Gigabyte announces G1-Killer gaming motherboards

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Asus' ROG (Republic of Gamers) motherboard series has established itself as somewhat of a go-to brand for enthusiast system builders, but it may have some stiff competition ahead from Gigabyte. The Taiwanese manufacturer has used CES to unveil its new G1-Killer premium gaming motherboards, the G1.Assassin, G1.Sniper, and G1.Guerrilla.

All of the initial motherboards are based on Intel's X58 chipset/LGA1366 socket, and we're not sure if LGA1155 boards are on the table. As you might surmise from the name, Gigabyte is working with Bigfoot Networks to incorporate its Killer E2100 network technology, which makes more sense than Visiontek's recently announced NIC/GPU solution.

Gigabyte has also outfitted two of the boards with a Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Audio Processor (20K2) as well as a headphone amplifier and four additional amplifiers for the center/subwoofer, rear speaker, side surround and line out. The company hasn't outlined all the differences between each board yet, but the Guerrilla doesn't have the Creative chip, apparently.

The Assassin supports 4-way CrossFire and 3-way SLI, but the other two models only have three PCIe x16 slots. All versions seem to have USB and SATA 3.0, two BIOS ROMs, support for 3TB+ hard drives and an on-the-fly overclocking solution. The Guerrilla seems to be the lowest-specced board and kicks the G1-Killer series off at $299. No word on what the others cost.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/41865-gigabyte-announces-g1-killer-gaming-motherboards.html

 

[madboyv1]

Jeebus that is not cheap. Now if the assassin started at that price and the others were below that, then it would be slightly more palatable.

 

[TomSEA]

The heat pipe that looks like a loaded machine gun clip cracks me up. Wonder if it actually works?

 

[dividebyzero]

Assassin, Sniper and Guerrilla...all sporting lurid green? Obviously the stealth approach is off the table.
Just when Gigabyte seemed to have turned the styling corner with their all-black upper tier P67 boards they decide to resurrect the NForce SLI board colours....I suppose it beats baby blue.

G1-KIller......shouldn't that be W1 for Wallet ?

 

[DokkRokken]

An in-built headphone amp is a really good idea, especially when enthusiasts are turning to quality sets like Senn's PC350. That's actually a very useful feature, as opposed to eight PCIe slots.

Can't say I like the colour scheme, but what does it matter when it's in the case. I found Gigabyte's blue scheme to be quite endearing, actually.

 

[Technochicken]

dividebyzero said:
Assassin, Sniper and Guerrilla...all sporting lurid green? Obviously the stealth approach is off the table.

They might be able to pull off a stealthy attack if they are hiding in a forest.

The color scheme is far from the worst I've seen, but I can't say I particularly like it. I have a hard time seeing why better sound and network cards justify 299 for the lowest end version with just the network card, and surely much more for the higher end versions.

 

[Leeky]

I loooooove it! That magazine style cooler design complete with the round in the end of the magazine is rather cool!

I want, I want, I want! :haha:

 

[dividebyzero]

The heat pipe that looks like a loaded machine gun clip cracks me up. Wonder if it actually works?

No Tom, I doubt Gigabyte is going to the munitions business.


/Yes. I know what you meant.

And you do know that these boards don't use a bridge chip (NF200 or otherwise) ? That giant cheesy G.I.Joe heatsink is dissipating the heat from the ICH10R I/O hub. The TDP of the ICH 10R is a whopping......4.5 watts !

 

[Guest]

no LGA1155??!


Fail!

They should have also included Socket A Mobos then

 

[fpsgamerJR62]

Reminds of EVGA Classified series of motherboards although I don't think EVGA ever thought of camouflage green boards. Considering the sizeable investment required to purchase even the least expensive G1 motherboard together with the requisite DDR3 DIMMs and LGA 1366 processor, I wonder how well these boards will fare in the market now that Intel is bringing out LGA 1366's successor later this year.