workstation mobo with a fancy box looking like many of their current gaming board lineups but none the less isn't advertised as a gaming OR workstation board. (- 2 EGGS). . -Even though this board fell to zero eggs for me, I MUST put one egg to submit my review. . -Just because this is a review, please don’t take my words lightly and think I just favor a product because it is sent to me. I have a job to do; and that’s to be fair and honest about the product for future prospective buyers. I am just like you, a Newegg customer. And to me, Newegg reviews are golden. So I am not about to tarnish Newegg reviews OR my good name by telling you something is good when it is not. I hope this review has satisfied your purchasing inquiry needs. Thank you for reading. And thank you Newegg for allowing me another great opportunity to review.

Pros: It's been going strong for a while now. It has good documentation.

Cons: The raid controller does not have raid 10, but then again it's the default intel raid system. However not many motherboards have a full blown raid controller.