Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Gigabyte ATX DDR4 Intel LGA 1151 SATA E (6Gbit/s) Motherboards (GA-Z170X-Gaming 7)

Top positive review

Solid MB for Gaming. Also, easy RMA process if needed.

Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 2015

30 July:

I was about to send in my MB when I had a thought. What if it was the power supply. It is hard to tell if the HDD is being powered on since it is an SSD. With a mechanical HHD, you can hear the platters spin as it boots up. Look story short, it was the PSU. 2 of the four SATA outputs was not working anymore. The other two SATA power ports are working and the computer boots up like it should. I am now working on having the PSU from Cooler Master returned under warranty. Cooler Master has a weird RMA process. According to their website, the defective item is to return to the retailer and the retailer will send it back for warranty service. Anyway, my review stands on this MB, 5 Stars, and also requesting an RMA was very easy.

28 July17:
The MB SATA connectors stop working. The BIOS no longer detects the SATA connectors. There are 8 connectors and not one works. The BIOS says that the SATA is not installed. Went through the basic troubleshooting (replace hard drive with known working HDD, replaced the SATA cables, reflash the BIOS, etc...) and it is the SATA connectors. Getting a RMA seems easy, requested via website. I have to pay shipping one way, they pay for return. I'll report back on how well the replacement works. BTW I have version 1.0 board.

Finally built my rig:
This motherboard
MSI GTX 980ti 2x Armour
Kingston HyperX Black 16GB
i5-6600K
CM HAF EVO XB case
CM Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler
CM V750 PSU

Caveat: This build is really for my son. I guess Mac Gaming is no longer good enough for him. Also, I haven't built a PC in over 12 years. Same basic concepts as in the past but a lot of deciding what to buy. i.e. a "Gaming MB" or a "General Purpose MB"

Great Board. It has more than enough USB 3.0 ports and a thunderbolt port 3.1. This is good for me since I also use a Macbook Pro which I have a Thunderbolt external HDD. The built in Sound Blaster card is excellent. I no longer need a external sound card which takes up desk space.. Works great with my Turtle Beach Ghost headset (had to use a headset / mic splitter). I have the MB pulse during gameplay/music. You can also have it steady. I keep it at red but can do more colors or go through the rainbow of colors. If you are a crazy over clocker, there is only 4 fan heads, so this may not be enough for you. For my setup, it is more than enough. I have two front intake which only take up 1 fan head and 1 in the rear for the exhaust. You can really see the extra details that Gigabyte put in to the MB, like the reinforced PCI-e socket. My setup has the MB sitting vertical but I would feel very confident that the PCI-e slot could hold a heavy GTX 980+ series GPU in a horizontal position. I am not sure if the motherboard is a little thicker than other MB's but I could not use the suggested stand offs for the CM EVO 212 CPU cooler. I had to use the longer stand offs normally meant for AMD MB. Another feature I like is the onboard buttons to reset the BIOS (needed to use that once during the build), a on/off switch (used to do a pre-power up before connecting the front panel button connectors), and there is a OC button (which I haven't used).

I still haven't messed around with over clocking but I will do an update once I have time to mess around.

2 people found this helpful

Top critical review

Critical reviews›

DS785

Dual 4K 60Hz displays will NOT WORK on this MB

Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2016

So I had high hopes for this motherboard, as I want integrated graphics for dual 4K 60P LG monitors. Unfortunately, the HDMI 2.0 port on the motherboard does NOT function properly with newer 4K displays, such as the LG 27UD88. In fact, if you connect both the DP and HDMI ports to dual 4K monitors, you get no picture on either monitor. Unfortunately, this problem points to Intel drive issues. In fact, 6+ months ago on the Intel graphics forums other users (with Asus MBs) reported the same problem. I emailed MegaChips (the company that provides the Asus/Gigabyte HDMI controller chip) and they are aware of the problem and stated it was a Intel graphics driver issue. They went on to say that Intel has not committed to fixing the issue.

Bottom line, if you want dual 4K 60p displays, use a PCIe graphics card. AMD will release a new model in June 2016 for around $200 that will support DP 1.3, HDMI 2.0a, HDCP 2.2, and 4K 60p graphics. I have little hope that Intel will react to this issue and come out with an updated Windows driver. The HDMI port does work with 1080P monitors just fine.

