GIGABYTE G1.Sniper M3 (rev.1.0) Pro Reviews

The Gigabyte G1 Sniper M3 is a very good motherboard that carries with it a couple of caveats. First and foremost is that this motherboard does run a bit on the hot side, and along with its is mATX size, you will want to make sure that you have this motherboard in an enclosure that will allow it airflow to keep the power components cool. While the heatsinks on the motherboard are far from stellar, the G1 Sniper M3 has a high quality build that will handle the stresses of heat and overclocking very well. The BIOS setup on this motherboard and the Easy Tune 6 software do not cater to the hardcore hardware enthusiast, but there are enough of the basics there to get the "gamer" up and running rather quickly with a very nice overclock that bring enough CPU cycles for just about any game you want to play.

On first glance, the Gigabyte G1.Sniper M3 looks like a good board – in terms of performance we are right on the money across the board, and overclocking performance is also competitive with the MVG. On the motherboard itself is a fairly default chipset arrangement, with five of the SATA ports in a 4+1 arrangement (+1 at right angles to the motherboard), 4 USB 3.0 total from the chipset and an x16 or x8/x8 arrangement for GPUs. A couple of points do stand out however – the first is the audio. Onboard we have a Creative CA0132 codec solution, which promises a cleaner sound along with additional filtering and an EM shield to improve electrical noise. In our tests however, we had to disable all the additional software features in order to get RMAA to run – despite this it still performed well. Another point to stand out is the PCIe arrangement. On the face of the board, we have three green full length PCIe slots. Typically with a microATX board these are arranged in an x8/x1/x8/x4 arrangement, but on the G1.Sniper M3 these are x8/x1/x4/x8. This allows for two triple slot GPUs (probably a good thing), but unless you are paying attention then, like I did to begin with, cards may go in the x4 slot instead, which is powered by the chipset and offers bad scaling (that is in general across all motherboards). In this scenario CrossFireX does work, but SLI does not (you need x8 lanes per GPU). We tested the x16+x4 arrangement and clearly the x8/x8 is preferred. It is worth noting that using a second GPU like this will block one of the SATA ports.

As you might be able to tell, I'm pretty impressed with this little board. For the money you're dropping on it, you'll pick up a board that's capable of standing toe-to-toe with pretty much any of the full spec boards around right now. If you can bring yourself to ignore the faintly unpleasant Incredible Hulk-esque green styling, you'll be one happy gaming bunny.

I've spent a little over a week using the Gigabyte G1.Sniper M3. I must say that the biggest thing that stands out for me with this product is the fact that the audio performance is really really good, although the input side is a bit lacking, as shown by our RMAA test results. Now that it's been some time that this product has been on the market, and the BIOS has been updated to version "F7", everything offered by this board works really really well, and overclocking is very simple, although higher than expected voltage is required when clocking. Memory performance is pretty good, while CPU performance is outright outstanding. I have spent many months using the G.1 Sniper2 motherboard as the base for my personal gaming rig, and nearly every feature offered by the new G1.Sniper M3 is better than its older full-ATX brother except of course, the overclocking stuff, and well, the PCIe slot design. I have absolutely no idea what Gigabyte was thinking with this arrangement, other than it's perfect for single VGA users who want to add in an external drive controller, or maybe perhaps a PCIe SSD. However, if you plan to use this board for CrossFire or SLI, and in a mATX case, you might be disappointed with the performance offered, as it is a fair bit slower than products that offer a usable mATX PCIe 3.0 x8/x8 slot arrangement.

We'd like to thank our friends at Gigabyte for providing the G1.Sniper M3 micro ATX motherboard for our review today. The gorgeous style, small footprint, and enhancements to the board's gaming and multimedia features will certaintly make it more competitive against other Z77 boards from ASUS and other vendors.

Although it uses the microATX form factor, the Gigabyte G1.Sniper M3 is a high-end motherboard, targeted to users who want to build a small yet powerful PC. Its highlights include the presence of three PCI Express x16 slots (supporting both CrossFireX and SLI), which are great to see on microATX motherboards, and a high-end audio codec from Creative. Also worth mentioning are the overclocking capability in 0.01 MHz increments, the presence of two BIOS chips, and support for three PWM fans. Motherboards using the standard ATX form factor may bring more SATA-600 and USB 3.0 ports, but we understand that it is very hard to squeeze so many ports on a microATX motherboard. The price of this motherboard is not bad for all the features it brings, so it is a really nice choice if you are building a small form factor computer for playing games and carrying it around.

When I first received the Sniper M3, memories of the Weapon-centric heatsinks popped into my head until I opened the box. Then I realized that in reality, this model really shared no design similarities except the same color scheme from previous G1 Killer series boards. Missing from the roster is the Killer network controller which has been one of the mainstays of the G1 Killer line, and therefore was an odd omission for me. The Weaponized heatsinks are also absent instead replaced by a functional albeit somewhat boring standard heatsink design. The lack of onboard post LED, and power/reset buttons also were kinda odd omissions for a gaming centric or high end gaming model motherboard. Then we come to the slot layout, which giving 3 slot spacing between the two main GPU slots is a total blunder to us as this basically omits dual card configurations for many users who may use a mATX chassis with 4 slot outputs, such as many of the LANBOX style cases on the market. Lastly, while every other Z77 midrange and high end model motherboards we have seen on the market has had an 8 pin CPU power connector, for some reason Gigabyte chose to go with a 4 pin connector instead. I feel it could impact maximum performance potential as the extra power headroom is now lessened.