Tom's Hardware's AMA With Gigabyte, In Its Entirety

Model Name Clarification And More Form Factor Discussion

Q. Are you planning to release a Mini ITX version of Sniper 5 soon?

A. We recently moved our G1.Killer brand to Micro-ATX with last year's G1. Sniper M3. This was hugely popular. This year we've launched the G1. Sniper M5 which again is proving to be a big hit.  The idea that a real PC gaming board needs to be full size ATX, is now clearly gone and I think, as a company we've now come to appreciate and understand that.  A G1.Killer Mini-ITX board would of course seem the next logical step, and without saying too much, I can tell you that it is something being discussed internally.

Q. The Sniper line uses a Creative Soundcore 3D chip, while all other z87 boards use the Realtek ALC898 codec and competitors are using the newer ALC 1150 codec. Will we see some new Gigabyte motherboards with the new codec, or do you feel that the sound upgrade over ALC 898 is not substantial enough to warrant its inclusion?

A. The ALC 1150 is indeed the newer codec and is advertised as having a marginally higher SNR, however this in fact applies to only 2 of the eight channels. Our internal testing shows the two solutions offer a very similar audio experience. It is understandable however that people will tend to think 'new' is better... or indeed, an upgrade...

Q. Asus just revealed a micro-atx FM2+ board and have previously indicated minimal interest in mini-ITX. AMD has plans for low TPD FM2 chips for the HTPC market. What are Gigabytes current plans for the mini-ITX segment of AMDs processor lineup (AM3+, FM2, and FM2+)? Also, I am interested in the "AMP up" feature of the Z87 Sniper series. Any plans on incorporating this in future AMD boards?

A. We recently started offering an FM2 Mini-ITX board. (http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4611#ov)  There are also plans to expand the AMP-Up feature to more platforms... can't say much more than that right now however.

Q. The age of the gigabyte is coming to the end, or will sometime in the future. Do you plan on changing your company name to TERABYTE anytime soon?

A. LOL

Q. Gigabyte, When are we going to see your other products, such as laptops and Chassis in canada? Also, are we going to be in for an ITX flavour of the FM2 Socket?

A. I'll pass along the message to our notebook and chassis teams that we have customers who are interested in Canada! As Henry mentioned earlier, we have a mini-ITX FM2 board that we just launched the F2A85XN-WiFi. (http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4611#ov )

Q. It seems motherboards with a 5 in its SKU is target at mainstream users, while motherboards with a 7 in it SKU is target at overclockers. One major difference between these two boards is the amount of physical features users can see immediately just by looking at the board.  An example would be GA-X79-UD5 vs GA-X79-UD7. The UD5 have 8 ram slot and UD7 has 4. UD5 has 1x firewire, 1x eSATA, and 1x eSATA/USB combo. UD7 has none of it.  Shouldn't a motherboard with a higher SKU number have more stuffs, than a board with a lower number in its SKU?

A. The X79-UD7 is designed for extreme overclocking and thusly extreme performance. To this end it has additional power phases for the CPU, additional PCIe Gen 3 switches and slots to allow for 4 way SLI and Crossfire configs. There are also additional buttons and switches, voltage read points, debug LED and other specific OC features - it even uses a larger PCB... The UD5 address a rather different workstation segment where additional connectivity and memory support is the priority. The UD7 is without doubt the flagship in terms of overall performance potential,  hence the model name.