Gigabyte Gaming K5 Z270 Motherboard Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

The Gigabyte GA Z270X Gaming K5 ATX motherboard is available now from most major retailers for around £165. This is still quite a lot of money, but it is certainly competitive for the Z270 platform, and for the level of features that we saw included on this motherboard. For those who are eager to invest in Intel 6th or 7th generation processors, it seems like an ideal Choice. Of course, with the introduction of the new 8th generation CPUs from Intel and their Z370 motherboards, we expect the 7th generation processors to soon drop in price, and that is going to make this motherboard far more appealing to many consumers.

Overview

Overall, I think this is one of the most competitive Z270 motherboards on the market today. Of course, that’s not particularly difficult given that it’s one of the last or most recent Z270 motherboards to have been released, so there’s plenty of market experience for Gigabyte to have learnt from over the years.

Connectivity on this motherboard is fantastic, with support for all major types of USB, including 3.1 Gen 2 and Type-C. External storage is one thing, but those who want blazing fast internal storage will be pleased to see that there are triple NVMe PCIe SSD mounts, that support Raid 0 for extreme performance. Of course, with M.2 support, Intel Optane memory support, U.2 support, and more, storage is not going to be a problem.

Gaming

Gaming performance on this motherboard was obviously impressive. Sure, we have seen higher performance from many of the motherboards and their respective chipsets, but keep in mind we have tested a lot of more expensive and high-end enthusiast products recently, and that’s somewhat skewing the results. To expect the performance of this motherboard and it’s respective processor to be on par with those would be unrealistic given it’s much more affordable. Of course, it delivered the kind of performance a typical gamer/consumer could expect for a reasonable amount of money, and the added features of this motherboard certainly sweeten the deal beyond the raw gaming performance.

Being able to mount multiple graphics cards is obviously a big benefit, with 3-way graphics support and armoured PCIe slots that are able to easily sustain the weight of modern high-end graphics cards. Running three cards in SLI or in Crossfire is going to give you incredible performance, in both gaming tasks and heavy-duty rendering tasks.

Added Value

Speaking of added features, the use of Killer e2500 gaming LAN, is certainly welcome for those who care for high-performance networking. I’m also very happy to see the inclusion of the ALC1220 audio codecs, as well as Sound Blaster X-Fi audio processing. Even more so, those who wish to use an external DAC will be happy to see high powered USB ports to match their specific requirements.

RGB lighting is included, although I would be surprised if it wasn’t in today’s market given how popular the feature has become. The use of Gigabyte RGB Fusion LED lighting system allows you to really customise the lighting too, and even sync other Gigabyte hardware.

Should I Buy One?

With this level of features, extensive storage options, high-end gaming performance, and enthusiasts grade audio performance, the Gigabyte Gaming K5 is really a jack of all trades. Of course, you can get high performance from some of the newer CPUs on the market, as well as from some of the newer chipsets, but you can expect to pay a much bigger premium for that privilege. If you’re eager to invest in Z270, the gaming K5 is the way to go.

Pros

• Great performance
• 3 x M.2 Mounts with Shield
• Armoured PCIe Slots
• Armoured DDR4 DIMMS
• High-end Audio Hardware
• Multi-GPU support
• RGB Lighting
• Trusted brand name
• ACL1220 audio

Cons

• None