Although the Gigabyte G1.Sniper2 delivered somewhat mixed benchmark scores, at times dropping behind the pack and other times leading the way, overall it performed well. One limitation worth mentioning is that it only supports two-way SLI/CrossFireX, which limits its graphics expansion capabilities. For a board in this class, we were a little surprised at that.
Further, the G1.Sniper2 is not cheap; its MSRP is $359.99. We looked at other Z68 boards that cost a lot less yet deliver similar performance. Some boards certainly have better graphics expansion options, though admittedly going beyond two cards is a much more limited market need.
Let’s face it, you can always juice a system here or there to get some more performance out of it, but stability is always a problem. There’s a narrow margin between squeezing more performance out of your system and having it crash on you, and the worst time for a crash is in the middle of a game. The G1.Sniper2 is a rock; it feels as solid as any board we’ve tested of late, and despite our tinkering and tweaking, it never crashed until we overclocked it to beyond the limits of our CPU at 4.7GHz.
Additionally, we suspect that an overclocker with more patience and time could probably push our system farther than we did and maintain stability.
The G1.Sniper2 is a motherboard built for gamers, and although it’s somewhat limited in graphics expandability, this board possesses other qualities near and dear to gamers: it overclocks very well and remains stable when you need it most. It also looks pretty sweet should you want to showcase your rig to fellow gamers.
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- Strong overclocking prowess
- Excellent stability
- Good looks
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- Somewhat limited graphics expandability
- Pricey
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