Update 6/4/2016: I've also run into serious audio problems using the built-in Creative Chipset. Quite frequently when listening to audio, it becomes highly distorted. Speech sounds like you are under water or highly garbled. After some googling, it appears this is quite a common issue on all Gigabyte motherboards with the Creative chipset. Given the long period of time of the complains, and lack of fixes, it appears Gigabyte does not care to resolve the issue.

Between the HDMI 4K 60Hz issue and the widespread audio issues, this MB is the worst I've ever bought and is going back. Rating is going down to one star. Gigabyte does not appear to care about the quality of their products or solving issues once they do come up. I was a long time Asus customer, and will switch back them. All my Asus MBs have been flawless over the last 15 years.

5 people found this helpful

404 total ratings, 353 with reviews

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From the United States

CBerg

Solid MB for Gaming. Also, easy RMA process if needed.

Reviewed in the United States on December 16, 2015

Verified Purchase

2 people found this helpful

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Dominic

Always trust Gigabyte! Never fail to deliver!

Reviewed in the United States on December 13, 2016

Verified Purchase

This thing is just awesome. I pretty much only trust Gigabyte for boards. My old system was AMD (AM3+ to be exact). I built it over 5 years ago and the original motherboard I put in it, a Gigabyte UD (ultra durable) board, is still running strong with no issues at all. The Dual BIOS that Gigabyte uses is just the best insurance you can have on a system like this (ASrock has a dual bios also but I have not tried one of their boards). As a quick aside for those that may not know, basically the BIOS is the small "OS" (so to speak) on the mobo. It essentially holds all the I/O settings for anything and everything that gets plugged into the board. The most obvious job it has it booting up; its settings decide how things boot and are initialized. The second major job it has is power regulation to components (most notably RAM and CPU). Basically why I am saying this is because if for some reason something happens to your BIOS (corruption, bug, whatever) you're pretty much up a creek. That's where the Dual BIOS comes in. Gigabyte basically splits 256 bit single BIOS most other companies have into 2 128 bit BIOSs giving you a backup. Now I have never had to use that feature but I can say I sleep soundly knowing I have it. (If for whatever reason you don't want to have this feature there is a switch on the board to turn off Dual BIOS. Next on to the actual usage of the board.

When I first pulled this thing out of the box my jaw actually dropped. It's actually a gorgeous board. The white/silver/red accent plates are quite stunning in their finish. I know most people probably aren't gonna care all that much about aesthetics (and really I don't either) it was just so striking to me that I thought I should mention it. Hook up was straight forward (not really even a function of the mobo but yeah). The manual was also very informative. You could probably use that manual to build a PC as a first timer. When I booted it up first I had a memory initialization error (code 55) which was quickly (relatively) solved by removing the cooler and resetting the CPU into the slot. There were no bent pins, it just must have been jostled when I was putting everything together (I did the whole build it on the mobo and then put it into the case style of building a PC as opposed to putting the mobo in first and putting everything in from there). NOTE: Remember if you get a memory initialization error check both the RAM placement AND the CPU. If the pins are bent or misaligned on the CPU that error will be thrown also even if there is no actual issue with the RAM. From there everything booted smoothly. I went back the next morning after I was confident everything on my new build was stable and enabled XMP profiles. I know some people have come on forums and such with lots of issues with overclocking RAM, this is not one of those cases. I honestly wish I had timed it. I booted to the BIOS, turned XMP on, saved and exited, and I was loaded into windows with my Corsair Vengeance LPX running at 3000mhz (what it is supposed to be). I actually said out loud to myself "Well that was easy". NOTE: make sure to check the readily available RAM compatibility lists to see what RAM is XMP compatible. I would suggest checking Gigabyte's list first, and then go to RAM manufacturer's list if it isn't there. Everything else is running beautifully. I have not tried any CPU overclocking yet, but I will update this review if I notice anything else while doing that.

