GIGABYTE Z170X-Gaming G1 is Tom’s Hardware 2015 Editor’s Choice

GIGABTYE has put a lot of effort into it’s flagship motherboard and the results are showing. After collecting the Recommended award from Anandtech and the Must Have Editor’s Choice from TweakTown, it is now from non other than Tom’s Hardware that the Gaming G1 receives the 2015 Editor’s Choice!!

Without overlooking the great performance achieved, what convince the reviewer is the shear amount of features this motherboard has to offer: “Solid overclocking, true x16/x16 mode for SLI and CrossFire, 3-way and 4-way SLI and CrossFireX, Thunderbolt 3, Front-panel USB 3.1 bay device, Triple Killer Networks controllers including one 802.11ac MIMO, manually selectable firmware ROMs, generous cable kit.”

The final verdict : “Our current Editor's Choice award replaces our former "Elite" award, where highly-priced products could win simply by being best-in-class. Gigabyte's Z170X-Gaming G1 could have qualified for either of these awards, since it's both elite and this editor's choice. While far from value-priced, an extensive feature set also gives the Z170X-Gaming G1 more features for the money than its lower-cost rival.”

You can read the full review here: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gigabyte-z170x-gaming-g1-motherboard,4347.html

TeamAU and GIGABYTE Break World Records!

GIGABYTE overclockers Dino (dinos22) Strkljevic, Sofos1990, and HiCookie were busy last week in Australia pushing CPUs and GIGABYTE motherboards to their absolute limit.

What was the result?

A world record shattered!

Dinos22, who also is GIGABYTE's Australia marketing manager, is currently the top overclocker on  Intel's XTU (more information on the XTU app here) leaderboards after pushing an Intel i7-5960X to 6GHz on LN2 cooling, a 16GB DDR4 RAM kit with timings of 12-14-15-15 all on a GIGABYTE X99-SOC Champion motherboard.

You can check out more information on HWBOT.

If you're new to overclocking and want to learn more about how to do it (and maybe break a world record yourself!) check out our overclocking tutorial livestream here:

The GIGABYTE Z170X-Gaming G1 Gets Reviewed by The Overclocker

We love overclockers and supporting the overclocking community. 

Recently The Overclocker Magazine ran a review of our GIGABYTE Z170X-Gaming G1 motherboard giving it their GAMING GEAR award.  

One of the beautiful things about overclocking is that you don't need a specific overclocking board. While we do offer an SOC Force board for enthusiasts, the fact is it's possible to overclock on any motherboard -- even ones that are Gaming focused as we showed in our recent overclocking livestream. For those who's interest lies more in gaming rather than enthusiast overclocking, overclocking your system effectively means a free minor upgrade with a few extra FPS.

The Overclocker liked the extensive feature set such as the inclusion of the Intel® USB 3.1 controller, the Killer NIC from Rivet, and the inclusion of a Burr-Brown DAC.  

All in all, The Overclocker said they would definitely recommend the system if they were building a high-end PC:

This motherboard is the premium Z170 motherboard GIGABYTE and as such commands a staggering $500USD price. For that you get every possible feature and function that is available on the Z170 chipset and platform. If you’re building that killer gaming rig that you have saved up for, then this is the motherboard for you. With all the extras provided, it will be hard if not impossible to find another gaming motherboard on the market that is as well spec’d.

You can read the full review over on The Overclocker's website.  

Anandtech Recommends The GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-Gaming G1!

When we launched the GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-Gaming G1 motherboard we were very excited about the potential of the Z170 chipset from Intel® and what it would mean for gamers. Personally we think that our new 100-series boards powered by the Z170 chipset are some of our best work yet, but we're a little biased.

Recently Anandtech posted a review of our GA-Z170X-Gaming G1 motherboard and gave it a Recommended by AnandTech award, proving that this board really is something special.

Anandtech's Ian Cutress liked the hefty feature set, enhanced overclocking support, and BIOS, calling the board "GIGABYTE's halo" of the 100-series board family.

At the end of the day, this is GIGABYTE’s halo motherboard for Skylake based systems. It will be one of the key elements in a system integrators high end build, and provides any gamer with enough features to be satisfied with a powerful rig. The competition is tough in this space, the volume is low, and GIGABYTE is making strides in most of the areas we have previously been cautious of in the past. Needless to say, even when considering the price, the Z170X-Gaming G1 would be a good foundation for that gaming PC you’ve saved up for. It’s worth a recommendation and GIGABYTE should be proud with what they’ve produced.

To read the full review head on over to Anandtech.

