Gigabyte G1 Sniper M3 microATX Motherboard Review @ [H]

FrgMstr

FrgMstr

Just Plain Mean
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Gigabyte G1 Sniper M3 microATX Motherboard Review - When we think of gaming computers, we tend to think of monstrous towers bristling with graphics cards and other hardware. Not every gamer needs or wants such a bulky tower of power. For those of you looking for a more compact solution, Gigabyte may have just what you’ve been looking for in a LGA 1155 motherboard with an mATX format.
 
Looks like a great board and doesn't have those dopey bullets on the heatsink.

If I was in the market for a small board, this would be on the short list.

Great review as always.:D
 
I've used two of these in MATX builds. IMHO the sniper series is better than the ASUS ROG series in this area off a few merits.

First the ASUS Rog tends to throw in the "overclocking" features that are utterly worthless to the 99% of users that aren't using LN2 or phase. I don't really agree with them on combing gaming and overclocking onto the same boards. The stuff I need when goofing around with extreme overclocking I don't use when I play games, and the stuff I need when I game is utterly worthless when overclocking. The insistence on combing this nonsense is nothing more than a way to drive up the cost of the product and suck money. Gigabyte thankfully breaks up the product line a bit. There is no paying for stuff you don't need.

For the stuff that counts for gaming Gigabyte tends to use better options. Despite the hype behind it the Supreme FX is still a gussied up Realtek chip. ASUS excuse of "driver updates" as the reason is patently bullshit since they use C-media for their own high end soundcards. They obvious have the ability to use something other than Realtek but don't. Gigabyte actually uses creative hardware for the G1 Killer series. The Killer vs intel NIC is kinda a wash. The killer is nice to have if only for the software, and it does help in minor ways. Sure the original cards at several hundred bucks were pure snake oil, as was the original physx cards doing the same stunt. But for the moderate price increase to get it, it's not at all bad as an integrated solution.

Anyways in just about all cases out there Gigabytes full ATX boards cost under the Extreme and Formula of the Rog boards and ship with better gaming features, the trend continues on the MATX boards as well now. Sure they lack the OC features, but those features won't get you any better results even under water and honestly if you want to use LN2 there is the OC series for that.
 
Thanks for another great review. By any chance do you have a screenshot of the voltage screen in bios for your overclock?

Curious as the exact settings you used.

Thanks
 
I think one thing that Gigabyte really messed up with this board is that you have to use the first and last PCIe slot for SLI/Crossfire. That's fine with an ATX case or test bench but not with most microATX cases since they have 4 PCI slots. Corsair was smart enough to put an additional slot on their 350D for such a thing. But there aren't a lot of cases that have this type of configuration.
 
royce321 said:
while this is a nice board the lack of a diagnostic led ruins it for me :(
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To be honest I've rarely had to ever use those. And in the few cases I did it always confirmed what I already knew. Yeah it should have it, but oh well it's not all that critical.

I think one thing that Gigabyte really messed up with this board is that you have to use the first and last PCIe slot for SLI/Crossfire. That's fine with an ATX case or test bench but not with most microATX cases since they have 4 PCI slots. Corsair was smart enough to put an additional slot on their 350D for such a thing. But there aren't a lot of cases that have this type of configuration.
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It works better with tripple slot or single slot cards. I think this is hit or miss really.
 
acerbic said:
To be honest I've rarely had to ever use those. And in the few cases I did it always confirmed what I already knew. Yeah it should have it, but oh well it's not all that critical.
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just a shame in my case since i tend to go derp and like to know whats going on with the board instead of having to really troubleshoot something.....its not super pricey like the gene but its almost there...just saying that it could've been done :( oh well
 
As always, thanks for the good review, [H]. Gigabyte G1 Sniper M3 seems like a good board but, unfortunately, the board's PCIe slots are configured in such a way, as SolidBladez related, that makes it unusable for a SLI system build I'm putting together for a client. If it weren't for the customer's requirements I'd definitely give this board a go.
 
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