High-end platforms usually make use of high-end hardware and as we know they come with powerful PSUs, quick processors, tons of memory, fast graphics cards and full-sized motherboards. Well, Gigabyte seems to not think that way anymore.
The famous Taiwanese company has announced the first micro ATX motherboard for the high-end LGA 2011-3 Haswell-E platform. The new small-sized board carries the Gigabyte X99M-Gaming 5 brand name and allows users to make a Haswell-E system in a small case. Unfortunately the smaller size means some features are not there.
We’ll start with the memory – the Gigabyte X99M-Gaming 5 comes with just four memory slots and as we know full-sized LGA 2011 boards have eight slots. Then the space around the processor socket is not that much, which means you have to be careful when looking for a suitable cooler. Then you get three PCI-E x16 slots but in reality due to space limitations you can only use two slots.
To compensate these drawbacks a little Gigabyte has provided the board with two M.2 connectors and both of them are connected to the X99 chipset instead of to the processor. The first M.2 connector is fully functional, while the second one has only one line. In addition it seems that the Gigabyte X99M-Gaming 5 is a board oriented at network gaming since it comes with Killer NIC.
The new Gigabyte X99M-Gaming 5 board is available now online where it sells for USD 231-250 depending on the store chosen.
Source: Gigabyte