Gigabyte G1.Sniper M5 (Z87) Motherboard Review

3DMark 11

3DMark 11 is the latest offering from Futuremark, taking full advantage of DirectX 11 by utilising tessellation features and volumetric lighting. It takes your graphics and CPU hardware to the edge to simulate the most extreme conditions whilst working as a stand point to compare results with other users online.

In terms of gaming performance, the Sniper M5 was at the higher-end of the scale and actually performed better than the Sniper 5 ATX board, though scores were very tight when looking at how other boards performed too. Once overclocked, the Performance score shot forward, though the Extreme score didn’t budge much.

3DMark 2013

“The new 3DMark includes everything you need to benchmark your hardware. With three all new tests you can bench everything from smartphones and tablets, to notebooks and home PCs, to the latest high-end, multi-GPU gaming desktops. And it’s not just for Windows. With 3DMark you can compare your scores with Android and iOS devices too. It’s the most powerful and flexible 3DMark we’ve ever created.

Fire Strike is our new showcase DirectX 11 benchmark designed for high-performance gaming PCs. It is our most ambitious and technical benchmark ever, featuring real-time graphics rendered with detail and complexity far beyond what is found in other benchmarks and games today.”

Within 3DMark 2013, the M5 and the full-sized Sniper boards both were at the bottom end of the scale, though the overclock did help to push both the normal test and extreme test scores up.