GIGABYTE X99 Gaming 5 LGA 2011-v3 Motherboard Review @ [H]

GIGABYTE X99 Gaming 5 LGA 2011-v3 Motherboard Review - GIGABYTE’s latest X99 Gaming 5 promises to be a solid overclocker with great features and a reasonable price tag. It comes with features like "Server Level Chokes" from Cooper Bussman and an all digital power solution from Power IR. Long Lifespan Durable Black capacitors and single package MOSFETs make the list as well.

almost went with this board for my build instead of rampage V extreme, so glad i chose wisely.

It's not surprising to hear the UEFI is the big weak part of this board. I had a x79-UP4 from Gigabyte, and it had some major weaknesses in the bios that they never addressed and an update that came out that rendered the board nearly unusable. I had that board for a year and 3 months before it gave out. I swore I'd never buy another Gigabyte, and I haven't.

Another pointless board. I applaud the use of better onboard audio but wtf@
- 10 SATA ports (someone is going to be spending more time rebuilding arrays than actually gaming)
- 3 PCIE x1 slots (completely useless if all the PCIE x16 slots are populated with video cards and not needed if they are not).
The fact that this board design appeared to try to cut out the fluff but still managed to f*@k that up and has piss poor Overclocking for $300usd makes it a failure.

On a side note; the spec summary lists the audio as a Realtek HD audio code.

All the reviews I saw on newegg said the Bios was crap on all the Gigabyte boards. The only x99 boards getting at least 4 eggs it seams are the MSI ones and a few others hear and there.. Think I'll stay away for the x99 for a little while longer.

Makeroflostsouls said:

All the reviews I saw on newegg said the Bios was crap on all the Gigabyte boards. The only x99 boards getting at least 4 eggs it seams are the MSI ones and a few others hear and there.. Think I'll stay away for the x99 for a little while longer.

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I didn't find any reason to wait. You buy the board with great reviews and not buy the rest, else websites like this are pointless. So here I am, sitting beside a powerful X99 based PC with no regrets.

I don't understand how they can screw the pooch so badly. The review tests very obvious things that are on the surface, and it fails spectacularly. It pisses on the brand so badly in enthusiast circles, seems a bad move to me.
I have a couple of older Gigabyte boards, they were solid and updated very well. This one is a mystery to me.

Hmm ... it seems like there are a lot of boards still with really immature BIOS/UEFIs shipping.

Thanks for the review and for telling it as it is.

lollerwaffle said:

I don't understand how they can screw the pooch so badly. The review tests very obvious things that are on the surface, and it fails spectacularly. It pisses on the brand so badly in enthusiast circles, seems a bad move to me.
I have a couple of older Gigabyte boards, they were solid and updated very well. This one is a mystery to me.

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Baffling to me too.
I have a 4 year old (almost) Gigabyte P67a board which doesnt have UEFI but other mfrs were introducing it.
You would think they had a grip on it by now after 4 years!
I'll be looking at MSI for my next upgrade unless something changes drastically.

Nenu said:

Baffling to me too.
I have a 4 year old (almost) Gigabyte P67a board which doesnt have UEFI but other mfrs were introducing it.
You would think they had a grip on it by now after 4 years!
I'll be looking at MSI for my next upgrade unless something changes drastically.

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In fairness GIGABYTE has never understood the UEFI or rather how to make it work. MSI, ASUS and ASRock didn't really change the BIOS but rather evolved it. GIGABYTE like many other companies tried to reinvent the wheel knowing nothing about how to actually design a user friendly interface. All their software up to the latest versions of EasyTune are proof of that. I'm fine with a motherboard manufacturer trashing the BIOS interface and doing something completely different but the UEFI has to be as intuitive as possible if its going to be radically different in order to be successful. It's a damn shame given that I believe the most current GIGABYTE motherboards are some of the best built they've ever made. Its just unfortunate that the firmware is beyond atrocious.