Gigabyte x99 ultra gaming review

Gigabyte X99 Ultra Gaming technical features

Gigabyte X99 Ultra Gaming unboxing and design

The Gigabyte X99 Ultra Gaming It is presented in a box with a standard size, where on its cover we see all its novelties and on the back all its extensive technical characteristics.

Once we open the box we find the following bundle:

Gigabyte X99 Ultra Gaming motherboard.5 SATA cable set. Back cover. Screw to install M.2 disk. Stickers for hard disk and logo. Instruction manual and quick guide. CD with software. SLI and CrossFireX bridge.

As we can see, it is an ATX format plate with dimensions of 30.5 cm x 24.4 cm for the LGA 2011-3 socket. The board is very sporty and its PCB is matte black. In addition, its appearance combines very well with the reinforcements in the metallic color connections. A whole beauty of motherboard.

Rear view of the motherboard, for the most curious.

The Gigabyte X99 Ultra Gaming has excellent cooling in both the power phases and the X99 chipset. It has a total of 8 +2 digital phases with Ultra durable technology. What is this technology for? Incorporating better components (IR PowIRstage, server-level chokes and solid Durable Black capacitors), they withstand higher temperatures and last much longer than conventional ones.

The chipset cooling takes care of a large heatsink that maintains extraordinary temperatures. Also highlight the 8-pin auxiliary power connection.

The board incorporates a total of 8 256 GB DDR4 RAM memory sockets with frequencies from 2400 MHz to 3600 MHz in Quad Channel and is compatible with the XMP 2.0 profile.

The Gigabyte X99 Ultra Gaming presents a distribution between its PCI Express connections quite interesting for a MultiGPU system. In it we find 4 PCI Express 3.0 connections and a PCI Express x1 connection. Which allows us to install a maximum of 3 graphics cards in SLI (Nvidia) or CrossFireX (AMD).

Both PCI Express connectors and DIMM memory slots are equipped with a metal shield. What is it for? It simply improves the transfer and supports greater weight of components (especially in high-end graphics cards).

Among the PCI express connections we find two M.2 connectors to install any SSD with type 2242/2260/2280/22110 format with the benefits of the 32 GB / s bandwidth. Obviously it is compatible with NVMe technology, so we can get the most out of our equipment.

In storage we find ten 6 GB / s SATA III connections with RAID 0.1, 5 and 10 support and two SATA Express connections for high speed disks. We also find two U.2 connections that allow you to connect PCIe 3.0 x4 NVM Express storage.

As we are used to, Gigabyte has an AMP-UP Audio sound card with a Realtek ALC1150 chipset with a definition of up to 115 dB. What do you gain from this? Improves sound and higher quality for wearing high-end headphones.

In this image we see the control panel, two heads for USB 2.0 connections and the connector for a second front USB 3.0. We do not want to forget that the motherboard incorporates two network cards, one of them is the fabulous Killer E2400 that improves gaming performance ( pings and latency ) and a second Intel LAN card that gives excellent performance as well.

Finally we detail the rear connections:

PS / 2.6 connector USB 3.0 connections. USB 3.1 Type C and Type A connector. 2 Gigabit LAN network cards. Sound card connections.

Test bench and tests

TESTING BENCH
Processor:	Intel Core i7-6950X
Base plate:	Gigabyte X99 Ultra Gaming
Memory:	4 × 8 32GB DDR4 @ 3200 MHZ Corsair Dominator Platinum
Heatsink	Corsair H100i V2.
HDD	Samsung 850 EVO 500 GB.
Graphic card	Nvidia GTX 980 Ti 6GB.
Power supply	EVGA SuperNOVA 750 G2

WE RECOMMEND Aorus GeForce GTX 1060 with new 9 Gbps memory

To check the stability of the i7-6950X processor at 4200 MHZ and the motherboard we have stressed with Prime 95 Custom and air cooling. The graphics we have used is an Nvidia GTX 980 Ti, without further delay, let's see the results obtained in our tests with a 1920 × 1080 monitor.

UEFI BIOS renewed!

We find a renewed BIOS, much more stable than the previous one and with more options for overclocking. We think it is a great leap and that helps you compete from one to the other among the best graphics cards on the market.

Final words and conclusion about Gigabyte X99 Ultra Gaming

The Gigabyte X99 Ultra Gaming is an ATX-format motherboard compatible with the new i7-6800K, i7-6900K and i7-6950X processors, with excellent cooling and great overclocking potential.

We have accompanied the motherboard with the powerful ten core, 32 GB DDR4 Dominator Platinum, a GTX 980 Ti graphics and a cooling all Corsair H100i V2. The result is that we have achieved 4200 stable Mhz and really good game results.

It is also worth noting that the motherboard allows us to install up to three graphics cards, it has a dual Gigabit LAN connection (Killer E2400 and one Intel) and a sound card compatible with top-of-the-range headphones.

Its price in store amounts to 320 euros, in case we compare it with the competition it seems to us a very balanced motherboard and that each euro we invest in it is worth it.

ADVANTAGE	DISADVANTAGES
+ AESTHETICALLY BRUTAL.	- FOR NOW NONE.
+ THE BIOS ARE MUCH IMPROVED.
+ IMPROVED SOUND CONNECTORS.
+ GOOD OVERCLOCK.
+ AFFORDABLE PRICE TO BE X99.