Final Words & Conclusion
Final Words & conclusion
The Gigabyte Gaming G1 is a fantastic motherboard, fast in default performance, very easy to tweak with and it offers a really terrific feature set. Next to that the all new design kicks ass as well. The hardware itself is of great build quality and Gigabyte is offering one of the best performing products out there in the Z170 segment, nothing has been forgotten and even AC WIFI is included as well as double Gigabit Ethernet jacks. The board is very feature rich, overclockable and has these nice looks. Performance wise the board seems to rock the 6700K processor we threw at it. Intel doesn't make and thus offer any reference motherboards anymore, so it is hard to define a reference processors performance point as the board mother-partners will do everything in their power to tweak out the last bit of performance. And sure, that's not a bad thing but there can be some platform (brand) performance differences. But yeah, the extra perf you see is mostly related to the higher base clocks. That's just the processor side, I mean the Z170 offer it all in terms of features, stability and reliability really, heaps of USB 3.0/3.1 connectors, plenty SATA3 ports, super dual fast M.2. and a lovely, seriously lovely audio solution that allows you to even swap out OP-AMPS and is combined with a great intricate and dedicated audio solution and Creative Labs software suite, which is far more advanced to anything Realtek can offer.
The default performance however is up there at the same level as other competing products, combined with DDR4 memory this processor makes a good step forward opposed to previous gen processors. Combined with the series 100 chipset new features are available as well, SATA3, M.2 and SATA Express. Then there's the added benefit of DDR4 memory that not only use less power, the frequency can be so much higher as well, bringing more bandwidth and overall performance to the applications that require fast memory. Combine that with things like nice Gigabit jacks, exemplary audio solutions on the new motherboards and things like USB 3.0 / 3.1. The overall platform experience is what it is all about for Skylake. Performance with kick-ass features.
USB 3.1 Gen 1 versus Gen2
The industry is pulling the weirdest trick in the books right now. Most boxes (packaging) are listing USB 3.0 (5 Gbps) as USB 3.1 Gen 1. Read that well as it means that USB 3.1 Gen 2 is the new REAL 3.1 connector with 10 Gbps. Totally lame and confusing for the end users. Really, lame. So remember, if you read USB 3.1 Gen 1, that really is 100% the same old USB 3.0 connector, and USB 3.1 Gen 2 is the new 10 Gbps connector.
Storage
Combined with a truckload of SATA 6Gbps ports we can hardly complain about anything. Nice are the recent developments on the M.2 interface, pop in a M.2 compatible PCI-E SSD and you'll see your SSD quickly perform in the 700/800 Mb/sec range. Overall your SATA and M.2 connectivity is plentiful and top notch when it comes to performance. Great to see is that the slow has obtained a x4 PCIe interface connection allowing it 32 Gbps of bandwidth to work in. And yes, two of these can be placed in RAID mode and create a fictional 64 Gbps. To compare a little, your SATA3 port has 6 Gbps available. So that small form factor SSD solution now is very future proof.
Aesthetics
Taste differs per person, I do like how the G1 gaming albeit it is a little too colorful for my personal taste with black, white and red combined with many red LEDs. The motherboard creates a bit of a HALO effect due to the backside LEDs, I like that as well as the PCB traces that lit up, it makes the motherboard pop out of your chassis. But hey, anything visually is subjective I guess. This however is one of the better looking solutions for the enthusiast PC gamer.
Performance & tweaking
The overall performance in combo with the motherboard as such I'd rate as "terrific" for a quad core Core i7 6700K and good for the Core i5 6600K. Temps remain good at default clocks, temperatures when the CPU is overclocked with added voltage definitely seem to be a notch better opposed to Haswell but still can rise fast and hot. Depending at your CPU you can clock these Skylake processors anywhere from 4.6 to 5.0 GHz depending on a bit of luck.
The bottom line
The Gigabyte Z170X- Gaming G1 is what we call a showcase product, a flagship product in the Z170 line from Gigabyte. But this flagship comes at the shocking price of roughly 550 EURO. And honestly it's just too much for a platform that can hold only a quad-core processor. I mean this is not Skylake-E series we are talking about. Granted, it is the enthusiast range we are reviewing here. Really, any 250 EURO motherboard will perform the same if you stick to liquid or air cooling. With the price in mind it does make this motherboard a tremendously hard sell. So be very sure if you need features like 4-way SLI/Crossfire, Thunderbolt and 3x fairly useless SATA Express connectors. As you are paying a severe price premium for it. The extra money does get some justification for the excellent audio suite, I mean really that is seriously impressive. Relative to price in terms of design, performance and features it can't get any better than this, everything you need is on there. The looks and design combined with USB connectivity, two Killer E2400 Gigabit jacks and WIFI combined with all the tweaking mania you need make it a grand choice. Your DDR4 memory can be easily configured by enabling the XMP 2.0 profile. You will gain excellent features combined with seriously nice performance and very decent energy consumption levels. I have no doubt that some of you can reach 5 GHz on this CPU, the Gigabyte motherboard will certainly allow for this. The Gigabyte Z170X- Gaming G1 will receive our Top pick award, as it really deserves that, but pricing wise ... oh boy.
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