GIGABYTE G1.Sniper Z87 Review
by Ian Cutress on February 24, 2014 2:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Intel
- Gigabyte
F1 2013
First up is F1 2013 by Codemasters. I am a big Formula 1 fan in my spare time, and nothing makes me happier than carving up the field in a Caterham, waving to the Red Bulls as I drive by (because I play on easy and take shortcuts). F1 2013 uses the EGO Engine, and like other Codemasters games ends up being very playable on old hardware quite easily. In order to beef up the benchmark a bit, we devised the following scenario for the benchmark mode: one lap of Spa-Francorchamps in the heavy wet, the benchmark follows Jenson Button in the McLaren who starts on the grid in 22nd place, with the field made up of 11 Williams cars, 5 Marussia and 5 Caterham in that order. This puts emphasis on the CPU to handle the AI in the wet, and allows for a good amount of overtaking during the automated benchmark. We test at 1920x1080 on Ultra graphical settings for a single GPU, as using multiple GPUs seems to have no scaling effect.
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Bioshock Infinite
Bioshock Infinite was Zero Punctuation’s Game of the Year for 2013, uses the Unreal Engine 3, and is designed to scale with both cores and graphical prowess. We test the benchmark using the Adrenaline benchmark tool and the Xtreme (1920x1080, Maximum) performance setting, noting down the average frame rates and the minimum frame rates.
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Tomb Raider
The next benchmark in our test is Tomb Raider. Tomb Raider is an AMD optimized game, lauded for its use of TressFX creating dynamic hair to increase the immersion in game. Tomb Raider uses a modified version of the Crystal Engine, and enjoys raw horsepower. We test the benchmark using the Adrenaline benchmark tool and the Xtreme (1920x1080, Maximum) performance setting, noting down the average frame rates and the minimum frame rates.
| Tomb Raider, 1080p Max | ||
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erple2 - Saturday, March 1, 2014 - link
I've been using an xfi for a while (PCI), but when I finally upgraded in September from a core2duo to haswell, the board didn't have any PCI slots. I got the g1.sniper m5 (same audio setup), and the reduction in noise alone was stunning. What's even more interesting was that the onboard audio on my core2duo sounded worse. At least when I turned up the volume on the xfi the sound wasn't a horrible muddy mush. But I have been very impressed with the subjective audio quality of this onboard sound.apertotes - Monday, February 24, 2014 - link
Just a note, and something that I think people should know before buying any Gigabyte motherboard. Their Easy Tune software is great, and works perfectly, but it has 5 global hotkeys non-customizable that grab the total access to "Alt Gr" plus numbers 1-5, meaning that on many non-English keyboard layouts it is impossible to use the following symbols |@#~€. Three of them are used on almost daily basis, so unfortunately many Gigabyte users have had to uninstall Easy Tune.It is a shame, because the global hotkeys are undocumented and they appear nowhere on the settings window, so almost nobody uses them. In fact, even I that know about their existence do not use them because I have no way of doing what they do, other than crash the computer a few seconds after they are pressed.
So, word of warning for non English potential buyers.
Also, it seems that Gigabyte's technical support knows about this since at least 10 months ago, but they said that they won't change their software for minorities.
DanNeely - Monday, February 24, 2014 - link
You'd think regarding everywhere outside of America as a minority would be a sin only practiced by American companies. *sigh*baal80 - Monday, February 24, 2014 - link
I have G1 Sniper M.3 and I've never used EasyTune. This software is a piece of crap, IMO. The only reliable way to OC is manually via BIOS.apertotes - Monday, February 24, 2014 - link
Well, I have not OC my CPU, but I used Easy Tune to control my fans, and it worked beautifully. It is a shame I can not use it any more.baal80 - Monday, February 24, 2014 - link
Ah well, I use SmartFan for that.baal80 - Monday, February 24, 2014 - link
Excuse me - I mean SpeedFan, naturally.bleucharm28 - Monday, February 24, 2014 - link
WoW! is that the Thermalright Ultra 120 in full copper? is so....sexy.dashhbad - Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - link
It is a shame to see a site like Anandtech that prides itself on objective measurement, pander to audiophile hokum. Switching out Op Amps (rolling as it's known) is a completely pointless exercise that at best is likely to do nothing detectable to the sound and at worst may actually ruin it or damage your equipment. I suppose we can trust that Gigabyte have tested their three Op Amp "Upgrades" such that they don't cause any damage but it would have been fairly straightforward for you to have measured the three options to show that there would be no detectable differences.For those interested there is a good breakdown of Op Amp myths and facts (including Rolling) here: http://nwavguy.blogspot.co.uk/2011/08/op-amps-myth...
When you see that Gigabyte have a MSRP for the op amp kit of $79.99 but all three can easily be bought from Digikey for a total of $22 it is plain to see why they are providing this option. Its a marketing gimmick aimed at a clueless "Audiophile wannabe" crowd. And no, you don't need a tool to remove/replace a socketed op amp.
edzieba - Tuesday, February 25, 2014 - link
"Front Audio Headphone Amplifier (600ohm support)"This raises a huge flashing red flag, with bells on. What is the measured impedance of the 'headphone output'? Because if they're putting 600ohms out as a marketing figure (rather than advertising a sub-2ohm output), that sounds like the output impedance isn't much below 75ohms. Which is Really Bad: http://nwavguy.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/headphone-am...