Board Impressions
First impressions of this board are generally good. The black and fluorescent lime/green makes a nice contrast and gives the board a lot of character. The layout looks a little busy, but still uncluttered. I guess my best way to describe it is, “This thing means business.” The heatsinks flow with the design and do not look cheap or poorly implemented. The gold accents are not gaudy or over the top. It still features plenty of silver and black throughout the metal parts to give it a solid look.
The board is actually fairly small and compact for a full ATX unit. When installing it into a case, it does not use the 3rd row of screws. This means that when the user installs the DIMMs, they need to be careful not to deflect the PCB too badly when pressing down (unsupported by screws). Everything is pretty snug and tight throughout the board.
The SATA connectors are somewhat interesting. The first two are on their side and behind the second PEG slot to allow for those to be plugged in while a longer card is in use. The other six SATA ports are facing upwards from the board. This is done for space and routing reasons, but it is not a setup that I personally enjoy or usually employ. When testing different drives, these perpendicular-to-the board SATA ports are easy to reach. When actually installing into a working case and trying to route and hide the cables, it is a bit more messy and problematic.
It is odd to see two PCI slots in use anymore, but this is not uncommon in FM2+ boards. The current Kaveri based APU has 24 PCI-E lanes that can be divided in multiple ways. Four of those lanes go directly to the FCH for I/O functionality. The FCH has another four PCI-E 2.0 lanes coming off of it. These are often reserved for extra USB 3.0 or Gig-E controllers. Kaveri does support 2 x CrossFire X8 connections, as well as 4 extra PCI-E lanes to spare for other duties.
The power delivery system is not nearly as robust as we have seen with other Gigabyte motherboards. It features a 4+2 power phase array that feeds the APU and the memory controller. Usually we have seen higher end FM2+ boards feature 6+2 units (and the older AM3+ boards had up to 8+2 units). The reasoning behind this is that AMD only supports up to 100 watt TDP processors as compared to the 125 watt+ processors that AM3+ handled (including the 220 watt monsters that are the FX-9000 series). Theoretically this could mean a less impressive overclock as compared to boards with a higher phase count and potentially higher power support. In reality, power does not seem to be as much of a problem as does the process technology and design decisions that AMD made with the latest Kaveri APUs. No matter what heroic measures are taken, overclocking on air typically leads to a 4.4 to 4.5 GHz overclock. Only when LN2 is used do we see anything higher.
I am also questioning the area around the CPU in terms of spacing. The capacitors from the power phases seem to get a bit closer to the socket than I have seen in other boards. I mention this because I have an older heatsink which requires a different bracket as compared to what current FM2+ boards have as stock. This bracket has fit in every AM3, AM3+, FM1, and FM2 boards that I have reviewed over the years. It is only this Gigabyte G1.Sniper A88X board that I have seen it not fit due to tolerances. The holes through the board are in the right place, but the capacitors are too close for it to work with this board.
The board is really only about average when we look at installed USB slots. It features four USB 2.0 ports and 2 USB 3.0 ports on the back. The board has the USB 3.0 header for front panel ports as well. We must not forget that single USB-DAC for audio devices. 7.1 audio is supported by the analog outputs on the back as well. Finally we see that it does feature a single shared PS/2 port for legacy keyboards and mice. The board does not feature any kind of wireless functionality.
Isn’t it one of the first
Isn’t it one of the first FM2+ boards that came out? I think it is about 10 months old.
And the funny thing about motherboard prices for the AMD platform is that using a search engine here in Greece, Sniper is the 5th most expensive model out of 27 with the “A88X” in their model name, costing 98 euros.
Using the term Sniper in the same search engine I can see that the FM2+ board is the cheapest of all “Sniper” boards available. All the others are for Intel. You can buy a B85 for 2 more euros than the FM2+ board, but after that it gets really ugly, with prices jumping from 147 to 375 euros.
Yup, it is one of the first
Yup, it is one of the first FM2+ boards to have come out last year. If there was one problem that users complained quite a bit about, it is that Gigabyte shipped a lot of these boards without Kaveri APU support in the BIOS. So, it has been problematic for some to update the BIOS as they don't have access to an older Richland based APU to do so.
This Sniper board is not nearly as high end as the other Sniper boards from Gigabyte. Agian, price is the primary concern for these manufacturers when it comes to the FM2+ socket.
Have you checked out the
Have you checked out the GA-F2A88X-UP4? It’s one of the most expensive FM2+ boards out there at 109.99 USD. Just above the Sniper and a tad below an MSI Gaming series board.
It addresses many of the concerns you had about the Sniper. The GA-F2A88X-UP4 has a IR Digital 6+2 Power Phase design and only one “front” facing SATA port. All others are the normal angled style. It’s rear video IO also includes a DisplayPort connection in addition to the others.
The only downgrade I can see compared to the Sniper is a much weaker RealTek audio chipset.
I’m probably going to use this in a build I’m doing in the next few months, but I’d like to hear your thoughts if you have any experience with it!
I have not had the chance to
I have not had the chance to work with this board yet, but the spec's do make it a bit beefier in terms of overclocking/performance than the Sniper. At least with audio, you can always add a card if you don't like that particular implementation. Good looking board!
Can this handle 4k gaming?
Can this handle 4k gaming?
Only if you use an add-in,
Only if you use an add-in, high end graphics card.
Bought this board first and
Bought this board first and tried pairing it with 4x8gb G.skill Trident X ddr 2400 memory. would not run all 4 sticks at 2400 no matter what bios settings i did.
Sold it and bought the MSI a88x-g45 gaming. Runs all 32GB at ddr 2400.
Computer build – https://imgur.com/a/4DwZz
I also was forced to buy a x2-340 cpu just to flash my gigabyte. kinda sucked but hey it was VERY cheap.
Good looking build! I am
Good looking build! I am working on the A88X G45 review now, and it is a really nice board for the price. Nice looking build you have there! I just hope that more HSA applications get released and support for it ratchets up. I am running that MSI board with a last gen GTX 580 Lightning card… it seems to run well with both the AMD graphics part enabled as well as the GTX 580. I probably should do some OpenCL testing with both running…
Greetings to all,
Greetings to all,
I recently bought G1.Sniper A88X (rev. 3.0 motherboard and was thinking of using the AMD A10-7850K or another APU from the fm2+ Kaveri line. My question after some research is, will I be able to update the bios with an fm2+ apu on this board, or will I have to get an fm2 apu for the bios update? Really wanted one of those Kaveri apu’s to have the board function with the lastest technology it can handle. Any suggestions?
Best Regards
Motee