I would have to take most of the blame for the late entry of this review. The device was shipped to me in March, but a combination of travel and other projects kept me away from the desktop review beat for a while. Now that I'm back on it, it was a happy coincidence that Gigabyte dropped the price, and because the product is still readily available, we thought it was still worth the review. We have another Z170 review coming out soon too, under the exact same circumstances (still available, price dropped). But don't worry, Z270 reviews are on the way!
The idea that Gigabyte or any other company pays us for "plugs" is laughable. I did basically refer to it as a trash can, so how does that work for an official endorsement? Furthermore, the award status is always up to the editorial staff, and for the pricing alone we felt it was worth at least a recommended award (the lowest of our applicable awards). We know good deals when we see them, and despite the Gaming GT's shortcomings (no overclocking, grrrr), we feel it's worth a nod for the hardware inside.