If you’re opting for an X99 system, there’s a good chance you’re doing it to get your hands on Intel’s new 6-core and 8-core CPUs, as opposed to running three or four-way GPU setups.

With this in mind, there’s definitely a case to be made for opting for smaller motherboards, and this month, Gigabyte has released its first X99 micro-ATX motherboard – the X99M-Gaming 5.

Like EVGA’s X99 Micro that we reviewed last month (see Issue 137, p18), the X99MGaming 5 isn’t totally devoid of multi-GPU support, sporting two 16x PCI-E slots; with a 40-lane CPU such as the Core i7-5930K, you’ll be able to tap into the full bandwidth of each slot with a pair of graphics cards.

Space is pretty tight at this end of the PCB, though, and the lowest of the three 16x PCI-E slots is limited to eight lanes. There’s also a 1x PCI-E slot beneath the primary graphics slot, which isn’t an ideal position, as it will make it unusable if your graphics card has a dual-slot cooler.

In addition, the two M.2 ports (one is limited to 30mm modules, and one can take up to 80mm SSDs) will also be blocked by dual-slot coolers, although that will only be an issue if you need to remove these devices regularly, which isn’t likely.

Perhaps more importantly, due to the micro-ATX form factor, installing two dualslot graphics cards doesn’t leave much room for the top cooler to breathe, which could pose a problem with hotrunning, air-cooled Radeon HD 290X cards, for example.

However, to be fair, the Gigabyte has the same PCI-E graphics slot layout as the EVGA X99 Micro and ASRock Fatal1ty X99M Killer in this respect.

Otherwise, there are few issues with the layout, and Gigabyte has packed a lot into the X99M-Gaming 5’s PCB. It has the full complement of overclocking tools, including power, reset and clear-CMOS buttons, an LED POST code display and even a toggle to switch between the X99M-Gaming 5’s dual BIOS chips. There’s a generous count of five 4-pin fan headers too.

The cooling system impresses as well; three heatsinks sit on the PCB, with two on the power circuitry, and they’re all connected via a long heatpipe. Gigabyte has also enhanced the Realtek ALC 1150-based audio circuitry with an upgradable OP-AMP and high-end audio capacitors.

Many of Gigabyte’s pricier boards include Wi-Fi adaptors, but instead, the X99M-Gaming 5 just includes an antenna mount and a short M.2 port for a Wi-Fi card, but keeps the price low by not including the actual Wi-Fi adaptor.

Instead, there’s a Killer E2200 Gigabit Ethernet port, and storage options are plentiful, with 10 SATA 6Gbps ports, all of which lie parallel to the PCB to enable neater cable routing.

Two of these ports are shared between the single SATA Express port and M.2 ports, though, so you’re only able to use one of these options at any one time.

Aesthetically, the X99M-Gaming 5 is fairly subdued, and its styling certainly isn’t as in-your-face as ASRock’s scarlet X99M Killer.

However, Gigabyte has included a little pizzazz via an illuminated section on the part of the PCB containing the audio components, where the lighting can be constant, pulse or even beat according to the music that’s being played. Or, of course, you can turn it off.

Performance

At stock speed, the X99M-Gaming 5 managed reasonable results in our RealBench 2014 suite, with an overall system score just ahead of the EVGA X99 Micro, while the ASRock Fatal1ty X99M Killer was slightly better than both.

It matched the ASRock board in the Cinebench R15 benchmark, but fell a little behind again in the Shogun 2 CPU test.

Storage speeds were right on the money, with a superquick SATA 6Gbps read speed of 550MB/sec – a little faster than many boards we’ve reviewed, while the read speed of 519MB/sec was also the joint fastest result we’ve seen.

The X99M-Gaming 5’s EFI isn’t quite on a par with Asus or MSI’s slick offerings, and it can be a little unclear in places, but it does contain all the settings you need, and inputting our starting-point settings (4.2GHz frequency with a 1.3V vcore) was a simple job. We then raised the frequency to 4.3GHz, but the system failed after a few moments in Prime95.

Raising the voltage to 1.33V saw it become stable, though, and we also managed to increase the base clock by 1MHz to bring the total frequency up to 4.34GHz – one of the highest overclocks we’ve seen on this platform.

One issue, though is that under heavy load, the Tj Max of 89°C was just toppled, leading to a reduction in CPU speed, but we couldn’t find a way to increase this limit in the EFI.

That issue didn’t prevent the X99M-Gaming 5 from powering its way to the top of many of our benchmarks, though, scoring the fastest results in the video encoding test and overall system score, as well as Cinebench R15 and Shogun 2.

Naturally, this overclock led to a hefty increase in power consumption, but the peak load draw of 439W still compared favourably with the Fatal1ty X99M Killer’s 484W.

Conclusion

The only flies in the ointment for the X99M-Gaming 5 are its mediocre EFI layout and the lack of an option to adjust the CPU Tj Max. However, unless you want to push your CPU to its limits for benchmarking, this board is fine for less ambitious (and still very fast) overclocks.

The X99MGaming 5 is also very well priced indeed, costing $20 less than the ASRock board and $30 less than EVGA’s offering, yet it still sports SATA Express, two M.2 ports and all the usual overclocking tools.

Only the two aforementioned issues prevent it from getting a Premium Grade award, and both could be fixed with a future EFI update. It’s otherwise a fantastic choice for a micro-ATX X99 system.