Intel's "Broadwell-E" processors (led by the Core i7-6950X and Core i7-6900K) hit the streets in mid-2016, sparking a wave of motherboards aimed at gamers who were picking up new processors for their systems. The Intel X99 chipset that powers these boards hasn't changed, so motherboard makers loaded the boards with new features, making them hard to resist for gamers who want bragging rights.
Many of the new X99 motherboards are pricey, with the models we've tested of late ranging from $260 to nearly $360 for MSI's armored X99A Xpower Gaming Titanium. Today, we're kicking the tires on the Gigabyte X99-Ultra Gaming, which typically retails for about $260 on both Amazon and Newegg. (The MSRP is $279.99.)
All of the new X99 motherboards that we've checked out have broadly similar feature sets, including quad-channel memory support, an M.2 interface for ultra-fast SSD storage, and plenty of power phases for better stability. Some of the boards have extra features for overclocking and gaming—and a couple feature LED decorations and support for RGB lighting strips.
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Interestingly enough, the Gigabyte X99-Ultra Gaming comes loaded with all of these features at a fairly low price point (for an X99 board, which is by definition elite-class hardware). Can you really have it all with this comparatively low-priced board? Let's take a look.
Board Layout
Layouts for X99 motherboards are generally similar, especially when it comes to hardware placement. That's true of heatsinks and shields, too: You can expect a heatsink over the power phases at the top of the motherboard, sizable heatsinks over the X99 chipset and the audio codec, and a shield over the I/O panel.
Gigabyte sticks to the script when it comes to the overall design of its X99-Ultra Gaming, but it spiced things up with a busload of LEDs. For those who dig interior case lighting, it's a dream come true.
The lighting is hard to visualize in a built-out system so we'll reproduce Gigabyte's illustration above. Our favorite lights are the LED strips between the memory slots. Each strip is as long as the slots, making the memory lights among the largest on the board. If you use just two memory modules, the four slots on the right side of the board will be empty, which means that the lights will be completely visible from most case windows.
The LEDs between the memory slots will be a little less visible if you put modules in all eight slots, but the X99-Ultra Gaming has more than a dozen other LEDs, including lights on the heatsinks and I/O panel shield. They're bright enough to be the only lights in your case, but if you really want to get people's attention, you can add a third-party RGB lighting strip to your case, thanks to a header on the motherboard. You have your choice of colors, thanks to the Gigabyte Ambient LED lighting application for Windows. You can also choose from several lighting modes, including Still, Pulse or Beat.
As for the component layout on the X99-Ultra Gaming, it's also similar to what we have seen on other X99 boards. The LGA 2011-v3 CPU socket is flanked on either side by eight memory slots, for a total of four channels. The motherboard supports speeds beyond 3,400MHz, which is good news for ardent overclockers. Gigabyte also encloses the memory slots in steel to prevent damage to the PCB when you press your modules into place.
Gigabyte leaves plenty of space around the CPU socket for exotic heatsinks to hold court, but the four left-side memory slots sit extremely close to the I/O panel shield. One of our 8GB G.Skill Trident Z DDR4 memory modules, which has a large-ish heat spreader, nearly (but not quite) touched the shield. Gigabyte also left only a small gap between the bottom of the memory slots and the topmost of the PCI Express x16 slots, although this doesn't strike us as problem.
The bottom tabs on the memory slots aren't push tabs, which means you won't need to try to squeeze your fingers there when replacing or reseating memory.
The X99 chipset sits under a sizable heatsink, which features some of the board's many LEDs and extends to cover the back portion of the SATA ports. Four PCI Express slots sit to the left of the chipset. Two of the slots are PCI Express x16 slots, though one of these will operate as an x8 slot when an Intel Core i7-5820K or Core i7-6800K processor is installed. All four slots are wrapped in metal, so they can bear the weight of today's high-end graphics cards without worry of cracking if the system is moved or knocked.
Gigabyte also uses two metal locks built into these slots. They connect to soldered anchors on the motherboard to ensure the PCI Express slot connectors themselves won't snap off the PCB. This is the sort of feature that makes for a quality gaming motherboard. We like the RGB lights as much as anyone else, but in the end, durability is crucial in a system that's bound to be packed with expensive (which often also means heavy) components.
