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- Date:
- Thursday , January 15, 2015
- Author:
- Daniel Dobrowolski
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
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GIGABYTE X99 Gaming 5 LGA 2011-v3 Motherboard Review
GIGABYTE’s latest X99 Gaming 5 promises to be a solid overclocker with great features and a reasonable price tag. It comes with features like "Server Level Chokes" from Cooper Bussman and an all digital power solution from Power IR. Long Lifespan Durable Black capacitors and single package MOSFETs make the list as well.
Introduction
GIGABYTE is a brand most computer enthusiasts should recognize. GIGABYTE was founded in 1986 and has grown into a company with over 7,000 employees and annual revenue of approximately 1.7 billion dollars. GIGABYTE started making motherboards and like its competition, GIGABYTE branched out to encompass a wide array of products such as graphics cards, laptops, computer cases, tablets, server, and networking equipment.
Due in no small part to its increasing product line and following suit with ASUS and MSI, GIGABYTE offers motherboards with additional branding focused on the gaming enthusiasts. This practice began with the original G1 Sniper motherboards and now extends to an entire lineup of G1 branded motherboards. The X99 Gaming 5 for example is one of the many motherboards in the Gaming series. Often times one has to wonder what exactly constitutes a "gaming" motherboard and this question can be difficult to answer. Many times it is a matter of branding and or aesthetics. In the case of the G1 series of motherboards the actual feature set includes hardware designed to appeal to gamers. Examples of this include the Killer NIC and Creative Sound Core3D offering a dedicated "headphone" audio amplifier. A natural extension of the gaming focused feature set is support for NVIDIA’s SLI, 3-Way, 4-Way SLI and AMD’s CrossFire technologies.
The X99 Gaming 5 is based on Intel’s X99 Express chipset and supports Intel’s Core i7 5xxx series CPUs and Intel Xeon CPUs compatible with the LGA2011-v3 socket. The GIGABYTE X99 Gaming 5 utilizes a six-phase power design using Cooper Bussmann chokes which GIGABYTE markets as server grade. Ultra-low ESR black solid electrolytic capacitors are used throughout the motherboard excluding dedicated audio capacitors. The capacitors used are rated for 10,000 hours of use under the most grueling conditions. The single package driver IC and MOSFETs by International Rectifier are compact and efficient. The GIGABYTE X99 Gaming 5 offers M.2 support, SATA Express, multi-GPU support, gigabit Ethernet, Q-flash via USB support, DualBIOS, and USB DAC up ports.
While these features aren’t all precisely targeted at gamers, it is the features which are aimed at gamers that stand out the most. One such feature that is the Game Controller. The Game Control Feature is a new one for GIGABYTE. This is a feature which allows you to setup macros on keyboards that do not necessarily have a macro function. There is also the Sniper Key mode for changing mouse sensitivity on the mouse with a single key press. We also see a return of the GIGABYTE App Center and EasyTune software.
The GIGABYTE X99 Gaming 5 is roughly in the mid-range of the G series family. You won’t find built-in wireless, multiple LAN ports, or dual SATA Express options. The motherboard also has some other cost cutting measures in place such as a lack of onboard power and reset buttons. About the only absolute fluff feature you will find here are the Ambient LED and I/O panel LED features.
Main Specifications Overview:
Detailed Specifications Overview:
Packaging
The branding and packaging are all familiar to anyone that’s ever seen the GIGABYTE G1 Gaming motherboards. The packaging is red and black and sports the GIGABYTE "eye" logo. The bundle has quite a few items in it. There is the usual driver disc, user guide, I/O shield with backlighting, SLI and CrossFire bridges, 3 and 4 way SLI bridges, 3x to 1x 8-pin CPU power cable, and braided SATA cables which are a very nice touch.
Motherboard Layout
The motherboard layout is exceptionally well thought out. Ordinarily I’m very good at finding something however minor to complain about. In this case I just can’t think of anything bad to say about the PCB layout and design. In terms of physical build quality this is easily one of the best motherboards I’ve seen GIGABYTE turn out. The machine work on the heat sinks that cool the MOSFETS and chipset is excellent. The heat sinks are relatively small for an X99 motherboard and yet these seem quite effective as temperatures during testing hovered around 89F-94F.
The CPU socket area is free of major obstructions thanks to a compact 8-phase power design. The PWMs are International Rectifier PowIRstage IR3580’s and the chokes are Cooper Bussmann 1007R3 R15’s which GIGABYTE markets as "Server Grade." We last saw these on the ASRock X99 WS. There are capacitors here from Nippon Chemicon rated for 10,000 hours.
A heat pipe joins the MOSFET cooling to the chipset cooling hardware. The CPU fan and option fan headers are in an unusual place in that they are very close to the primary PCI-Express x16 slot. Another interesting aspect of the X99 Gaming 5’s design is the single 8-pin CPU power port. There is a cable included which allows you to connect up to three 8-pin cables to this one connector for increased power delivery. GIGABYTE probably felt that this was a better way to go than separate 8-pin plugs as not all PSUs are so equipped.
The X99 Gaming 5 offers eight 288-pin DDR4 memory slots supporting a total of 64GB of DRAM at speeds of up to speeds of DDR4 4000MHz in quad-channel mode. These are color coded black and gray to denote proper dual and quad-channel memory mode operation. Each set of four slots has dual power phases which are IR3553s rated at 40A.
The chipset is connected to the MOSFET cooler by way of their shared heat pipe. The chipset cooling hardware is well built with clean edges and an aesthetically pleasing though not entirely original design. The red parts light up when the system is on. This is part of the ambient LED system which has pulse, off and normal (constant on) settings. In front of the chipset you’ll find the many SATA 6Gb/s ports and the SATA Express header as well. When you look at the PCB carefully you’ll note how well marked all the headers are and the dual BIOS ROMs. These are unfortunately not the removable kind.
The expansion slot area is well thought out. The PCI-Express x16 slots are evenly spaced for optimal multi-GPU configurations. Configurations of 8x/8x/16x/8x or 16x/0x/16x/8x are supported with both AMD’s CrossFire and NVIDIA’s 4-Way SLI. You’ll find a switch just behind the second PCI-Express x16 slot which controls the audio gain which is next to the OP-AMP socket. The dedicated audio capacitors can be seen to the far right hand side of the motherboard in the corner.
The I/O panel is one of the more interesting aspects of the motherboard. 4x USB 2.0 DAC up ports are included which have a clean noise free power delivery sub-system which is ideal for connecting external USB DACs. GIGABYTE claims up to 2x less noise is possible with these ports. Aside from these we have a dedicated PS/2 keyboard and mouse port, 5x USB 3.0 ports and a port which supports recovery of the BIOS from USB media should both ROMs become non-functional. Gold plated audio jacks are provided for analog audio along with a single Toslink or optical output. For all your LAN needs a single RJ-45 port is provided which supports Gigabit speeds.