Gigabyte Z97MX Gaming 5 mATX Review

Despite its size, Gigabyte have gone all out again, as this board not only features a split PCB design, full on Realtek audio chip, but also changable OP-AMPs, to alter the sound quality to the nth degree!

I do like the idea that you can change the op amp out if you are a bit of an audiophile, but there is a bit of marketing here… If you are someone who is genuinely interested in the audio quality to the degree that you would want to change an operational amplifier out, you probably already have either an expensive external AMP/DAC unit, or an equally expensive internal PCI-E add in card for that, although I guess having something that good built into a board with somewhat limited space is a nice idea for that niche of people. Something I found out by looking in the manual is that the 4 dip switches are for adjusting the gain of the amplifier, meaning if you have extra quiet speakers or headphones, the board can pump it up for you! All 4 switches up means its bumped from 2.5x to 6x. I could get nerdy and go into detail about OP-AMP circuits and how this DIL switch ups the volume, but my fingers hurt far too much for that now!

To take a look at the LED lit split PCB.. it’s awesome! It’s not a full red stripe, but it has a really cool glow down at the bottom of case where the power supply meets the board, and it’s something that I, personally, love. To improve obviously RGB would be great, since red lighting isn’t for everyone, but then again the rest of the board’s accents are red, so who am I to complain!