Gigabyte G1.Sniper M3 (Z77) Motherboard Review

I’ve made it pretty clear that I’m a big fan of the G1 series of motherboards, and actually used the G1.Sniper 2 for quite some time in my own personal rig, though most will see me ranting about Asus boards most of the time. With that in mind, I do still have muchos love for Gigabyte and believe that their products are getting stronger and stronger, and Z77 has been a great outlet to show this.

Z77 has probably been the strongest contender for Gigabyte as they had so many different boards at launch and as soon as the Micro-ATX Sniper M3 was announced, I instantly got goosebumps. This happened purely because Gigabyte haven’t really delved into the Micro-ATX world, when it comes to high-end components, so it was a big gamble to take, but for the most part; looks as though it’s paid off.

Style wise, is always going to be a love/hate Marmite situation, but for me; I love it. It’s different, quirky, unique and certainly has a specialist market, but for a board that offers specialist gaming sound and networking capabilities, you couldn’t exactly imagine your Granddad using it, could you?

Performance wise, we saw some strong figures coming from this board at stock, and when overclocked, the results were boosted quite dramatically across most tests, showing that this board can clock, as well as being aimed at the hardcore gamers out there. In terms of overclockability, we were able to get a reasonable overclock, but due to our CPU being a darn right bad clocker, we didn’t see the results that we’d really hoped for. This isn’t the boards fault however, and we believe that with the right chip, 4.8GHz and possibly even 4.9GHz could be achieved, so maybe we can revisit things in the future.

We said at the start that this board seems to pack a punch in terms of features and performance, and we certainly wasn’t wrong. We also said that it does skimp out, and at $179, it is definitely attractively priced, at the lower end of the Z77 scale. When compared to its big brother; the G1 Sniper 3, the price different is quite astounding, with the full-sized ATX board coming in at $279, a whole $100 more expensive, and from what we can see, the only main differences are the faster memory speed and extra PCI-Express expansion slots.

In terms of expansion slots, the G1.Sniper M3 isn’t exactly lacking, and the overall layout and choice of slots has been carefully chosen and in our opinion is spot on with what the consumer wants.

As per usual, with a G1 board, you get a good set of bundled features including stickers and a poster, but even the little things, like a slightly more upmarket rear I/O panel, and the choice of blue or black SATA cables with locking pins and right-angled connectors. These all add up in terms of cost, but Gigabyte seemed to have swallowed the cost themselves, instead of passing it onto the consumer as we’ve seen with the sumptuous price tag.

All in all, I can honestly say that the G1.Sniper M3 has managed to carry on the G1 series legacy, if not improving it slightly along the way. Micro-ATX versions of high-end boards are always going to be hit or miss, and Gigabyte have clearly done their research and developed a winner here, and that’s why it deserves none other than our Editor’s Choice Award.