Gigabyte designed the X99-Ultra Gaming with multi-card gaming in mind. The board supports 2-way, 3-way, and Quad-SLI setups, or two- three- and quad-card AMD CrossFireX setups. The motherboard maker put plenty of space between the first three PCI Express slots in an effort to allow for better airflow. That space also clears room for a PCI Express x1 slot and two M.2 connectors. The M.2 connectors let you attach ultra-fast SSDs such as the Samsung SSD 960 Pro.
All of the "X99 refresh" boards that we've seen in recent months carry at least one M.2 connector, but Gigabyte goes the extra mile by providing a connector that supports four SSD sizes: the popular 42mm, 60mm and 80mm lengths (a.k.a. Type 2242, 2260, and 2280), as well Type 22110, which is 110mm in length. The other M.2 connector supports only Type 2242 (42mm) devices and is meant for a Wi-Fi M.2 module, according to Gigabyte. The motherboard BIOS battery sits in the unused space between the short M.2 connector and the lone PCI Express x1 slot.
Interestingly, the 42mm M.2 slot is Gigabyte's only Wi-Fi "solution" for the X99-Ultra Gaming. The board doesn't have onboard Wi-Fi, which means you'll need to shell out an extra $25 to $45 to connect to your wireless network. We can see why Gigabyte took this add-it-if-you-need-it approach; gaming PCs built by serious players need all the bandwidth they can get, so they're usually connected to network with an Ethernet cable, rendering the Wi-Fi irrelevant. Gigabyte skips a feature that could have raised the price and that many gamers won't need. Even so, we think some gamers will miss the flexibility of being able to connect to Wi-Fi (and Bluetooth devices) out of the box. Still, it's a problem cheaply remedied if you need wireless connectivity.
The X99-Ultra Gaming sports Gigabyte's Durable Black solid capacitors and anti-sulfur resistors, both of which are designed to make the board last longer. The board also features a Turbo B-Clock chip, which gives gamers better control over the BCLK frequency when overclocking.
Ports and Headers
The Gigabyte X99-Ultra Gaming sports six USB 3.0 ports on its I/O panel, along with a USB 3.1 Type-A port and a USB 3.1 Type-C port (both Gen 2, using an Intel controller for a potential 10Gbps maximum bandwidth per port). These connectors are becoming more popular, so we like to see motherboard makers including them—especially on luxury boards like the X99-Ultra Gaming.
The I/O panel also has several audio ports, powered by a Realtek ALC1150 codec, as well as two Gigabit Ethernet ports. We're a little surprised Gigabyte didn't throw in a couple of USB 2.0 ports—most of the boards we've reviewed lately have eight USB ports (not including USB 3.1) on the I/O panel. Whether that's important will come down to how many peripherals you use, though you do get eight USB ports in total here, counting the USB Type-C port. The I/O panel also has a legacy PS/2 port, handy for certain keyboards that require it for N-key rollover.
Note: One of the USB 3.0 ports doubles as Gigabyte's Q-Flash Plus port, which lets you flash the motherboard's BIOS from a thumb drive before you install the processor or memory. Considering that the BIOS update might have a critical fix for the board's memory or CPU compatibility, this could turn out to be a lifesaver.
Gigabyte has individual electrostatic discharge filters for each USB and LAN port, which is a nice touch. One of the Gigabit Ethernet jacks leads to an Intel controller, while the other is supported by a Killer E2400 chip, which can prioritize game traffic. The Killer Network Manager app for Windows lets you customize the chip's priorities and get a look at which programs are hogging bandwidth.
One thing that's AWOL? The I/O panel doesn't have a Clear CMOS button, which would have been appreciated by overclockers.
The Gigabyte X99-Ultra Gaming's internal headers sit along the right and bottom sides of the board. A total of five fan headers (two of which double as water cooling pump headers) are spread around the board. The 24-pin ATX power connector sits on the right side of the board, just above one of the board's two USB 3.0 headers.
A large stack of SATA ports sit in two rows near the bottom-right of the board, facing to the side, which isn't unusual...