On to Software. This is where there is slight room for improvement...but that is the case with pretty much all Mobo software run in the OS (or so I have read). The tools are a bit cumbersome but not difficult to use by any means. It has a lot of nice features like system/cpu fan curve control, Fast boot settings, and easy OC. In general it just has ease of use settings that basically allow you to do in 1 click what would conventionally take a good amount of time to set up in the BIOS. I've only seen two instances of it not working, and have yet to solve them (or really try to since I don't care much about the two items). The first one was fast boot. Supposedly there are settings you can use to have the Mobo fast boot your OS. When I clicked the configure fast boot button in the app suite, it acted like it was gonna take me to the BIOS by shutting down and restarting. On shutdown I got a strange error and then it never booted me into the BIOS. Nothing bad happened...it just didn't work. I will probably try that one again sometime soon, but this time just straight from the BIOS. The other failure is the one that somewhat confuses me. Gigabyte includes an OSD software called "3D OSD" which can display data about your system like temps and usage and stuff (theres a pretty sweet list of things it will display). Only thing is when I turn it on...it just doesn't work (I also think it has been the culprit of a couple errors popping up: just dialog boxes no PC issues associated). Every once in awhile I will actually see the display but it will show up on some random place on the screen. My best guess as to the issue is that I am running a 4k monitor and that resolution is messing it up. The other guess I have is that Nvidia and Windows have they're own OSD stuff that I run (they were off at the time of doing this) that may possibly interfere. Otherwise the APP Center is pretty useful in keeping you from having to go into the BIOS.

PS: the LEDs on the board are somewhat lack luster (colors aren't perfect). The LEDs on the outside (back panel) are quite nice. Needed to say that for those it matters to.

If you got to the end of this review, KUDOS TO YOU. I apologize for making it so long but there is frankly a lot to talk about when it comes to a motherboard (they do a lot). I definitely recommend this board for anyone making a mid-high end Intel rig. You can't go wrong with it.

Below is my current rig for reference:
CPU: Intel i5 6600k
MOBO: This product (Gaming 7)
RAM: 16GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance LPX C15 3000mhz
GPU: Gigabyte GTX 1070 G1 Gaming
HDD: 1TB Seagate Firecuda SSHD
PSU: Thermaltake Toughpower Grand 850W

Hope this helps!

8 people found this helpful

Helpful

B. Hand

I am thrilled with this motherboard!

Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2016

Verified Purchase

I just built a computer for the first time! The items I purchased for the build: Phanteks EVOLV ATX Mid Tower in Antracite Gray / EVGA 700 B1, 80+ BRONZE 700W Power Supply / Intel Core I7 6700K CPU, Samsung 950 Pro 256GB M.2 Internal SSD / Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 Motherboard / Ballistix Sport LT 16GB Kit (8GBx2) DDR4 2400 RAM in White / Gigabyte AMD R7 360 GPU / Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler / TP-LINK N900 2.4GHz or 5GHz WI-FI Card.

I am thrilled with my new build! Everything works well together and it was all plug and play. I did not have to make any kind of adjustments in the BIOS. I was so worried that I was going to have issues with the SSD not being recognized as a boot device (after reading various forums regarding NVMe - M.2 SSD's and this particular motherboard) and that major BIOS tweaks were going to be needed. That was simply not the case at all. As soon as I booted the computer for the first time and went to install Windows 10 Professional, the SSD was recognized and Windows installed perfectly. So the issues I was concerned with turned out to have nothing to do with my build. I think those issues have to do with using more than one M.2 SSD or other types of SSD's or hard drives in conjunction with each other. Then RAID becomes a factor. But in my case this was not an issue.

This motherboard is awesome! Not only does it look great, it has lots of really nice features (some I did not even realize I was getting). I like the lighting effects a lot. The on-board sound system is incredible. I have been using regular desktop speakers (Bose brand) during the day and at night I plug my headphones into the speaker port on the front of the case. So far I have not had any sound issues like the ones I read about in some reviews here and in other forums. I do have the Sound Blaster Control Panel installed and it controls the sound system nicely. It knows when I have headphones plugged in and adjusts itself automatically, turning off the desktop speakers. When I unplug the headphones, the desktop speakers come back to life and sound excellent.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

DS785

Dual 4K 60Hz displays will NOT WORK on this MB

Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2016

Verified Purchase

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Brandon O.

Powerful Motherboard With a Welcomed Attention to Audio

Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2015

Verified Purchase

Pros
* Amazingly well executed onboard audio. The onboard audio is not only surprisingly clear but has given my desktop Amp and DAC a run for their money which is no small feat considering that my amp alone costs more than this motherboard. I have always been skeptical of onboard audio as it is usually plagued with hiss's hum's and does not play well with high impedance headphones

* Holds both of my nvidia 970's tightly. Many GPU's are heavy and they will put a fair amount of stress on your PCI ports. My GPU's sagged when they were on my previous motherboard and it makes me smile to see them seated straight and it just looks nicer.

