Gigabyte G1.Sniper 5 (Z87) Motherboard Review
Power Consumption
To test power consumption, we monitor the overall power of the system through a plug-in electricity usage monitor at an idle and load state. This allows us to show the fluctuation between how much power draw the system takes at idle and at load. By monitoring the overall usage of the whole system, it gives an easy comparison if you wish to do the same yourself as opposed to buying very expensive individual testing equipment.
As the G1.Sniper 5 is one of the most feature rich boards we’ve tested, we assumed that power would be on the higher-end of the scale, but still nothing too out of the ordinary. When overclocking, we had to increase voltages for stability and that is why there is a sudden increase, mainly at load to 325Watts.
I love this board and I’m really grateful to my supplier for donating one to me along with a Gigabyte Windforce GTX 770. I’m really impressed by the audio and now I can finally retire my old Xonar PCI soundcard. Although the board and GFX card are way overkill for my personal use and gaming setup (I’m not as big a gamer as I used to be, I’m much older now & my grandkids take up a lot of my time) I appreciate it non the less.
Audio is better than Xonar DS? ( I guess you have meant that)
That’s awesome.
It has the ability for you to swap around operational amplifiers to tailor the sound to your liking. The board comes with two different value op-amps but I also have a few of my own lying about.
In the past I always had to settle for a board that sported at least one legacy PCI slot in order for me to keep using my aging Xonar D2 soundcard which is far superior to any Realtek or VIA codec chip IMO.
That’s great man! Only very hid end DACs have the switchable op-amp feature, like Xonar Essence One.
I’ve to say I’m impressed!
with the name ULTRA DURABLE on it, makes me feel like im buying a generic autozone part