You get a total of 10 SATA 6Gbps ports, two of which can be matched with a third connector to make a SATA Express connector. Two U.2 connectors sit next to the SATA port cluster for drives like the 2.5-inch U.2-interface version of the formidable Intel 750 Series SSD. So long as you install a CPU with 40 PCI Express lanes, you can connect NVMe-supporting SSDs for significantly faster data transfer than you'll get from ordinary SATA-based SSDs.
The RGB light-strip header sits at the bottom of the board, near the left corner. It's sandwiched between the audio header and a sideways- facing Molex connector. This area of the board also has two USB 2.0 headers, two system-fan headers (one of which supports water pumps), and a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) header.
Gigabyte put the front-panel-connector headers in the bottom-right corner and color-coded them. The labels make it easy to attach your power-button and activity/status-LED connectors (you won't even need to use the manual, most likely), but Gigabyte took things one step further with a separate connector accessory, which we discuss shortly.
Gigabyte offers an optional Thunderbolt card that plugs into a PCI Express x4 slot. If you pick one up, you'll be able to plug the add-on card's included cable to a dedicated header on the right side of the X99-Ultra Gaming. Unfortunately it looks like Gigabyte only currently offers a Thunderbolt 2 card, not one that supports the newer Thunderbolt 3.
Accessories
Gigabyte packs the box with useful accessories, including the front-panel-connector adapter we mentioned. It's similar to Asus' Q-Connector, and Gigabyte refers to it, cheekily, as the "G-Connector." We dig adapters like the G-Connector because it's easier to plug those tiny, separate cables into the adapter than it is to fumble in your case to connect these wires one by one straight to the board. It can get a little awkward, especially if the floor of the case is near the front-panel connectors, as it often is.
Gigabyte also puts in the box six SATA cables (four of which have L-shaped connectors for better cable management) and two different kinds of SLI bridges. You'll find a long extension cable for use with the LED header, handy for placing your new light strip away from the motherboard connector. (Remember that any light strip you want to install is something you'll need to buy separately.)
A driver disc is in the box, of course, along with two manuals. The installation guidebook has only five pages of information, but we like the general manual, which has clear diagrams and images paired with thorough instructions. The Gigabyte X99-Ultra Gaming also features excellent cable-management accessories. Two large straps with Velcro fasteners let you bunch up cable bundles and tuck them out of sight. And a sheet of stickers lets you label your cables, saving you tracing-out headaches during your next upgrade.
Build Details
We installed the Gigabyte X99-Ultra Gaming in our test chassis to take a look at how the board's layout works for a typical gaming PC.
We screwed the X99-Ultra Gaming to the motherboard tray of the SilverStone Primera PM01 chassis and loaded the board with an Intel Core i7-5960X Extreme Edition processor and 32GB of G.Skill Trident Z DDR4 memory (specifically, the F4-3200ZC16Q-32FTZSK kit). The X99 platform's chips lack onboard graphics, so we chose an XFX Radeon R7 370 Double Dissipation Black Edition video card for the board's top PCI Express X16 slot.
Our test build also included a 240GB ADATA Premier SP550 SSD (that's a 2.5-inch SATA drive), a 1TB Western Digital Blue 10EZEX hard drive, and a 1,000-watt Corsair RM1000x power supply.
Installing the memory in an X99 board is easy, although a quad-channel kit can get a little complicated if the motherboard maker doesn't point out the four channels clearly. Color-coding on the slots would have been a nice touch, but we'll settle for the instructions in Gigabyte's manual, which illustrate multiple memory setups, including a quad-channel kit. In most cases, you'll install the memory on the first, third, fifth and seventh slots, going from left to right, as we did.
As we mentioned earlier, we think the I/O panel's shield crowds the nearest memory slot a little too close for our comfort, but we didn't have trouble adding any of our components. The PCI Express slots are rock-solid, thanks to the steel casings and dual PCB locks.
We ran into a problem when we attempted to plug the power supply into the X99-Ultra Gaming's Molex connector, which faces off the bottom of the board toward the floor of the case. Our Primera PM01 chassis has cutouts in the floor that let us route PSU cables up to the motherboard, but the cutouts didn't line up with the Molex connector. This isn't an issue for a build with a lone graphics card (like ours), but it may be an issue with multi-card setups. You'll want to make sure your chassis has clearance down there if you'll be SLI-ing or CrossFire-ing it.
