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  • silenceisgolden - Friday, January 3, 2014 - link

    I'm very curious as to why there are VGA ports on these boards. Seems like a large waste of space.
  • LauRoman - Friday, January 3, 2014 - link

    Because some of us still have 3 16:10 monitors that only have a vga connection. :)

    I'm more curious why there's an odd nu,ber of usb ports on the back. Namely what is the single usb port between the HDMI and DVI connectors is doing there by his lonesome.
  • apunari - Friday, January 3, 2014 - link

    Well if you bothered to read, that odd usb port should refer to the usb dac port.
  • DigitalFreak - Friday, January 3, 2014 - link

    Wow, double fail. You can't run 3 VGA monitors on this one.
  • EnzoFX - Saturday, January 4, 2014 - link

    Yes, it is. I don't understand what happened to the concept of using DVI/HDMI to VGA adapters, I'm sure they can do some breakout cable or whatever. I mean, who needs all of those connectors? I still hate that an old board has 8 to 10 USB ports, but now that graphics are integrated into CPU's, you only get 6 usb ports in the rear.... Just feels stupid stubbornness so support everything rather than have some focus.
  • amrs - Saturday, January 4, 2014 - link

    I chafed too and looked for a motherboard without the useless connectors but had to cave in. There doesn't seem to be any. Maybe it's just cheaper on the whole? Less support calls and RMAs? Less complaints when the cheapest adapter from eBay doesn't work?

    One might think Apple users have proven people can handle adapters but they have the Apple stores for help.
  • nevertell - Sunday, January 5, 2014 - link

    Doing HDMI or DVI-D to VGA is quite problematic as it requires an active adapter. DVI-I and DVI-A are the ones that support passive VGA adapters as they both are capable of providing analogue outputs on their own.
    On the other hand, what will you possibly do to populate those 10 USB ports ? And if you need more ports, buy a PCI/express adapter and stop whining. USB ports will soon be depreciated for the most part, as everything other than a plain, dumb data drive won't be able to interact with your PC wirelessly. That, and discrete DAC's, microphones and cameras.
  • abhaxus - Saturday, January 4, 2014 - link

    Ugh. I was really torn between the G1.Sniper Z87 and the MSI GD65, eventually decided on the GD65 because I wanted the third PCIe x16 slot and wondered why they had 2 PCI slots on the Z87... just ordered my GD65 yesterday :(

    Guess I'll be selling this one on eBay and upgrading again when the Z5S comes out. Looks like my ideal board, with the DAC-UP and all.
  • Achaios - Saturday, January 4, 2014 - link

    I did extensive reading on these boards as I recently upgraded to Asus Maximus VI Hero+i7-4770k.

    No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't bring myself to buying one of these over the Asus Maximus VI Hero. Here's their drawbacks:

    1. Terrible colour scheme.

    2. Bad, dysfunctional BIOS. I still remember very unfavourably the GA-P35-DS4 and its terrible, dysfunctional BIOS. This was a motherboard that they marketed as "the absolute overclocker's dream machine" and its BIOS did not even have detailed voltages in it. E.g. when adjusting the CPU VCORE or the NB voltage, there was no way to see from within BIOS what voltages one was setting. They only had stock, +0.1, +0.2, +0.3 type selections. Nobody knew what was the value of the voltages they were setting as in ASUS boards. It could be 1.4V or 2.4V, your guess was as good as mine.

    The mere thought of having to go through this torture of guessing my way through Gigabyte's dysfunctional and unfriendly BIOS was a major letdown.

    3. Way too much emphasis on onboard sound chip:

    These motherboards basically put waaaaayyy too much emphasis on onboard sound quality, smt that never interested me the slightest, though a gamer. I am using discrete GPU audio, and if for some reason I am dissatisfied by it, I will buy a Soundblaster. Therefore, insofar as I am concerned you could have onboard a $5 sound chip or the best sound chip in the world, it makes no difference as I will never use it.

    4. Notoriously bad overclocking performance:

    Before buying, I made a survey by browsing top Physics and overclocking scores at 3D Mark 11 for the 4670k and the 4770k. I didn't find not even one Gigabyte motherboard who came on top overclocking wise. Gigabyte motherboards all invariably sucked both in terms of Physics scores as well as in terms of highest overclock achieved.

    Then I remembered what had happened to me with their terribad GA-P35-DS4 which they marketed as the "overclocker's dream machine" [sic] and my QX9650. I never managed to overclock my QX9650 beyond 3.8 GHz until I bought an ASUS P5Q Deluxe (the very day installed it I reached 4.2 GHz) replacing the GA-P35-DS4, so real life benchmarks seemed to agree with my very bad former experience with Gigabyte.

