Anantech Reviews Mini-ITX boards, Including GIGABYTE Z97N-WIFI

 

The Z97N-WIFI is GIGABYTE’s mini-ITX format from it’s 9 Series Ultra Durable. In this review from Anantech, the Z97N-WIFI was compared side by side against  ASROCK and MSI’s priced between $130~$140. Here are a few lines of what Ian had to say about the GIGABYTE motherboard 

“In the past, I criticized GIGABYTE for their component placement, but it would seem that the Z97N-WIFI gets a near perfect score. Along the top are the 4-pin CPU power connector, the COM header and the two fan headers, while on the right hand side (note, on the edge of the PCB) is the 24-pin ATX power connector, two of the SATA ports, the front panel header, a USB 2.0 header and a USB 3.0 header. Actually the only ports slightly away from the edge are the other four SATA ports, but given that two are on the outside that makes building a PC a lot easier.

The lack of a power delivery heatsink might give cause for concern for overclocking, however GIGABYTE is claiming to use high efficiency power delivery ICs and our overclock testing differs little from the other two motherboards.”

“A motherboard that is easy to set up, in terms of cabling, is always good to have on the test bed. The Z97N-WIFI is one such example, and this becomes one of its major selling points. By placing more of the important headers around the edges of the motherboard PCB, adding in the power cables, fan cables, SATA cables and any other cables makes building and repairing an easier job. The position of the socket, alongside the lack of a power delivery heatsink, would suggest that any size air cooler would fit with appropriate memory.”

 

We Want Your Feedbacks

A few good points were brought up in this review and we would love to hear what you have to say. Here are a few questions that we would like you to give us feedbacks.

• For those of you who have experienced overclocking with the Z97N-WIFI, have you experience any overheating issues?
• What about the motherboard component placement? Was it easy to make your build with this motherboard?
• Did you appreciate and made full use of the 2-HDMI ports found in the back IO
• What do you use for mini-ITX system for? Is it overclocked?

Leave us your thoughts in the comment section!

To read the full review from Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/8276/z97-miniitx-review-at-140-asrock-z97e-itx-msi-z97i-ac-and-gigabyte-z97n-wifi

GIGABYTE CATZILLA OC Contest Winners

With $1,000 and two GIGABYTE Z97 series motherboards up for grabs, the GIGABYTE CATZILLA OC Contest invited the overclocking community to push their hardware to the limit by running the custom made CATZILLA benchmark skin on their GIGABYTE 9 Series motherboard.

We are happy to announce that WebTourist won the AIR/Water cooling stage and that DANCOP took the first place on the LN2 cooling stage.

On top of winning the cash prize and a limited edition GIGABYTE Z97X-SOC FORCE LN2 motherboard, overclocker DANCOP can also add to his winnings a gold cup for the World Record on CATZILLA - 720P benchmark with a 43121 mark using a GIGABYTE Z97X-SOC FORCE. Good work DANCOP!

GIGABYTE CATZILLA OC Contest Winners

· Air/Water cooling stage: WebTourist (http://hwbot.org/submission/2587632)

Wins $500 in cash and a GIGABYTE Z97X-UD5H

· LN2 cooling stage: DANCOP (http://hwbot.org/submission/2587636)

Wins $500 in cash and a GIGABYTE Z97X-SOC FORCE LN2

Give away

We would like to also congratulate Newlife, Mameluco, Marrawi and KA7RATA for winning the lucky draw held on each Friday of the contest. For their submissions to the GIGABYTE CATZILLA OC Contest, each of them won a GIGABYTE overclocking shirt.

Thanks to everyone who participated and see you soon at another GIGABYTE overclocking challenge.

To review all submissions of the GIGABYTE CATZILLA OC Contest, please visit the contest page hosted on HWBOT.org: http://hwbot.org/competition/gbt_z97_catzilla

To download the Catzilla benchmark with GIGABYTE skin, follow this link: http://www.catzilla.com/jdownloads/Download/CatzillaGIGABYTE.exe

How To Quickly Overclock your Pentium G3258 using GIGABYTE EasyTune App

With a stock frequency of 3.2 GHz, the Intel Pentium AE can be easily overclocked using the revamped EasyTune application so that users can experience faster system performance without having to buy a more expensive CPU. The Smart Quick Boost function within EasyTune comes pre-configured with set overclocked profiles which have been tested by GIGABYTE’s experienced engineers, to ensure no matter what the hardware configuration, users can enjoy 24/7 stable system performance. To enable different levels of overclocking, users just need to click “Light”, “Medium” or “Extreme”, with the expected CPU frequency being highlighted in the upper right corner of the settings tab.

For more experienced users, EasyTune also offers advanced overclocking options for both the CPU and memory so that users can tweak their system performance to even higher levels in a Windows environment, without having to enter the BIOS.

Here is a quick intro on how to use EasyTune and quickly get some added performance out of an unlocked processor.