GIGABYTE X99 Gaming G1 WIFI Motherboard Review

Features and Motherboard Layout

Features

Courtesy of GIGABYTE

• Supports New Intel® Core™ i7 Processor Extreme Edition
• 4 Channel DDR4, 8 DIMMs
• Genuine All Digital Power Design with IR Digital PWM & IR PowIRstage® ICs
• 4-Way Graphics with Premium PCIe Lane
• Dual M.2 Technology with Onboard WIFI and SSD card
• 6x(30µ) Gold Plating for CPU socket, Memory DIMMs and PCIe slots
• Onboard Creative Sound Core3D™ quad-core audio processor
• AMP-UP Audio technology with exclusive Upgradable OP-AMP
• Independent Right and Left Audio Channel PCB Layers
• LED lighting for the audio guard light path and the back panel LED
• Dual DAC-UP USB ports
• Gold plated audio ports
• High end Nichicon audio capacitors
• Killer™ E2200 and Intel gaming networking
• SATA Express support for 10 Gb/s data transfer
• Long lifespan Durable Black™ Solid caps
• APP Center including EasyTune™ and Cloud Station™ utilities
• Thunderbolt™ Ready
• GIGABYTE UEFI DualBIOS™ with Q-Flash Plus USB port
• Safer design around screw mounting holes

Motherboard Layout

The GIGABYTE X99 Gaming G1 motherboard features the black and red theme common to GIGABYTE's Gaming board series. The Gaming series logo embedded in the chipset heat sink as well as the audio PCB divide line glow red to match the board's color theme as well. Because of GIGABYTE's decision to use an EATX form factor design, there is more then enough room to access all integrated components and ports.

The backside of the X99 Gaming G1 motherboard is mostly component free, including the areas surrounding the CPU. The area directly underneath the CPU power phases is covered by an alunimum heat spreader offering additional cooling as well as protection to the ICs located there.

GIGABYTE integrated the following ports into the X99 Gaming G1's rear panel assembly: a PS/2 keyboard/mouse port, two USB 2.0 ports, eight USB 3.0 ports, a CMOS reset button, a CPU overclocking button, a Fast Boot button, dual RJ-45 ports – an Intel I218-V GigE NIC port and a Qualcomm® Atheros Killer E2201 NIC port, an optical audio port, and five analogue audio ports. The NIC port to the inside is the Intel I218-V controller port with the Qualcomm® Atheros Killer E2201 controller port to the outside of the rear panel and colored red. The white colored USB 3.0 port can be used in conjunction with the board's Q-Flash Plus BIOS updater function. You simply connect a USB drive containing a BIOS file named GIGABYTE.bin and power on the system. If both the main and backup BIOS fail to initialize at startup, the Q-Flash Plus function will automatically attempt to flash the BIOS from the connected USB drive.

Courtesy of GIGABYTE

The X99 Gaming G1 motherboard has a total of seven PCI-Express device ports – four PCI-Express x16 slots and three PCI-Express x1 slots. For the PCI-Express x16 slots, the board supports full x16 bandwidth with a single or dual card, and mixed-mode x16 / x8 bandwidth with three or four video card populating the board. Note that quad-card mode is only available when using a CPU with 40 PCI-E lanes. When using a CPU with 28 PCI-E lanes, tri-card mode at x16 / x16 / x8 bandwidth is the maximum supported configuration.

The mini-PCIe port, housing the integrated Intel WIFI card, and the M.2 PCIe x4 port are located in between the lower portions of PCIe slots 2 and three. The CMOS battery is located in between the bottom of PCIe x16 slots 3 and 4. GIGABYTE stacked the mPCIe and M.2 PCIe slots so that the M.2 card sits over top of the mPCIe WIFI card when seated. The board supports M.2 PCIe SSDs up to 80mm in length. Note that the M.2 and the SATA Express ports (or SATA ports 4 and 5 ports if used individually) share bandwidth and are designed to be mutually exclusive.

