GIGABYTE @ CES 2011: G1 Killer Series Motherboards

The G1 Killer lineup of motherboards will be the ultimate weapon for gamers, with its built-on Creative audio chip and very low latency Bigfoot Killer network card.

The G1 Killer Line-Up

We have seen the mysterious GIGABYTE G1 Killer motherboard posters and web ads for quite some time now. During CES 2011, we were able to find out what the big deal was about these motherboards. We can now reveal that these will be the “ultimate” gaming motherboard, with all the features an extreme gamer will be looking for. We believe there was a lot of confusion about what this motherboard was capable of, and which chipset would be running on. But before we reveal the full specs, let’s go over the basics. GIGABYTE did not reveal the exact release date of the G1 Killer motherboards, though they told us it will be sometime during Q1 or Q2 this year. Also, there will be 3 models named the G1.Assassin, G1.Sniper, and G1.Guerrilla. MSRP is still uncertain, and most likely these motherboards won’t be cheap, but we are hoping they will be affordable to most users looking for a killer gaming system.

Time to stop the teasing and get to the specifications and features. The G1 Killer motherboards will run on the X58 chipset, not the P67 Chipset. This means they will use Nehalem and Gulftown-based Core i7 processors, not the newly introduced Sandy Bridge processors.

To break it down, the big deal around the G1 Killer motherboards is behind their built-on Creative X-Fi Digital Audio 20K2 Processor with dedicated audio memory and high quality Nichicon Audio capacitors. Additionally, each audio port on the rear of the motherboard gets 5x the amplification over standard onboard Realtek based audio solutions. This is great for those using high-powered headphones or high quality speakers that don’t have their own amplification. We can personally attest that it is very annoying when we try to game with a headset that doesn’t have any extra amplification: even when the volume is maxed out in Windows and on the headphones, the sound is still very weak. With these motherboards, this should not be the case.

The implimentation of the Bigfoot Killer e2100 gaming NPU (Network Processing Unit) will also provide for the best possible experience gamers will need for online gameplay. Whether they are at a LAN party or playing games online, the Killer NIC should provide minimal latencies for the ultimate online gameplay, up to 10x faster then regular NIC.

Here we have some higher resolution images of each board’s design:

Finally, GIGABYTE continues the use of their Ultra Durable 3 design on the G1 Killer mobos. This includes high performance USB 3.0 ports as well as SATA III 6Gbps ports for better internal and external performance and better data transfers.

The G1.Assassin will be the only G1 Killer motherboard to run 4-way CrossFireX configuration, and will only run 3-way SLI setup as it only has one NF200 chip. The distribution of the PCI-E slots on the G1.Assassin is excellent, considering that GIGABYTE finally allowed users to space out their video cards with 3 expansion slots to get better air circulation for the video cards while also maintaining the x16/x16 speeds. All current GIGBAYTE motherboards use the same design as the Sniper uses, in which the second x16 PCI-E slot is located right next to the first x16 PCI-E slot. This is bad because the card in the uppermost slot eats the heat from the card below it. Finally, the Guerrilla seems to only have one x16 slot, and the remaining PCI-E slots are x8.

Here are some pictures from GIGABYTE’s suite at CES 2011. Click on the pictures to enlarge.

AMD APU Integrated Motherboard

Intel Sandy Bridge Motherboard

    

For more information about GIGABYTE’s P67 line-up of motherboards, please read our GA-P67A-UD4 and GA-P67A-UD7 motherboard reviews.