X99 Motherboard Preview Roundup

Gigabyte GA-X99-Gaming 5

RRP: £199

Specifications

• Expansion slots: FourPCI-E 16x (Two x16, Two x8, One x4) , Three PCI-E 4x
  
• Networking: Killer E2201
  
• SATA Express support: YES
  
• M.2 Support: YES - Type 2 and Type 3
  
• Storage: 2 x M.2, 10 x SATA 6Gbps
  
• USB: 8 x USB 3 (2 via X99 headers), 8 x USB 2 (4 via headers)
  
• Audio: Creative Sound Core 3D chip with TI Burr Brown OPA2134 operational amplifier and SBX Pro Studio Audio Suite and USB DAC

With Gigabyte on the warpath with X99, stepping up from the UD4 is the GA-X99-Gaming 5, which costs just under £200. The raw specification doesn't actually differ that much - there are the same number of PCI-E slots, with four 16x slots and three 1x slots and the graphics slots also sport the premium lane feature that gives an extra x8-worth of bandwidth on four-way setups.


SATA Express support is here, as is the dual M.2 stacked design from the UD4 with one slot for SSDs and the other shorter affair typically for WiFi cards. It's pretty good-looking but once powered up, you're able to tweak the isolated audio PCB lighting to flash in time with your music or just a regular pulse. You can also turn it off while the chipset features illumination too.

One strange omission with both the X99-UD4 and the Gaming 5 is any kind of on-board overclocking tools; there's no LED POST code display, power or reset buttons or CMOS clear button. Instead, Gigabyte has focussed on seriously beefing-up the on-board audio. Included is a quad-core Creative Sound Core3D audio processor, a DAC-specific USB port, high0end audio capacitors plus upgradable Op-AMPS all backed up by Creative's SBX Pro Studio Audio Suite.




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