Gigabyte GA-Z97N-Gaming 5

Phuncz

2[H]4U
Joined
Apr 12, 2009
Messages
2,630
Apparently not much love here for the Gigabyte mITX board, so let's start off with:

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Specifications

Link to Gigabyte site

  • Supports 4th and 5th Generation Intel® Core™ processors
  • High end Nichicon audio capacitors
  • Realtek ALC1150 115dB SNR HD Audio with built-in rear audio amplifier (why rear ?!)
  • Killer™ E2200 networking (Qualcomm® Atheros Killer E2201)
  • Bluetooth 4.0 + 867Mbps 802.11ac dual-band WIFI (Intel WiFi 7260-AC)
  • 5 x SATA 6Gb/s (SATA3 0/1/2/3/4) + 1 x eSATA 6Gb/s on the back panel
  • 1x HDMI 1.4a, 1x DVI-I Single-link, 1x DisplayPort 1.2
  • Highly efficient MOSFET design (6-phase)
  • Long lifespan Durable Black Solid caps
  • Gold plated display and audio ports
  • GIGABYTE UEFI DualBIOS™
  • Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi MB3 Software Suite
  • Audio Noise Guard with LED path lighting
  • APP Center including EasyTune™ and Cloud Station™ utilities


Pictures

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Drivers and Firmware

Links: Drivers, BIOS firmware

  • Firmware F1 (25/04/2014)
    1. First release
  • Firmware F2 (12/05/2014)
    1. Update CPU Microcode
  • Firmware F3 (03/06/2014)
    1. Add Pentium AE G3258 CPU overclocking function
    2. Improve SSD Performance


Reviews
11/08/2014: Bit-Tech
 
What I like about this board is that it has all the ports on the edge of the board, except 4 of the 5 SATA ports. It also features an Intel Wifi AC + BT 4.0 card, Realtek ALC1150 chip with quality components and headphone amp, a centered socket (as much as possible) and a few nice touches like the black nickel heatpipe and CPU clamp.

What I don't like about this board is the Killer NIC (personal dislike) and the complete lack of M.2 support. The 6-phase power design will also not be the best for OC'ing, but why are two of the six chokes on the other side of the board ? Won't the chips between them need cooling ?

But still, considering the upsides, this is a nice board for it's price (quoted at UK: £115.99 (inc VAT) US: $153.99 (ex Tax) at time of writing).
 
Yeah I like the port placements too.

Looks like a pretty nice board, but can't gigabyte do a different color scheme from black and red? I have nothing against it but it's just that Asus ROG and MSI already do that. It would be nice if we could have some different colors in the market :D

But I guess that might just be me, I like color coordination in builds a lot
 
If you want other colors, there are options:
- Asus Z97I-PLUS: black and gold
- ASRock Z97E-ITX: black and blue
- Gigabyte GA-Z97N-WIFI: black and black :p
- EVGA Z97 Stinger: black and bronze

I do agree someone should try black and white, black and green (Gigabyte does that...).
Someone should even try a white motherboard PCB with blue accents, that would look pretty schweeet on mITX.
Or black and chrome (nickel-plated aluminium heatsinks). Hmm maybe an idea...
 
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Someone should even try a white motherboard PCB with blue accents, that would look pretty schweeet on mITX.

Aha, thanks for giving me the excuse to post the picture of my MB again :D

 
Wow (n)ice ! The paint gives it a frosted look, almost like a wedding cake.
 
I think dropping M.2 is a good move. I'm not buying anything with less that 6 sata ports. M.2 may end up like mSata, some useless junk on your mobo.
 
I think dropping M.2 is a good move. I'm not buying anything with less that 6 sata ports. M.2 may end up like mSata, some useless junk on your mobo.
M.2 usually shares lanes with SATA ports, so you shouldn't have to lose those.

I really like M.2, especially on MITX, because you lose two cables: the SATA cable, which can be a bitch to route in a small case, and if you have a modular PSU you can forgo the power cable entirely as well. And you don't have to find a space for a 2.5" SSD, though that is only an issue with the smallest of setups.

