Overclocking and Conclusion
Overclocking
To give a feel for the overclocking performance potential of the Z270X-Gaming 5 motherboard, we attempted to push it to known CPU-supported performance parameters with minimal tweaking. At the stock base clock speed of 100Mhz, we pushed the CPU to 5.0GHz with a 4.5GHz ring bus and 2667MHz memory speeds. This was done at a 1.32V CPU voltage and a 1.23V memory voltage with all other values left at default settings. All overclocking sessions remained stable for over 4hrs. System stability was tested running the AIDA64 stability test in conjunction with EVGA's OC Scanner X graphical benchmark running at 1280×1024 resolution and 8x MSAA in stress test mode. Note that 16GB (2 x 8GB) of Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4-2666 memory modules were used for the overclocking tests.
100MHz Base Clock Stats with 5.0GHZ CPU speed
Note that this is is meant only as a quick preview of the board's performance potential. With more time to tweak the settings to a greater extent, pushing to a higher base clock and ring bus speed may have been achievable, in addition to an overnight stability run without issue.
Pricing
As of January 05, the GIGABYTE Z270X-Gaming 5 motherboard was available at Newegg.com for $189.99.
Conclusion
The GIGABYTE Z270X-Gaming 5 motherboard is a solid product for GIGABYTE, offering a mix of familiar features with a slew of new features to give the board an edge. Further, the board is among the launch vehicles for GIGABYTE's new AORUS brand, a gamer-friendly brand looking to differentiate itself from the competition. GIGABYTE balances the board design well with a unique aesthetic and a very diverse offering of storage solutions. Its performance falls in-line with other boards of the same class and its overclocking potential leaves nothing to sneer at. We will be taking a more in-depth look into this board and its features in the near future, which should uncover even more strengths with this board and its new branding than was discussed in this Launch Day preview.
Strengths
- Stock performance
- Overclocking performance
- Board aesthetics, layout, and design
- UEFI BIOS design and usability
- Storage offerings – dual M.2 ports, SATA Express ports, and a U.2 port
- Configurable RGB LEDs using RGB Fusion through both UEFI and Window app
Weaknesses
- CMOS battery placement
The pricing links for Amazon,
The pricing links for Amazon, NewEgg and B&H (together with the prices) are still placeholders. You might want to fix those 😉
I imagine this is because
I imagine this is because there is no pricing on these sites yet, the board isn’t available. At least wasn’t on Newegg when I checked. 🙂
We fixed this for now.
We fixed this for now. Unfortunately, board’s will not be available in retail until Jan 5…
Can anyone explain why
Can anyone explain why Gigabyte keeps pushing the uglier AORUS line with its do you even lift bro eagle chicken as the enthusiast brand?
In regards to the Killer
In regards to the Killer brand network card integrated- Windows 10 auto-installs a broken driver with enormous memory leaks. It’s been doing it for months.
It’s not something that is game-breaking or a slight against Killer necessarily, but be warned, anyone who buys one- you’ll need the latest drivers from Killer immediately after installing Win10. The NIC will *work*, but you’ll find yourself out of available RAM in no time if you don’t manually install the fixed driver.
Have yet to have personally seen anyone say that their Killer Nic gained them anything for the record. Might be magnificent, but they haven’t threatened Intel or Realtek chipsets.