The BIOS: A Brief Look
The X99-Ultra Gaming features two BIOS chips, so you have a backup BIOS if the primary BIOS gets borked. Gigabyte has updated the BIOS several times since the board arrived this summer, improving its compatibility with various components and upticking the potential memory performance. We flashed our test board to version F6a, using a USB flash drive. This a beta version, but we didn't encounter any problems with it.
The X99-Ultra Gaming's BIOS opens in Classic mode, which is a very tame interface by today's standards in enthusiast boards. The default menu doesn't provide any system-status information unless you drill down into sub-menus or click a small arrow on the right side of the menu. We'd like to see system information as soon we open the BIOS. Being able to see the CPU frequency, total memory (to ensure all modules are properly seated), and the BIOS version strike us as must-haves.
Overclockers can dig into the M.I.T. tab's sub-menus to find plenty of voltage settings, memory-timing settings, and CPU-frequency settings. The Smart Fan submenu is very slick, with plenty of information about your system fans. You can also control fan speeds here and set warnings for fan failures or high temperatures.
The other tabs are straightforward, offering settings for the BIOS, peripherals, and the chipset. You can manage the boot priority from the BIOS tab.
You can click the arrow at the bottom of the screen at any point to switch over to Easy Mode, which has the sort of info-packed menu we typically see when starting a BIOS for the first time. You'll find info about your processor and memory here, along with the boot priority and fan speeds. You can click some of the sections to adjust settings, including the EZ OC panel, which offers Normal, Performance, and Energy Saving modes. This is a useful tool for gamers who aren't interested in manual overclocking, though we can't quite figure out why anyone building a system with the powerful components this board was meant for would want to dial things back with the Energy Savings mode.
The X99-Ultra Gaming's BIOS isn't as graphically impressive as some we've seen of late, and we're surprised that it doesn't start in the Easy Mode, which provides a good snapshot of the system's status. But the BIOS is otherwise well-organized and gives gamers plenty of control over their systems, which is what matters most.
Conclusion
The X99-Ultra Gaming is reasonably priced—for an X99 gaming motherboard, that is—so we were a little surprised to see how feature-packed it is. Gigabyte managed to strike a nice balance here, delivering a board that has important features and some serious style without pushing the price tag into the stratosphere. When we were wrapping up this review, we saw it selling online at various outlets for as low as $249.
We like that Gigabyte focused on durability and stability, wrapping key connectors in steel and providing plenty of power phases. The board felt very sturdy as we installed it in our test system, and again when we replaced components and re-arranged our cables.
We can see why gamers who want to have every last feature will gravitate towards boards like the MSI X99A Xpower Gaming Titanium, and we don't begrudge them that. But we can also see where some gamers will want to save cash for other components and will be willing to pass up on things like onboard overclocking buttons and built-in Wi-Fi. For those gamers, the X99-Ultra Gaming will look pretty good.
We have a few gripes about the board. The white, silver, and red color scheme didn't inspire us, though you may disagree if you have your eye on a classy white or red chassis with a case window to complement it. To us, it gives the board a plastic-like look. But the bright, widespread lighting is what most people will see when they look inside your case, minimizing the plasticky look. We were also a little disappointed to see that the board doesn't have a typical debug LED. That's a common feature on high-end boards, and one that we missed. And, as we mentioned earlier, we wouldn't mind a few more USB ports on the back I/O panel.
For some gamers, the lights may end up being the deciding factor between this and another X99 board. The only board we've reviewed that has lighting features as extensive as the Gigabyte X99-Ultra Gaming's LEDs is the Asus Republic of Gamers Strix X99 Gaming, which is pricier at a $299.99 MSRP. Between the onboard lights and the optional light-strip support, you'll have a lot of control over how the interior of your system looks.
Unless you're looking for a board that demands no sacrifices or you just don't dig lights, the X99-Ultra Gaming should make your X99 short list.
Loaded with LEDs and leading features like USB 3.1 and M.2 connectors, the X99-Ultra Gaming is a well-equipped, surprisingly low-priced X99 board. Just bring your own Wi-Fi (if you need it), and you're ready to do battle.
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