Gigabyte X99-Gaming-5P (LGA 2011-3) Motherboard Review

Software Overview

So the manufacturer’s point of difference is not only the components it uses, but also what it can offer the user during day-to-day use. Gigabyte, like others, offer many different programs for you to choose from once set up which can help to make your life a little easier. Usually these programs are useless, offering bloatware or some pretty pointless programs that you wouldn’t normally download. Gigabyte used to be the same, but have now changed their tune and offering useful programs from updating the BIOS which can be tricky, to updating all of the installed motherboard relevant drivers at once.

App Center is Gigabyte’s ‘hub’ for all of its programs. From here you can choose to update or install apps or go into Preferences to change your settings.

When updating the drivers and installing new apps, you are greeted by these pages. A very simple point and click update system, no trawling through download links to find what you want.

Once new apps are installed, they appear in the App Center panel, from which you can open as you please.

Ambient LED controls the on-board LED’s of the motherboard, the most notable is the PCB integrated LED strip, which has a really cool, but annoying feature where it Pulses to the beat of the music.

@BIOS, Gigabytes ol’ faithful comes to be a part of the new software; this is an amazingly handy tool that allows you to update the BIOS with ease.

In with the Gaming series of motherboards, Gigabyte introduced their own Gaming Controller software. This allows gamers to use software enabled hotkeys, giving gamers a wider functionality with their keyboards. Along with this, they’ve included Speed Control; this feature is something that is normally found on gaming mice such as the R.A.T. series. This enables a temporary drop in DPI to give gamers the increased focus needed for precise shots.