Gigabyte G1.Sniper A88X FM2 Review

Conclusion

AMD reviews are sadly few and far between here at OC3D. The relative performance differences of their processors and chipsets are so negligible that usually we’d be wasting our time and yours looking for an nth improvement. Nobody is sadder about this state of affairs than ourselves. We cut our teeth on AMD CPUs, whether it was the Barton core of yore or, for our orange elder statesman, the Thunderbird.

We’re delighted that things seem to be finally turning the corner, with the A10 6800K a particular highlight. We know that many of you wonder why we use the APU versions for our testing but for the money, and we know many of you are on strict budgets, they’re impossible to beat. It’s not just us who believe this as both Sony and Microsoft have jumped on the AMD APU bandwagon with their Playstation 4 and Xbox One consoles. For those of you looking to buy a dedicated graphics card you can buy a cheaper Athlon 750K quad core without the onboard graphics. 

Just because you’re staying on a tight budget doesn’t mean that you should be left bereft of features and that is where the Gigabyte G1.Sniper A88X steps in. For an extremely meagre price of £80 you get a motherboard that has everything you could reasonably expect to find. Good overclocking performance, good looks, plenty of connectivity, some brand kudos, and all of that without breaking the bank. The only areas that even hint at the affordable nature are the fairly plain heatsinks, and the vertical SATA connectors for the #3-8 ports. Otherwise it’s a robust delight. The audio is a particular highlight, being perhaps the best we’ve heard on an AMD motherboard.

In a market that is sadly short on choice, it’s great that Gigabyte have applied their G1.Killer branding to an AMD motherboard, but kept the pricing at the level one would normally expect. It would have been very easy to assume that the prestige of the brand-name alone would allow them to charge the earth, so we very much like seeing common sense prevail.

For the combination of affordability, connectivity and that low price, we think the Gigabyte G1.Sniper A88X should be at the top of your list if you’re looking for a FM2+ motherboard, and we’re happy to award it our OC3D Gamers Choice, and for that low price, our Value For Money award too.

       

Thanks to Gigabyte for supplying the G1.Sniper A88X for review. Discuss your thoughts in the OC3D Forums.