GIGABYTE G1 Sniper 3 Review - everything for the gamer AND overclocker

GIGABYTE has been running the G.1 series for some time now, and while it’s been largely successful, the company’s now taking a step back and slightly changing the direction of the motherboard series. Instead of focussing purely on the gaming scene, offering nothing but the most expensive and most extravagant of features the hardcore gamer may enjoy, GIGABYTE has instead taken a slightly more sensible approach; with some of the modest savings, it’s increased the PWM design on the board, further boosting overclocking potential.

Taking a look further down the motherboard, we find an Creative CA0132 audio chip, which provides a plethora of sound options for the enthusiast gamer or movie buff. There’s also an extra SATA controller, allowing the G.1 Sniper 3 its massive ten SATA ports.

For overclockers (or gamers with a hella need for performance) who want more than three video cards GIGABYTE’s planned ahead, including support for 4-way SLI and CrossFireX. In fact, we were lucky enough to test this board in four-way on liquid nitrogen a few months ago, and we can say that it runs perfectly under high load and low temperatures.

Attentive Atomicans will have already noticed that the ‘ammo clip’ heat sink usually featured on the G1 series has mysteriously disappeared from this board. We're not going to say we're happy about it, but... oh wait, yes we are. The ammo clip was enjoyed by a few, but loathed by many more; it really just made the G1 series look like a gimmick, instead of the top-tier motherboard it truly is.

Intel’s Ivy Bridge is a solid platform for extreme overclocking, but due to the use of silicone-based TIM to attach the CPU heat shroud, air overclocking performance is actually a little lower than that of Sandy Bridge. For this reason, testing the overclocking performance of this board on air is a touch boring.

Fear not, however, as we had the opportunity to run this little beauty on Liquid Nitrogen again recently, and if we do say so, it's a fine piece of hardware indeed. Four-way worked a treat, cold booting wasn't an issue, and the extra on-board controls are a useful inclusion. Given the success of the board under extreme overclocking conditions, it's safe to say that you won't be limited by the Sniper 3 under regular overclocking loads.

Due to the larger heatsink around the CPU socket, we'd suggest using water cooling if you plan on overclocking. That said, if you're interested in this board for the gaming features, perhaps stick to a small air cooler, as the RAM slots are also fairly close, with the first black slot likely to be cut off.

Also worth mentioning is the dual LAN capability of this motherboard, with one port being run from the Intel Gigabit Ethernet, while a second port is powered by a Qualcom Atheros Killer E2200 chip – the same used in Killer Network Cards.

And of course there are the obvious perks of Ivy Bridge and the Z77 chipset, with Lucid MVP, Intel SCT, Intel RST and the ability to run the system without a dedicated GPU installed, through one of the motherboards four display output options.

It seems GIGABYTE realises a lot of PCs aren't sitting right next to their modem, and has included a dual-band WiFi card. It will fit right on in to the PCIe x1 port on the motherboard, though you should be aware that using this WiFi card will make CrossFire and SLI difficult, as the 1x ports are in between the top two x16 ports. Of course you could just put the WiFi Card into a x16 slot, but that again could impede any extra cards you may want to add to your system (assuming you have any other devices such as RAID or Sound cards).

So we've established the board has good sound, good network performance, high overclocking performance and as always with Gigabyte boards, good build quality, but what about the price? Well as usual, you can expect Australian inflation to get the better of us. With the US price at $279, our $419 price tag does seem a little ridiculous.

For that price, you could buy three Z77-D3H motherboards; or put another way, you could buy an i5 3570K and a Z77-D3H combo for less. We're not saying that this board is poor value, we're simply pointing out that it's sitting at the tippy-top tier of motherboard pricing in this country.

If you can find value in the options and build quality of this board, we'd very much encourage you to consider it for your next gaming monster. For those on a slightly stricter budget, the apparent "Australia Tax" does put this board a little out of reach for most people. It’s a shame, as its price should sit $10 lower than the ASUS Maximus IV Extreme according to US prices, but instead it inds itself $70 above it here in Australia.

We know not every gamer is an overclocker and vice versa, and for this reason some gamers will be a little upset that these boards have been repositioned in the market to better compete with ASUS and the ROG line-up. It's a valid concern, and if the overclocking features drive up the price of the board, and a gamer won't use those features, what’s the point in them buying it? The same can be said for gaming features that are largely useless to overclockers.

However, we consider the Sniper 3 to be the perfect match for us. We're gamers and overclockers, and we feel our audience is very much the same. To be honest we couldn't picture a better balanced motherboard, one that will run high 24/7 overclocks comfortably, and provide all the features  and connectivity of a true gaming motherboard. The G1 Sniper 3 is a perfect competitor to the ASUS Maximus for that very reason, though a little over priced here in Australia.

Gigabyte G1 Sniper