* Plays well with Windows 7. There have been a fair number users saying that 1151 motherboards don't like Windows 7 and I was worried that I was going to have to switch to Windows 10( I do plan to switch eventually ). No problems at all.

* I am mostly indifferent when it comes to pc lighting and component aesthetics in general but I do like the rear panel lighting as you can pick a separate color for the labels as you do for the panel ( also it looks pretty ). This motherboard has a great many customizable lights that can be set to a great many different colors.

* The software. I usually avoid motherboard control software since they often have user interfaces that feel like bloatware. That is not the case this time around. I also like that the various control programs are modular so that you only have to install them on a per need basis as opposed to a suite style setup. There's even one that lets you set up your motherboard to ignore specific usb class types ( memory sticks, cameras, microphones, etc )

Cons
* The only complaint I have so far is that that debug codes are not all listed in the manual and I have yet to find a way to look up unlisted codes outside of googling them. ( If you are unaware there is a two digit digital readout on the top right of the motherboard that displays an alphanumeric code to tell you what the motherboard is doing at any given time )

I will update this if I run into to any problems or find more features I want to rave about.

107 people found this helpful

Helpful

jasonCbraatz

Great Motherboard, easy overclocking, very useful for a non-gamer. VERY STABLE.

Reviewed in the United States on November 24, 2016

Verified Purchase

I'm not a gamer.. But I do a heavy amount of graphic design, animation and 3D work so I was on the hunt for something to a new build that would suit my needs. This (almost) entirely fits the bill. Using an Intel i7 6700k ( Intel Core i7 6700K 4.00 GHz Unlocked Quad Core Skylake Desktop Processor, Socket LGA 1151 [BX80662I76700K ] ) that's already at 4.0ghz from Intel, simply installing this with no adjustments at all gets it to 4.2 Ghz. Hitting the "OC" button on the motherboard gets it immediately to 4.4 Ghz. Going into the UEFI BIOS and selecting 4.7 Ghz as it's core rate gets it immediately to 4.7 Ghz. Hit the OC button again for 4.8 Ghz. That was literally not doing anything beyond turning on a "stock" setting on this motherboard. I've been building PCs for a long time (my first was an 80286-20 with a 20MB MFM HDD) but I'm never like having to go very far to push the system like the new overclockers do. There's nothing wrong with that and this board allows that too - but I'm lazy. I want it to just work. This motherboard is perfect for a new builder who wants to overclock by simply pushing a button, as well as the seasoned builder who wants a good platform to start from with the advanced features still there to openly push it to the max.

There is only one downside to this motherboard, for me. There are 3 PCI slots, which is very common on motherboards these days. I like having a little more room for growth than just 3... e.g., adding multiple GPUs, etc. That said, the price to value certainly is here.

Lastly, this is an extremely stable motherboard. It's even more stable than my off-the-shelf HP computer in another room. Gigabyte is known, if anything, for this above all else. They even advertise themselves on the BIOS screen as having a very durable motherboard - but it's not just advertising, these things don't crash.

Don't make one mistake I initially made: I purchased a Amazon Warehouse Deals version of this first. Eck. Don't do that with a motherboard. One tiny little pin was bent in the CPU slot when I received the re-packaged one. Buying used parts for a PC is ok for the most part except for the motherboard & CPU. I've had good success even with repackaged memory & drives though. It's 50/50 on GPUs or video cards, since some people overclock those and kill their life expectancy off.

17 people found this helpful

Helpful

Brad

The on-board LED lighting is just a fun addition. The board is very solid

Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2016

Verified Purchase

Purchased after the ASUS Z-170 MB I received was DoA.

This board was a bit more expensive than the ASUS, but it definitely is a step up in quality and features. The on-board LED lighting is just a fun addition. The board is very solid, and the PCI slots are re-inforced so my GTX 1080 felt safe and secure.

The BIOS was easy to navigate and I was able to overclock at a very safe, very stable 4.5ghz on an i5 6600k keeping temps below 60C and voltages below 1.3V. The DDR4 Corsair LPX ram I purchased registered at the 3000mhz and I haven't had a single BSoD since putting the computer together.

The MB comes packaged well. The only thing I would change are the color of the SATA cables that are included. They are silver, which only really matches one small part of the MB. A white or red to match the MB more closely or a black to aid in "hidden" cables would have been preferred...but the fact that my only gripe with this MB has to do with the color of $15 worth of cables really shows how great everything about this motherboard is.

