Gigabyte Launches G1.Sniper2 Motherboard

Gigabyte is finally showing socket 1155 system builders some weapon themed love with the launch of the G1.Sniper2 motherboard, the 1155 version of the socket 1366 G1.Sniper and little brother to the G1.Assassin we reviewed in the June 2011 issue of Maximum PC.

The G1.Sniper2 is built around Intel's Z68 chipset and wields the same weapon inspired motif as Gigabyte's other G1 boards, most notably the magazine shaped heatsink Gigabyte clearly warns is "not a weapon. Cannot be assembled as a weapon," just in case you were wondering.

There's a whole arsenal of features included with the G1.Sniper2, including a built-in Creative X-Fi chip, integrated Bigfoot Killer E2100 NIC, a pair of PCI-E x16 slots, two PCI-E x1 slots, two standard PCI slots, support for CrossFireX and SLI, two SATA 6Gb/s ports, three SATA 3Gb/s slots, eSATA, RAID 0/1/5/10, support for up to four USB 3.0 ports, hybrid EFI BIOS, built-in audio headphone amplifier, a front access control panel, and a bunch of other bullet points.

Despite the official launch, Gigabyte didn't say when it will ship to retailers and how much of a hit it will put on your wallet. As a point of reference, the socket 1366 G1.Sniper streets for $400.