Gigabyte G1 Sniper A88X Motherboard Review

1. Introduction2. Gigabyte G1 Sniper A88X: Packaging and Bundle3. Gigabyte G1 Sniper A88X: Layout and Features4. Gigabyte G1 Sniper A88X: BIOS and Overclocking5. Testing Methodology6. Synthetic: PCMark 87. Synthetic: PCMark 78. Synthetic: 3DMark9. Synthetic: 3Dmark 1110. Synthetic: 3DMark Vantage11. Synthetic: SiSoft Sandra 201312. Synthetic: Cinebench R11.513. Synthetic: Super Pi14. Real World: WinRAR15. Real World: MKV Playback16. Real World: Media Encoding17. Gaming: Battlefield 318. Gaming: Call of Duty Black Ops 219. Gaming: DiRT Showdown20. Technical: Power Consumption21. Closing Thoughts22. View All Pages

The G1 Sniper A88X features a green and black colour scheme, similar to the other products in Gigabyte's G1 Sniper range.  It should be fairly simple to colour co-ordinate other system components with this motherboard if you put in a little effort.

Even though this is one of Gigabyte's high-end motherboards, there is only a modest heatsink covering the VRM circuitry around the CPU Socket.  The CPU power connector is located in the corner of the motherboard next to the heatsink.

The CPU socket is located in the usual place on the motherboard, surrounded on either side by the stock AMD CPU cooler mounting brackets.

The four DDR3 memory slots are located along the right-hand edge of the motherboard and support up to 64 GB of memory with frequencies of 2133/1866/1600/1333/1066 MHz.

We find the 24-pin power connector in the usual position to the right of the memory slots, alongside an internal USB3.0 header.

There are  eight SATA-600 connectors in the bottom right hand corner of the motherboard. These are connected to the A88X chipset and support RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 10, and JBOD configurations.

Along the bottom edge of the motherboard we find an HD Audio header, a S-PDIF connector, a TPM connector, two USB2.0 headers and the front panel header.

There are a generous selection of expansion slots on the motherboard.  From top to bottom we find a PCI Express x1 slot, a PCI Express (3.0) x16 slot, two further PCI Express x1 slots, a PCI Express x16 slot running at x4 and two legacy PCI slots.

On the rear I/O panel we find the following connections:

• 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
• 2 x USB ports
• 1 x DVI-D port
• 1 x VGA port
• 1 x HDMI port
• 2 x USB 3.0 ports
• 3 x USB 2.0 ports
• 1 x RJ-45 port
• 1 x Optical S/PDIF Out connector
• 5 x Audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out, Rear Speaker Out, Line In, Line Out, Mic In)

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