The Gigabyte GA-Z97N GAMING-5 Motherboard packaging is all very small and compact.
There isn’t much in there, but it comes with the essentials and a couple of chassis badges. Our motherboard arrived with BIOS v1.3, we upgraded to v1.4 before running any tests.
We always remark at how todays manufacturers cram so much on these little boards. There are some compromises, and some odd placements, namely the 5th SATA connector out next to the PSU connector.
It’s causing no offence though, and may come in handy for anyone running a single disc set up.
We only have two fan headers, though they are PWM 4 pin. There is a mini-PCI Express slot for the wireless communication module, which is the fashion these days.
We don’t use Wi-Fi and didn’t test the networking capabilities of this motherboard. Interestingly, we couldn’t find a BIOS setting for the Wi-Fi, looks like if it’s installed, it’s active.
The four SATA connectors are tightly packed, clearance with the graphics card and memory is ok, but a bit of a fiddle in a small chassis. There is a nice but minimal heatsink installed, keeping with Gigabytes gaming theme.
Gigabyte GA-Z97N GAMING-5 Motherboard Review
Package - 8.5
Performance - 9
Price - 9
Consumer Experience - 8.5
8.8
If push came to shove, we would chose the MSI Z97I GAMING AC Motherboard over the Gigabyte GA-Z97N GAMING-5, though mainly down to the BIOS and the FPS performance at times. The Gigabyte GA-Z97N GAMING-5 is currently 113.99 on Amazons UK site which is £25 cheaper than the MSI Z97I GAMING AC Motherboard, another plus point and good value for a top of the line mITX gaming motherboard.