What I don't like about M.2 is that most MITX boards have no choice but to place it at the back of the board. And the way most MITX cases are designed you cannot access the back of the board while it's installed. Thus, if you want/have to swap the M.2 card you have to take out the board, which again in most MITX cases means disassembling everything.
 
Looks like a great board, on paper at least.. the reviews on Newegg look a little scary.

Really like the 5x SATA and 1x eSATA, and the Intel AC card. Agree that the headphone amp should be routed for the front audio panel, instead of the rear outputs. Also agree that the black and red color scheme is getting old and overused (black and nickel would be sweet.. I think all boards should come like that!)

And of course, not liking only 2 fan headers.. there's definitely room for at least 10 more :p

Not sure how the Gigabyte boards of today are, but my old SMP 6VXD7 board was scary reliable for over a decade. Simple, straight-forward BIOS options that just worked as intended from day one.
 
I'm a bit of a noob with modern motherboards, does this seem like it's worth ~$25 more than the Asrock Z97E? I'm a big fan of the audio shielding but I don't know anything about Killer v Intel NIC except that Killer seem more expensive but are maybe too complicated for their own good?
 
I think dropping M.2 is a good move. I'm not buying anything with less that 6 sata ports. M.2 may end up like mSata, some useless junk on your mobo.
not-sure-if-trolling-or-just-stupid.jpg

If you don't know why mSATA and M.2 are good technologies, you don't get SFF.

I'm a bit of a noob with modern motherboards, does this seem like it's worth ~$25 more than the Asrock Z97E? I'm a big fan of the audio shielding but I don't know anything about Killer v Intel NIC except that Killer seem more expensive but are maybe too complicated for their own good?
This board has a better supported WiFi + BT card to start, the Broadcom one is the same as the Z87E-ITX which a few of us have a lot of issues with. The Z97E-ITX also has a basically useless M.2 socket because it only supports the shortest cards which are scarse and not that fast. The Gigabyte board has better connector layout around the edges.

I think these two will eventually be priced about the same, but it's too early on the market for the price to adjust properly, I would guess.
 
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This board has a better supported WiFi + BT card to start, the Broadcom one is the same as the Z87E-ITX which a few of us have a lot of issues with. The Z97E-ITX also has a basically useless M.2 socket because it only supports the shortest cards which are scarse and not that fast. The Gigabyte board has better connector layout around the edges.

I think these two will eventually be priced about the same, but it's too early on the market for the price to adjust properly, I would guess.
Thanks for your thoughts, some of those features sound really tempting. But yes it looks like it's too early to tell where it sits in the market, and there seem to be very mixed reviews so far, some great but some pretty brutal ones on Newegg. Damn decisions. I bought the Asrock yesterday, maybe I'll stick with it as a more tried and tested mobo
 
I got this board last week. Seems solid so far, but after years of Asus boards the overclocking setting nomenclature is a bit confusing. Audio is quite good.
 
Thanks for your thoughts, some of those features sound really tempting. But yes it looks like it's too early to tell where it sits in the market, and there seem to be very mixed reviews so far, some great but some pretty brutal ones on Newegg. Damn decisions. I bought the Asrock yesterday, maybe I'll stick with it as a more tried and tested mobo
I don't think the ASRock is a bad motherboard, it's still a good choice.
 
Picked one of these up today. There seems to be great reviews from review sites with Devil's Canyon CPUs as well as some bad ones from users, but the Asrock Z97E Wifi/BT issues concern me just as much. I won't use the short M.2 slot or Sata express on the Asrock, so it came down to layout, audio features (big deal for me) and build quality. Side by side the Gigabyte oozes quality compared to the Asrock and the rear I/O is very tidy. Part of that is probably just the colour scheme but I like it :) and it will match my R9 290 nicely.
 
Be sure to let us know how the build goes !
I didn't have any trouble with a Devil's Canyon CPU or not detecting RAM slot 2 like some users reported on NewEgg. It fired up first time no problems. I guess it was an early firmware or batch issue
 
Actually, I just looked and mine had F1 too. Just updated to F3.

So far can't fault this board and the Wifi is great

xp3nd4bl3 - aside from GPU our systems are spookily similar!
 
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Nice, good to hear F1 is "good enough" for Devil's Canyon. But it should be with the Z97 chipset.

