Review-Gigabyte G1.Assassin: High-end Gaming in “Military” Style, Part 2 (Performance)

Conclusions

The G1-Killer series represents Gigabyte’s first attempt to produce gaming-oriented motherboards, and the G1.Assassin, the most feature-packed motherboard in this series, sure lives up to Gigabyte’s claims. Throughout our test, we couldn’t help but think that the G1.Assassin is indeed a well-featured motherboard that would delight any gamer.

Judged from outside appearance, the G1.Assassin employs a unique military theme to make it stand out among the competition. This is further complimented by the use of high-quality components and indicator LEDs placed on various locations. You can read our previous G1.Assassin article for a more comprehensive description of the features. Despite the truck load of features embedded on in, the G1.Assassin still performs fairly well in our tests, just like what you would expect from an X58+ICH10R combo. There’s a downside though: with its comprehensive feature sets, the motherboard has to adopt XL-ATX form factor, which could prove to be troublesome for those trying to fit the motherboard inside smaller casings.

The on-board Creative X-Fi audio chip and high-performance NIC from BigFoot Networks are especially useful for gaming purposes. The inclusion of these eliminates the need to buy separate, high-quality soundcard and/ or network card. In addition, the G1.Assassin also provides complete overclocking parameters in its BIOS menu. Novice users could get an instant performance boost at anytime by pressing the “Quick Boost” button on the front panel.

All those come at a high price, though. At US$ 599, only few gamers could afford this motherboard along with the supporting components necessary to make it perform optimally in games. However, if you don’t mind the steep price, this feature-packed motherboard makes an interesting platform for a gaming system.

Pros

• Loads of features
• Complete parameters in BIOS menu
• Generous sales package bundle
• On-board Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi sound chip
• Bigfoot Killer E2100 network chip
• Numerous expansion slots
• Four USB 3.0 pots, expandable to eight
• Front Access Control Panel

Cons

• Expensive
• No on-off button on board
• No clear CMOS button
  

Manufacturer: Gigabyte
Info: www.gigabyte.com
Price: US$599 (As of March 7 2011)
Indonesian Distributor: PT Nusantara Jaya Teknologi
Phone: (021) 6018218