Both SSD's registered without a problem, and installing Windows 10 was a breeze with the easy to navigate BIOS to select my boot device.

My SSD's are running around 425-470mb/s mixed average between read/write. If you want to see how all of my components are working with the Z710 Gaming 7, my benchmarks can be seen here [...] Everything is performing above expectations except the GTX 1080, but I haven't touched any overclocks on that yet.

This is a great motherboard, and everything I've connected to it works beautifully.

Helpful

Mitchell Jones

The best MOBO ever....except for one thing.

Reviewed in the United States on March 21, 2016

Verified Purchase

*Sigh*.... This motherboard is potentially the best one on the market currently in terms of price and performance. The soundcore chip provies excellent audio (way better than any asus motherboard). Good 4k support. Fast sata load speeds. Compatible with most ddr4 ram. Cool looking white and red color scheme.
The only problem with this motherboard is the TERRIBLE I/O shield. The cushion doesn't allow the motherboard to line up on the standoffs of corsair 780t. The cushion on the back of the shield is just a bit too big. Even after being forceful with my motherboard I couldnt get it to fit. Finally gave up and just installed the MOBO without the stupid I/O shield.

6 people found this helpful

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Mugwomp McGillicuddy

BE WARNED: Does not support 7th gen processor! (But support was GREAT and QUICK)

Reviewed in the United States on October 24, 2017

Verified Purchase

Does not support 7th gen processor!

I got this and all my parts but the thing would not boot up, this was my second mobo after having zero luck with a different brand. Wasn't sure if I was having hardware issues with the first brand, thought I'd give Gigabye a shot.

I emailed Gigabyte's tech support with my CPU/RAM/PSU info and they got back to me surprisingly quickly to let me know this motherboard needs a bios update to work with my 7th gen Intel processor. Which I obviously can't do since I can't run the mobo without a CPU.

They offered to send me a replacement mobo with an updated BIOS, which arrived in two days. Low and behold the machine started right up!

I was very impressed with the build quality of this board for the money. It looks well put together, the audio connectors are gold plated, the audio chip seems to be loud and clean, and it even has power and reset buttons right on the board. ALSO one thing I was VERY happy with is the size and spacing of the connectors for the power/reset wires. It was very easy to connect every thing, unlike the previous mobo, which had the pins so close together, you had to bend the pins to get enough space to force the connectors in (and it took forever!). Literally took me 20-30 seconds with the Gigabye's connectors.

Everything is works great. I love the bios and how well it seems to be controlling my fans and waking/sleeping the PC.
Everything just... FUNCTIONS!

Thanks Gigabyte for making a great product and helping me getting it running as quickly and painlessly as possible.

I wish you'd sell these with the latest support (or have a way to update bios without any other hardware connected), but other than that, I'm glad I found you!

UPDATE 12/30/2017: Got myself some Sennheiser HD600 headphones and I was very surprised how well the rear headphone port drives them! I also have a stand alone $150 headphone amp for my turntable which doesn't amplify the Sens as well.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

D. Collins

Working great so far..F20 Bios(7th Gen support) came with this board..

Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2017

Verified Purchase

After having purchased this motherboard, I started to read a few more reviews and realized that I may have to buy a 6th gen CPU in order for it to boot so I could upgrade the bios. I ordered the board on Sep 13th and it actually had the F20 bios so I ended up getting lucky(and others have not unfortunately). Board arrived in pristine condition and was sealed and I could tell it was new and not refurbished or a used one sent out as new. It was sent from Amazon, not a 3rd party seller. Hope this helps anyone who plans on ordering the board and wondering if the bios will be updated.
In going through the board I like all the extras that it has. The Creative Soundcore is really nice now that they have released a newer driver. It sounds great and really boosts the sound output. I did test it with a previous install of Windows 7 and all the drivers updated without freezing the system at all. Though it says Windows 7 is not supported, you can run it although you will have to Google some fixes or uninstall certain updates for it to let you update windows. The most annoying thing was (although everything ran great-and this is assuming you are using a 7th gen cpu) it kept popping an incompatible message for the cpu and saying windows could not update. But other than that everything ran perfect. I since installed Windows 10 and everything is running with zero problems. I recommend this board but only time will tell. I don't plan on overclocking so I won't be able to offer any suggestions there except my ram clocked at 2400MHz with zero issues and it has been running stable for 5 days now.
If you happen to buy the board I hope it will be easy for you as it was for me!

One person found this helpful

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