Gigabyte X99-Gaming-5P (LGA 2011-3) Motherboard Review

A Closer Look & Layout Analysis

Our first detailed look at the X99-Gaming-5P doesn’t really peak my interests. Featuring a very similar design to the previous X99-Gaming-5 motherboard. Although, there wasn’t much to change

The I/O side of the board presents us with a wide array of connections. Firstly, 2 separate PS/2 ports, then 4x USB 2.0 ports (yellow), 5x USB 3.0 ports (Blue), 1x USB 3.0 port enabled for Q-flash and the recommended port for keyboards/ mice for initial boot (white). You will also find 1x gigabit LAN port, 5x HD audio jacks, 1x S/PDIF optical port and 2 empty WiFi antenna holes.

From there, we move on down to the audio portion of the board, hosting Creative Sound Core 3D and its dedicated capacitors. Just above those, we have an audio gain switch, ideal for switching when primarily using headphones.

Along the bottom, we see all the typical headers for front USB, audio, buttons and an addition PCI power connection in the form of a male molex connector.

Working our way back up the other side of the motherboard, we have a relatively small bank of SATA connectors. The lower of the grey section hosts SATA express, which is capable of up to 10Gb/s transfers. To the far right, we see a CPU switch, which is a hardwired overclock (OC) switch which auto analyses the best CPU clock speed for the CPU/ RAM motherboard combination.

Straight opposite the I/O ports, we then have the usual headers, 24-pin ATX power and USB 3.0 header. It’s a shame there aren’t any on-board power buttons or debug LED; the addition of those would finish this off nicely.

Placed straight in the middle of the PCI slot bank, we have dual M.2 ports, one low and one raised. The lower is designed for a WiFi card and the raised for a typical M.2 SSD. The placement sort of limits your range of usable M.2 SSD cards, but 80mm is the main consumer size.

So with this motherboard, Gigabyte has introduced a slightly tinkered heatsink design, featuring LEDs. A full video demonstration can be found on the Software Overview page.

This board features the standard 8-DIMM slots supporting up to 128GB of 3333MHz memory. The CPU and DIMM slot pins feature upgraded gold-plated pins, allowing better connection quality and higher bandwidth allowance.