The Gigabyte W480 Vision D is a striking motherboard. Gigabyte has done a good job of creating a white theme that stands out visually, but still fits a wide array of components. While the RGB LED implementation lags behind some other boards in terms of complexity and customization, diffusion is excellent, and the placement blends in seamlessly with the board's theme.

Out of the box, performance was excellent for the Gigabyte W480 Vision D. Memory overclocking was good as well, as I reached 4000 MHz CL16 stable with my Trident Z Neo kit. CPU overclocking is locked down on the W480 chipset, but VRM thermals were great when running Prime95 at stock settings, never exceeding 45 °C.

The Gigabyte W480 Vision D is a good-looking board with good performance out of the box and a great feature set. The Xeon W processor and ECC memory support, not to mention the Thunderbolt 3 connectivity, come at a cost. At US$380, the Gigabyte W480 Vision D is a good option for those looking for a sharp, reliable Xeon W platform. For everyone else, Z490 is the better choice.