GIGABYTE G1.Sniper B7 (rev. 1.0) LGA 1151 Intel B150 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Let’s review the budget yet enthusiast board G1.Sniper B6 from Gigabyte, it is based on the lower cost B85 chipset from Intel for Socket 1150 processors. B85 based motherboards typically end up in business desktops and normally are limited from overclocking. Well, that is just different with the Gigabyte G1.Sniper B6! The G1.Sniper B6 is based on the Intel B85 Express chipset, and comes with out of the box support for “Haswell” and “Devil’s Canyon” CPUs. A small price, nice features and tweakability? Though a little more limited you’ll get USB 3.0 ports and of course an improved and enhanced audio solution (albeit that is really a software layer sitting on top of the Realtek ALC898 codec).

The Gigabyte G1.Sniper B6 uses a modest 8 phase CPU VRM (voltage regulation) design, has 24-pin ATX and 8-pin EPS connectors, four SATA 6 Gbps ports and two SATA 3 Gbps ports. It also features a Realtek ALC1150 Audio CODEC (110 dBA SNR) and Nichicon audiophile-grade electrolytic capacitors on the AMP stage. Yup, again this is supposed to be a budget series chipset. Gigabyte also fits the board with a pair of PCI Express 3.0 slots – one is connected straight to the CPU and supports x16 graphics cards. The other slot however can only work in x4 mode as this is a limiting factor of the B85 chipset. But with one graphics card, you’ll have full x16 PCIe 3.0 bandwidth. Other features are AMI UEFI Dual-BIOS, USB 3.0 ports at the back, audio outputs and PS/2 mouse/keyboard ports. In addition to Gigabit LAN support. Lets have a peek at this fairly feature rich value motherboard and then let’s fire up this review.

Feature

• Supports 6^th Generation Intel^® Core™ Processor
• Dual Channel DDR4, 4 DIMMs
• 2-Way Graphics with Premium PCIe Lane
• PCIe Gen3 x4 M.2 Connector with up to 32Gb/s Data Transfer (PCIe NVMe & SATA SSD support)
• SATA Express Connector for up to 16Gb/s Data Transfer
• 115dB SNR HD Audio with Built-in Rear Audio Amplifier
• 8-channel HD Audio with High Quality Audio Capacitors
• Audio Noise Guard with Ambient LED Trace Path Lighting
• Intel^® GbE LAN with cFosSpeed Internet Accelerator Software
• Triple USB DAC-UP ports
• APP Center Including EasyTune™ and Cloud Station™ Utilities
• GIGABYTE UEFI DualBIOS™ Technology
• Support Intel^® Small Business Basics