Review

GIGABYTE G1.SNIPER B7 Review

Today we are taking a closer look at Gigabyte G1.SNIPER B7 socket LGA1151 motherboard, designed for 6th generation Core "Skylake" processors, is based on Intel B150 Express chipset, and aimed at the upper-mid range market. With a green+black color theme Gigabyte SNIPER series board are already getting great attraction from PC builder and modders.

Now let's see what this Intel B150 chipset board have for us.

Package

Looking at the front of the box, we see Gigabyte logo with motherboard model no. At the rear of the box, we find that Gigabyte goes into great detail on the specifications of the motherboard.

Inside the box

Looks

Board is a solid build in the mate black and green colour theme.

Features

• Supports 6^th Generation Intel^® Coreâ„¢ 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 EasyTuneâ„¢ and Cloud Stationâ„¢ Utilities
• GIGABYTE UEFI DualBIOSâ„¢ Technology
• Support Intel^® Small Business Basics

Specifications

Layout

Detailed layout of board.

1. Intel LGA 1151 socket 6th generation Core "Skylake" processors.

5x (15μ) Gold Plated CPU Socket Design. GIGABYTE motherboards come equipped with a 15 micron thick gold plated CPU socket, which means that enthusiasts can enjoy absolute reliability and longevity for the CPU socket overtime, without having any concerns about corroded pins or bad contacts.

2. 4 x DIMM slots supporting maximum 64GB of DDR4 2133MHz memory.

3. ATX Power connector (24-pin EATXPWR)

4. ATX CPU Power Connector (8-pin ATX12V).

5. 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port, 1 x DVI-D port, 1 x HDMI port, 4 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports, 1 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports, 1 x RJ-45 port, 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector, 5 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out, Rear Speaker Out, Line In, Line Out, Mic In)

6. 7. 11. 13. 1 x CPU Fan and 3 x System Fan Connectors

8. Front USB 3 Port.

9.1 x SATA Express connector, 6 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors

10. System Front panel Connector

12. 2 x USB 2.0 Connectors

14. Serial Port and TPM Connector

15. Front panel Audio connector and SPDIF out port.

16. M.2 PCIe connector

17. Expansion Slots.

1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16)* For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16 slot. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x4 (PCIEX4), 2 x PCI Express x1 slots (All of the PCI Express slots conform to PCI Express 3.0 standard.), 2 x PCI slots

18. M.2 Socket 1 connector for the wireless communication module (M2_WIFI)

Removing Heat-sinks

Gigabyte used dense aluminum heatsink in this board. Heatsinks base is having thermal pad installed.

Component Layout

Let's now see what all components Gigabyte have planned for this board.

1. 2. CPU voltage regulator circuit has 7-phase Power VRM Section with pair of ON Semiconductors NTMFS4C06N and 4C10N MOSFETs rated up to 40A controlled by Intersil ISL95895 Hybrid Digital Four Phase PWM Controller.

3. 2-Phase digital memory power supply section using ON Semiconductors NTMFS4C06N MOSFETs.

4. Asmedia ASM 1442K chip managing output display ports.

5. Intel i219v one Gigabit Ethernet controller chip.

6. ITE IT8628e is SuperIO chip monitors temperatures, voltages and other key metrics for normal operation.

7. NXP Semiconductors L04083B is a 4 differential channel, 2-to-1 multiplexer / demultiplexer switch for PCI Express Generation 3.

8. Intel B150 Chipset.

9. Gigabyte uses two SPI chip labeled MXIC MX 2SL12873F a capacity of 128 Mb for storing UEFI BIOS.

10. IT8892E is a single-function PCI Express to PCI bridge chip.

11. Gigabyte G1.SNIPER B7 Audio is powered by Realtek ALC1150 is a high-performance multi-channel High Definition Audio Codec that delivers an exceptional audio listening experience with up to 115dB SNR, ensuring users get the best possible audio quality from their PC.

The ALC1150 provides ten DAC channels that simultaneously support 7.1-channel sound playback, plus 2 channels of independent stereo sound output (multiple streaming) through the front panel stereo outputs. Two stereo ADCs are integrated and can support a microphone array with Acoustic Echo Cancellation (AEC), Beam Forming (BF), and Noise Suppression (NS) technologies. The ALC1150 incorporates Realtek proprietary converter technology to achieve Front differential output 115dB Signal-to-Noise ratio (SNR) playback (DAC) quality and 104dB SNR recording (ADC) quality.

A semi-transparent line on motherboard separates the whole audio section from the rest of the board in order to minimize interference. In addition of high end, Japanese branded Nichicon audio capacitors Gigabyte also used one Upgradable N5532 Op-amp for rear audio amplification and Exclusive onboard 'Gain Boost' selector switches with 6x mode for high impedance speakers and headphones. So listening under Stereo mode produces high audio quality with excellent dynamic range.

RightMark Audio Analyzer (RMAA) suite is used for testing Gigabyte High Definition audio against Asus Xonar DX Sound card. You can see clearly the difference between Noise level, dynamic rang and Total harmonic distortion percentage produced by Gigabyte High Definition audio.

RMAA Asus Xonar DX

RMAA Gigabyte High Definition audio

Testing

BIOS

Bundled Softwares

Benchmarks

Power Consumption

Wattage reading as per displayed by APC Pro 1000VA (Model no. BR1000G-IN) UPS.

Pros

• Looks love the black and green theme
• Nice Audio
• M.2 WIFI option
• Three Years Warranty
• Affordable price Rs. 9.8K (approx.)

Cons

• Instead of PS2 Keyboard/mic port back IO-panel should have two more USB ports.

Conclusion

Being based on Intel's B150 Chipset, this Gigabyte G1.SNIPER B7 board has lot to offer at an intended price like dual PCIe 16x slots, M.2 slot, SATA Express and even a HD audio solution with upgradable Op-amp and Gain-boost for high impedance headphones.

With the looks and feature packed at the price, no doubt the Gigabyte G1.SNIPER B7 board is one of the best B150 board currently in the market and, worthy of our PC TeK REVIEWS Value Award.

Manufacturers Info

Thanks.

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