TheOverclocker Issue 28 | Page 22

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