    5. Way too little attention on overclocking potential:

    I don't know who had this brilliant idea to separate the "gamer" market and the "overclocker" market. Insofar as I am concerned, these two niche markets are one and the same. I am a gamer, but I am also a serious overclocker and I have been overclocking for many years (I had originally learned how to overclock and tune through reading ANANDTECH articles on X48 chipsets).

    A serious gamer will overclock for max performance. Therefore, I want to buy gamer oriented boards who put much emphasis on overclocking such as the ASUS Maximus VI Hero, not onboard sound chip oriented boards which are bad overclockers and have got dysfunctional BIOSes.
  • abhaxus - Saturday, January 4, 2014 - link

    Did you really just use a 5-6 year old board to complain about Gigabyte bios and overclocking? By that logic I wouldn't buy any product from any company, ever.
  • just4U - Saturday, January 4, 2014 - link

    I was thinking the same thing.. Occasionally every company makes a board people don't really like as it's riddled with problems. That includes some of Asus ROG series boards.

    I actually look at both the sniper and the rog boards because of the inclusion of higher end sound and Ethernet solutions.. (also occasionally better onboard controllers..) For me that's what makes both lines a winner.
  • IanCutress - Monday, January 6, 2014 - link

    1. Aesthetics are personal opinions. You don't like it, then you don't like it, but seems unfair to chastise those that do.
    2. The BIOS system on both ASUS and GIGABYTE has vastly improved since P35. Both BIOSes allow a full range of voltage control. Some users prefer absolute adjustment, others prefer offsets (what you mention), and for companies to recommend overclocks it is easier to speak in offsets when you don't know what the VID of a CPU is.
    3. Using discrete GPU audio is the minority. Such a large investment in onboard audio is usually due to customer requests. If you want a motherboard with low quality audio go for it, but chances are high end boards are going to have high end audio.
    4. So for OC performance you used a synthetic, which is stereotypically littered with extreme overclocking results on liquid nitrogen cooling? A benchmark which requires heavy multithreaded performance when GB hasn't released an X79 refresh for Ivy Bridge? Makes sense...
    5. You confuse self importance: yes some gamers are overclockers. But not all overclockers are gamers - extreme overclockers (those going for records which litter your fourth point) are using exotic cooling who require motherboards stripped down to the bare essentials. This is why there is a separation in markets. So while you overclock, it sounds like you are not an extreme overclocker, especially if you use your overclock 24/7. Extreme overclocking is ultimately the best use case for overclocking based motherboards. To call out gamers who do not overclock as 'serious gamers' ('A serious gamer will overclock') is utter bull - you can be a serious gamer on pretty sub-standard kit. And what exactly is a serious gamer? Are you the defining standard? Rattles a bit of posing here.

    As others have said, you've used an old product to complain about a modern product. We gave the Z87X-OC an award at AnandTech, it was a great board for a great price, and I've never known a Gigabyte board since Sandy Bridge to lag behind any other board by a serious amount in our 24/7 overclock testing. Guess what, we have data to back it up.
  • Jay77 - Saturday, January 4, 2014 - link

    At least one of the boards doesn't have any pci slots. Unfortunately, it's much more likely that I'll use a x2 or x4 pcie slot than ever will 3-way Crossfire.
  • just4U - Saturday, January 4, 2014 - link

    a serious gamer will game... and couldn't be bothered with overclocking.
  • EasterEEL - Sunday, January 5, 2014 - link

    So good you posted twice! I love the lime green/black colour scheme, looks great in my water cooled CM690 nvidia edition case with Avexir Venom Series memory.

    Nothing wrong with the Gigabyte Z87 M5 motherboard BOIS and it over-clocks absolutely fine. My 3D Mark 11 seems to be right up there. With Haswell the CPU over-clock delta is far more important than the motherboard.
  • Kompost - Sunday, January 5, 2014 - link

    "G1.Sniper range include the upgradable OP-AMP feature that lets audio enthusiasts change the operational amplifier to cater their music tastes better"

    This is so idiotic it's not even funny. Change of a single opamp in the signal path is hard to even measure, much less hear.
  • vladdt - Sunday, February 23, 2014 - link

    I am owner of Z77 Gigabyte G1 Sniper M3 - and I VERY DISAPOINTED of this board! Actually - mostly of Gigbyte itself. Gigabyte support is horrible. They have F9 BIOS for this board, stable but pretty old. This is first version of UEFI BIOS, without secure boot, fast boot and many others features for Windows 8.0-8.1. They have F10 BIOS, witch support many new things, but this BIOS - in permanent beta stage. Last update was 2013-03! I'ts unstable! On F9 my computer correctly wake up from sleep, on F10 - hanged permanently. And this is "top gamers" motherboard! Looks like Gigabyte position is: "You are bought Z77 long ago? Loosers! Throw out your motherboard and buy a new one!"

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