Vote for GIGABYTE at the European Hardware Awards 2015/2016

Dear GIGABYTE fans,
We need your help! The second round of voting for the European Hardware Awards started yesterday and will be open until December 20th. The European Hardware Association was formed by the largest independent technology news and reviews sites in 2015 and has a combined audience of over 20 million technology enthusiasts across Europe to choose the best hardware of this year!

GIGABYTE has numerous products that have been nominated and it is up to you the reader and user to choose the winners! Voting is simple and takes less than 5 minutes, plus no registration is needed so you can simply vote without that annoying step .
Where can people vote?

• The Netherlands: http://nl.hardware.info/nieuws/46043/stem-nu-hardwareinfo-community-awards-2015---ronde-2
• United Kingdom: http://www.kitguru.net/site-news/annual-awards/andrzej/kitguru-reader-awards-voting-starts-now/
• Germany: http://www.hardwareluxx.de/index.php/news/allgemein/hardwareluxx/37332-wahl-zum-hersteller-des-jahres-2015-runde-zwei.html
• France: http://www.cowcotland.com/news/50584/cowcotland-communauty-awards-2015-seconde-derniere-etape.html
• Spain: http://www.hispazone.com/Noticia/9670/Vota-a-los-mejores-componentes-y-dispositivos-en-los-premios-al-mejor-Hardware-de-la-Comunidad-Hispazone-2015.html
• Italy: http://www.hwupgrade.it/news/web/hardware-upgrade-award-vota-i-tuoi-prodotti-preferiti-nella-seconda-fase_59788.html
• Romania: http://lab501.ro/
• Poland: http://www.purepc.pl/

Winners will be announced at the beginning of January, 2016.
Thank you in advance for your help and continuous support in making GIGABYTE the great pc hardware manufacturer it is today!

Desktop Power in a Console Frame: Check out TheOriginalQ's Awesome Mini-ITX Build

Sometimes the Mini-ITX form factor is forgotten about, especially in the shadows of its bigger brothers. But while some might associate Mini-ITX with low-powered computers for office workers', these days that's anything but true.

Case and point is this build from TheOriginalQ on Reddit's Build a PC subreddit. TheOriginalQ  says that he wanted to move away from gaming laptops, and back to the power of a PC, but at the same time keep a small form factor too. 

Thanks to the GIGABYTE GA-Z170N-Gaming 5 Mini-ITX board he was able to do that. The Z170N Gaming 5 Mini-ITX board supports Intel's® latest 6th Gen. Core™ processor, DDR 4, and USB 3.1. Combined with a Mini-ITX sized video card (which there are plenty of from Nvidia and AMD), this small form factor PC can push through any game you can throw at it.

Check out these photos, courtesy of TheOriginalQ: 

But as TheOriginalQ mentions in his post, building a PC with such a small form factor is not without its challenges. The small form factor means its tough to fit everything inside, meaning the build took some careful pre-planning. Check out what he has to say about this challenge:

One of the toughest parts of this build was making everything was going to fit before I even purchased any of the parts. There is exactly 83mm of clearance between the top of the CPU and the edge of the case (thats not including the included case fan). This limited the selection of CPU coolers tremendously. There are plenty of heatsinks available, but the performance doesn't warrant the cost over a stock cooler. I ended up with the Noctua NH-L12. The full heatsink assembly when it comes out the box is 93mm tall, however, the neat thing about this heatsink is you can remove the top fan and it will work just fine with just the bottom 92mm fan, and it makes the total assembly only 66mm tall. Additionally, the layout of the case puts a 120mm fan directly over the CPU, so you can mount a slim (15mm thick) fan to the case blowing directly on the heatsink. This heatsink was almost made for this case.

In the end with a little patience TheOriginalQ was able to fit everything in the case. And despite the small form factor, the CPU and GPU coolers were still able to keep their respective components within tolerable ranges. TheOriginalQ reported that during burn testing the CPU was hitting 53°C to 55°C while the GPU was at 73°C to 74°C.

Of course, most importantly, it's able to play through the latest games with ease. Fallout 4 runs smooth as silk at 60fps on Ultra settings.

Here's the breakdown of the parts used for the build:

 You can check out a photo album of the entire build here. The original Reddit thread can be found here.

GIGABYTE Leads The Industry in Thunderbolt 3 Support

This year there have been some exciting advances this year in the world of connectivity, particularly the introduction of Thunderbolt™ 3 from Intel®. Thunderbolt™ 3, which uses the reversible USB Type-C connector, brings users a world of revolutionary new features including more bandwidth and support for 4K displays. 

Thunderbolt™ 3 is designed for devices where high-bandwidth is of the utmost importance. Thunderbolt™ 3 is able to push up to 40 Gb/s through the wire, which is twice more than the previous generation. For display connectivity Thunderbolt™ 3 offers DisplayPort 1.2, which is able to drive a 4K resolution display at 60 FPS, power delivery for connected devices at up to 36W, as well as the ability to daisy-chain up to 6 devices per port. 

