Computex 2015 Gigabyte

It is a bit ironic that my last Computex 2015 article is for first company I visited during the show but, in a way it seems fitting.  Gigabyte can typically be found in two locations.  Their public booth has always been in Hall 1 and I suspect is a prestige carryover from the days before Nangang was built.  The VIP suite located in Taipei 101 is where the majority of the good stuff can be seen and happens to be invite only.

The Gigabyte suite contained a good number of high-end systems, casemods, show girls and overclocking.  Given that most everything on display had already been released I didn’t pay too much attention expect to find the new Z170 motherboards and famed GTX 980 Ti.

Strangely enough, during the show I only got to see the mainstream Z170 boards like the GA-Z170M-D3H due to an NDA related to a chip on the Z170 G1 Gaming board.  Because of this the board was hidden until day 2 and my schedule didn’t allow me to see it until the following week.

The new G1 Gaming board it quite the monster featuring a 24 phase VRM, watercooled VRM cooler, metal reinforced PCI Express slots.  PLX Chip for semi proper 4-way SLI, high-end audio using a real Sound Blaster card design, onboard LED lights and which shrouds everywhere.

I’m not really a fan of the white but the overall layout and features is showing promise that this might be the “gaming” motherboard to own when Skylake is released.

Another exciting thing to see was the new GeForce GTX 980 Ti G1 Gaming video card.  The card comes with the triple fan Windforce heatsink overtop a custom PCB with a larger eight or ten phase VRM (I forget the actual number) for better overclocking and higher default clocks.

The card might not be as flashy as some of the other 980 Ti's I have seen but does come with a custom metal backplate and should be clocked around the 1250Mhz range when the final version goes on sale. 

Babe tax paid.