Since the press release of G1 Sniper 2 emerged some weeks ago there has been plenty of discussing surrounding this motherboard across communities and social networking sites – mostly positive feedback I must say, but it falls with us to deliver the verdict. Is G1 Sniper 2 the perfect weapon?

From a visual aspect GIGABYTE have created an aesthetically pleasing gaming motherboard. It catches the eye, has the coveted black PCB and even LED lighting on the oversized heatsinks near the CPU socket. From the packaging right through to the board itself with magazine heatsink and visible bullet – GIGABYTE have captured the military feel with the G1 Sniper 2.

Performance-wise the G1 Sniper 2 is one of the best motherboards we have looked at so far. In all of the benchmarks it offered solid, consistent results and delivered great 3D performance – outmatching the ASUS Maximus IV Extreme, a board that is deemed as the ‘cream of the crop’ by Sandy Bridge enthusiasts. The G1 Sniper 2 has a good feature-set but I can’t help but feel it should have Quad-SLI and Quad-CrossfireX support – perhaps GIGABYTE are reserving this for the soon to be announced G1 Assassin 2/Guerilla 2 motherboard.



As with all G1-Killer motherboards, the Sniper 2 has GIGABYTE’s well known Ultra Durable 3 componentry. The idea with the G1 Series is to give gamers an easy, hassle-free but quality-rich experience and we aren’t left in any doubt of that with GIGABYTE’s Touch BIOS – alter the BIOS within windows. Audio is also an area that GIGABYTE are keen to focus on, the Sniper 2 features audio support from Creative X-Fi and Bi-Polarized audio CAPs from high quality Nichicon MUSEES. These high quality CAPs give better sound resolution and reproduction… they also look very cool!

Priced between £320-350 inc. VAT (GBP) the G1 Sniper 2 is an expensive investment. For this price we should expect onboard power switches, and Quad-GPU support. Some of the Sandy Bridge motherboards in this price-range mostly offer this. Do bear in mind though that there are some features that aren’t present with some offerings – such as the premium USB3.0 front panel device and the ability to team graphics processing with Lucid VIRTU.

Bottom line is: GIGABYTE have delivered an astounding Intel Z68 motherboard in the G1 Sniper 2. It performs consistently good and if you like the dazzling looks then this is one to put on the wishlist!







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