GIGABYTE designed the audio subsystem on a separate PCB to ensure audio clarity and fidelity. The PCB separator line glows red along its length when the board is powered, making for a nice effect in-line with the board's color scheme. The quad-core SoundBlaster Core3D audio chipset is capped with a gold-plated heat sink located in the upper left corner of the board for signal shielding purposes. The changeable OP-AMP port and audio gain control switches are located to the right of the audio chipset. The audio gain control switch change the gain for the rear panel output ports. The gain is set to 2.5x with the switch set to position 1 and 6x with the switch set to position 2. The OP-AMP port allows for user switching of the board's OP-AMP chip for customized the audio experience. By default, the board comes with a TI Burr Brown® OPA2134 OP-AMP chip installed in the socket. The front panel audio header is located the upper left corner of the audio PCB, to the left of the audio chipset.

Two system fan headers, the Thunderbolt add-in card header, and the USB 2.0 headers are located along the outside of PCIe x16 slot 4. GIGABYTE's Thunderbolt add-in card can be connected to the Thunderbolt add-in header to unlock additional add-in card integration functions.

The integrated USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 headers are located along the lower outside edge of PCIe x16 slot 4.

The USB 3.0 headers, CMOS clear jumper, front panel header, and a system fan header are located in the lower left corner of the board.

The Intel X99 chipset is covered by a large aluminum heat sink with the Gaming series logo designed into its surface. The heatsink is low profile and acts as a terminating end for the heat pipe connecting the board's coolers. When the board is actively powered, the heat sink logo glows red. The LED power port is located to the upper left of the heat sink.

GIGABYTE designed the X99 Gaming G1 board with a total of eight SATA 6 Gb/s ports and one SATA-Express 10 Gb/s port. The SATA-Express port house two SATA 6 Gb/s ports that can be used as stand alone ports as well. To the right of the SATA ports is a SATA power header that can be used to provide extra power to the PCI-Express bus when multiple video cards are seated in the board. Simply connect it to a SATA power connector from your PSU. Note that the M.2 and the SATA Express ports (or SATA ports 4 and 5 ports if used individually) share bandwidth and are designed to be mutually exclusive.

The eight on board DDR4 memory slots are located directly above and below the CPU socket with support of up to 128GB of memory across all slots. Quad Channel memory mode is enabled with memory modules seated in like colored slots. The primary memory slots are the black colored slots in both the top and bottom slot sets. Note that memory speeds above 2133MHz are considered overclocked speeds and are outside of the official Intel stock memory speed specifications. The 24-pin ATX power port is located to the lower left of the lower DIMM slot set. The rear panel shield power connector is located to the upper left of the upper DIMM slot set. The rear panel shield surface glows blue when the power cable is connected to the board connector.

To the lower right of the lower set of DIMM slots are the 2-digit diagnostic LED display, the power, reset, Direct to BIOS, and CMOS clear buttons, on-board voltage measurement points, the Dual BIOS switch (SB), the active BIOS switch (BIOS_SW), and a 4-pin CPU fan header. A debug header is located to the right of the DIMM slot block. The diagnostic LED display can be used in conjunction with the table provided in the user manual to identify and troubleshoot board boot-related issues. The voltage measurement points allow for direct board voltage measurement using a volt meter. The active BIOS switch is used to switch between the primary and backup BIOS. With the switch set to the 1 position (default), the main BIOS is active. In the 2 position, the backup BIOS is activated. The Dual BIOS Switch is set to enabled (the 1 position) by default. Dual BIOS is disabled with the switch in the 2 position.

The CPU socket area is clear of obstructions. It looks like a tight fit between the two coolers along the sides of the socket, but we found no issues with using air or water coolers with the board. Notice how GIGABYTE connected all the board coolers via heat pipes routed out of the way, to better flow along the boards natural lines.

GIGABYTE integrated a single 8-pin ATX12V power connector along the outside edge of the VRM heat sink. Neither the heat sink nor the heat pipe should pose problems with using the power connector.