EDITOR’S CHOICE
AWARD
Value Award
GIGABYTE G1.Sniper Z87
RRP: $175.99 | Website: www.gigabyte.com
Test Machine
• INTEL Core i7 4770K
• CORSAIR Dominator
Platinum 2x4GB DDR
2666MHZ C10
• Corsair Force LS 240GB
• Cooler Master Silent Pro M2
1500W
• Windows 7 64-bit SP1
W
e’ve always been
fans of the G1 boards
from GIGABYTE here
at TheOverclocker. Perhaps
not the early attempts but
certainly with this current
generation as they
have almost perfected what
it is that makes for a great
gaming board. You need
only read out review of the
G1.Sniper 5 and all the praises
we had for it to see just how
well made these G1 boards
have become of late.
The Sniper Z87 then, may
seem like a redundant board
at first. After all, we have
the Sniper 5 and if you want a
cheaper board, perhaps look
22 The OverClocker Issue 28 | 2014
to the ultra-durable series or
the micro-ATX M5. The thing
is though, much like with the
Z87X-OC, GIGABYTE may have
possibly negated the need for
their other G1 boards with
this one. What the Sniper Z87
offers is more than what the
Z5S has for example. Then
again that board is cheaper,
but consider that the M5
is more expensive and its
features list is near identical
to the Sniper Z87s.
Let’s face it, most people
don’t use multi-GPU rendering
technology for their gaming
and the ones that do,
usually limit it to two cards.
Thus, while we are able to
appreciate a board that can
do 4-way graphics, there are
very few cases where this is a
viable or recommended option
for gaming purposes. As
such the support for regular
SLI and Crossfire on the Z87
is perfect and it eliminates
the need for any 3rd party
switching chip which will rob
you of performance.
This is an important point
because it is in practical terms
the only real feature that the
Z87 does not have that the
bigger and grander Sniper 5
board has. Yes you won’t get
the thunderbolt support, the
wifi and Bluetooth card as well
but you have to ask yourself
if these features are worth
double the price. Mind you
the Sniper 5 is a great board,
and you can read our review
over here, however the Z87 is
an even better board if only
because you get the best onboard audio solution money
can buy along with the Atheros
gaming NIC. Say what you will
but these are the two pillars
which seem to define gaming
motherboards lately and the
Sniper Z87 has both of them.
On to the BIOS then, this
is the same one found on
the Sniper 5 and much like
with that board we tend to
rely on the older legacy BIOS
for tuning. Not that there
is anything wrong with the
new interface, far from it.
It’s because the older one is
just easier to navigate with