Be sure to let us know (in this topic) about any issues (and solutions :D), ideas and suggestions about the board.
IMO it's a very nice board and the more choice we have in mITX, the better we can choose. It's really nice to see the industry taking it to unseen heights and I'm curious what the future will bring. Seeying ASUS's ROG mITX board already proves not much has to go for mITX when properly designed.
 
This board is almost perfect for what I was looking for. I just wish they had the build-in amp for the front audio jack.The ROG Impact is the ideal board, but the price tag on it burns compare to this one. The feedback I read on Amazon and Newegg is a bit worrisome, but is it justified?
 
This board is almost perfect for what I was looking for. I just wish they had the build-in amp for the front audio jack.The ROG Impact is the ideal board, but the price tag on it burns compare to this one. The feedback I read on Amazon and Newegg is a bit worrisome, but is it justified?
This board has been great for the 2.5 months I've had it. I saw a handful of bad reviews too but couldn't reproduce anything. It posted first time with a 4690K even with the earliest firmware and detects all my RAM and XMP profiles just fine.

Audio is great, I mostly use speakers as the PC lives in my loungeroom next to the TV, but it drives high impedance pro headphones over a 10m extension cable just fine.

Build quality is great. NIC, wifi and BT all work flawlessly. Played a little with the auto-overclocking and it seemed to think it was stable at 4.7GHz, but I'd hate to see how much heat that generates, so I left it stock until I have a reason to OC.

Nothing to complain about really. I wouldn't use the features of more expensive boards so it suits me perfectly for now.
 
This board is almost perfect for what I was looking for. I just wish they had the build-in amp for the front audio jack.The ROG Impact is the ideal board, but the price tag on it burns compare to this one. The feedback I read on Amazon and Newegg is a bit worrisome, but is it justified?

I've had a great experience with this board so far, zero issues in the 2 months I have used it. The audio is absolutely outstanding, excellent wireless, etc.

I had thought about buying the MSI Gaming, but I hate the layout of it and the ROG Impact is ideal as you said, but the price is obscene. I am very glad I went with the Gigabyte, ignore the negative reviews, this is a wonderful board for the money.
 
i actually really like gigabyte boards, but was really upset when i saw them drop the M.2 slot from the current crop of boards. It was there alongside the wifi adapter on the top of the board on the last revision. HUGE mistake for gigabyte imo. Its the 1 reason i switched to an Asus board this generation.
 
Yeah I like the port placements too.

Looks like a pretty nice board, but can't gigabyte do a different color scheme from black and red? I have nothing against it but it's just that Asus ROG and MSI already do that. It would be nice if we could have some different colors in the market :D

But I guess that might just be me, I like color coordination in builds a lot

The funny part is, about a few years ago I was reading an interview with one of the Gigabyte guys (think it was on Tom's Hardware) and they asked him why the green colours on the Sniper boards. He replied saying something like, "well everyone else is doing red and black so we've taken a different route".

Interesting how they changed their tune now, lol.

Guy also said in the interview that mini DTX is dead and they won't be producing boards for that form factor. Now if only they would change their stance on that tidbit.
 
The 6-phase power design will also not be the best for OC'ing, but why are two of the six chokes on the other side of the board ? Won't the chips between them need cooling?
Because the "6 phases" aren't all for CPU. It's more like 4+2 phase. The other two are most likely for RAM and PCH. Still better than a most ASRock boards where they have 3 phase on the CPU--eck.

Also note that with Haswell CPUs the board VRM is less important given the CPU has it's own VRM.
 
I played a little bit with overclocking and noticed that when using the auto core voltage, the core voltage with downvolt itself dynamically when the CPU downclock itself (e.g. from 1.2V down to 0.700V). However the auto voltage setting tend to give more voltage than I would like for stock settings. I tried to set the core voltage manually (1.130V) but it won't downvolt itself when idle.

Is there a way to set a target max core voltage while benefiting from the core downvolt when the CPU is idle?
 
Is there a way to set a target max core voltage while benefiting from the core downvolt when the CPU is idle?

Typically you use an "offset" voltage instead of a fixed voltage. It should be one of the options in BIOS.
 
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