Final Thoughts

While the benchmark scores don't show an overwhelming performance rise in the Intel 975X chipset against the previous 955X, this is kind of what we were expecting though. The 975X chipset is based directly on the 955X chipset, with a few tweaks and ATI Crossfire support.

Intel 975X is a new chipset designed to fix what the 955X didn't manage to achieve, which is Crossfire dual graphics acceptance. To this end the chipset is a success, as well as its ability to handle extreme bus speeds; you are guaranteed to get a very good overclocking result, provided your CPU, cooler and power supply are up to the task of powering the whole show.

On Gigabyte's efforts with this motherboard, all we can as is marvellous - the design is extremely clean, the cooling side of things for the overclockers have been thought about extremely hard, you have a ton of features to keep the gamer happy and we have in front of us what we really think is the best of looks and performance, as far as Intel based motherboards go.

The folks have Gigabyte are really concentrating on the gamers and enthusiasts in 2006 and if this motherboard is anything to go by, you all should pay some serious attention. It's a motherboard which is a total contrast from the Gigabyte motherboards we saw many years ago.

The G1975X motherboard has many onboard features that are practical and useful and without a doubt if you are after a motherboard with the lot, Gigabyte has provided it for you.

- Pros

Crossfire Ready

Overclocking is very impressive

Very enthusiast friendly

Firewire

Additional IDE channel

SATA RAID

Extremely efficient cooling of board components

Creative Sound Blaster Live 24-bit hardware audio controller

Debug LED and onboard power switch

- Cons

Slightly noisy

Likely to be expensive but you get what you pay for

- Latest Pricing

Rating - 9.5 out of 10 and TweakTown's "MUST HAVE" Editors Choice Award