Thunderbolt™ 3 makes USB Type-C the one port to rule them all. The days of requiring a plethora of different cables to power all of your devices are over. Now your external storage devices, monitor, and tablets/smartphones can all be connected to a hub which connects to your PC via a single USB Type-C connector.

No more of this with USB Type-C

As Thunderbolt™ 3 used the reversible USB Type-C connector, you can also plug in USB devices into the same port. For the billions of older devices that use the Standard-A connectors, adapters are available to ensure that your device will be compatible. 

GIGABYTE offers Thunderbolt™ 3 on GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-Gaming G1, GA-Z170X Gaming GT, GA-Z170X Gaming 7, and Z170X-UD5 TH motherboards.

Check Out Our PC Building Guide And Don't Forget About Tomorrow's OC Livestream!

This Monday morning GIGABYTE tech specialists Sam and Janus hosted a livestream tutorial showing users how they can build their own PC. Many users had questions which Sam and Janus answered on the air.

If you missed the livestream you can watch it on YouTube down below:


Don't forget about tomorrow's (Tuesday) livestream where we'll take the system that we built and show you guys how to over how to do some basic overclocking.

Many people have questions about overclocking, and we are going to show you guys how simple, easy and fun it can be. We're going to use the same hardware we used for the PC build.
Here is the link to follow the live OC on Tuesday at 9am (UTC+8) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs6tTrI7cVk

We'll also announce the winners from today's Facebook raffle and give you guys another chance to win some great prizes!

Learn How To Build a PC and Overclock with GIGABYTE

Have you ever wanted to find out how build a PC and learn the basics of overclocking?

GIGABYTE technical specialists are hosting two livestreams to teach new users about PC building and overclocking.

These first livestream, on November 23, will cover the basics of PC building while the November 24 livestream will focus on Overclocking.

The livestreams are interactive so new users can ask any questions they might have.

To watch the livestreams follow this link to our GIGABYTE Motherboards and BRIX YouTube channel or check out the embedded streams below. 

TweakTown Gives The GIGABYTE Z170X-UD5 TH a Best Features Award

Thunderbolt 3 is one of the most exciting developments in I/O technology to date.

By pushing 40 Gb/s  through the wire,  Thunderbolt™ 3 provides an unprecedented amount of bandwidth to the end user. But that's not all. With Thunderbolt™ 3 you also get industry-leading features such as DisplayPort 1.2, which is able to drive a 4K resolution display at 60 FPS, power delivery for connected devices at up to 36W, as well as the ability to daisy-chain up to 6 devices per USB Type-C port.

Here at GIGABYTE, we recently released the Z170X-UD5 TH which brings Thunderbolt™ 3 connectivity to the Z170X Ultra Durable 5 motherboard. We sent a sample to TweakTown's Steven Bassiri and he was more than impressed with the board!

Here's what Steven liked about the board:

Thunderbolt 3 with Dual Type-C Ports: The Z170X-UD5 TH released a few weeks ago as the first Thunderbolt 3 certified motherboard. The controller that provides Thunderbolt 3 is also the same one that provides USB 3.1 and is the first USB-IF certified USB 3.1 controller. This Intel chip is very powerful, and when paired with proper USB Power Delivery 2.0 chips from TI can support up to 12 daisy chained devices, dual 4K monitors (or a single 5K monitor), and still provides up to 40Gbps of bandwidth. Needless to say, GIGABYTE implements the chip well and provides a Thunderbolt 3 implementation that is rare.

All Intel without Hubs: The circuit analysis I did on the Z170X-UD5 TH was one of the shortest I have ever done. This is because most everything on this board is powered directly through Intel chipsets. All eight USB 3.0 ports come directly from the PCH (2 more than standard FlexIO configurations). Networking is Intel. Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.1 also both come from an Intel controller. Compatibility with certified devices should be quite good, and headaches that sometimes arise from hubs should be nonexistent.

Overclocking Features: I was surprised to find voltage read points, a POST code display, and onboard buttons for overclocking. Usually, these features aren't found on motherboards targeted at workstations, but GIGABYTE made sure to include them to make tweaking more simple.

Aesthetics: GIGABYTE's recent gold/black/silver aesthetics has grown on me a little bit. The shade of gold they are using along with the yellow LEDs and gold audio capacitors matches quite well. The shields over the audio codec, NIC, and clock generator and the metal braces for the PCI-E slots create a theme that makes the motherboard look protected and equipped for hard work.

All in all, Steven gave the board a 94% with a Best Features award.

You can read the full review here.