They say that competition is good for the soul, and they are right. In just about any area you can think of having a little competition makes you better at what you do. In the computer world this is especially noticeable when it comes to motherboards, even more so now that companies like Intel and AMD control the chipsets and their features. The push now comes down to performance tuning (at a very fine level) overclocking an additional features to entice the consumer into picking up a new motherboard. We have had a couple of Z97 based boards in the lab recently, but all have been from the same company. Now we have one in from Gigabyte in the form of the Z97MX Gaming 5. Let’s take a look and see if competition has driven Gigabyte to a higher standard.
The Box and Goodies -The box that the Z97MX Gaming 5 ships in is pretty nice. Instead of the usual cardboard it is coated just to make photographing it more difficult… Ok well it also protects from damage and moisture. The front is clean with very little imagery other than a large red eye and the name. You have the obligatory logos from Intel as well.
The reason for this clean front is that Gigabyte has made the top cover a flip top. When you lift this you get a close up picture of the motherboard and a listing of important features.
The back has more of the same and also a QRC image that will let you grab some additional information with your mobile.
Inside the box we find the basic stuff that you need to get things going.
