Thanks to the weather issues over here in the UK over December and the disruptions to couriers and postal service that the snow caused my Christmas present only arrived two days after Christmas. But oh was it worth the wait. Ladies (there must be some :D) and gentlemen may I present the Gigabyte P67A-UD7 motherboard. I just want to share with you all my new board. This baby is going to go into a new Corsair 600T case that is just waiting for the PSU to arrive so I can do the build.
http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/8855/dsc06004y.jpg
Here is my Gigabyte P67A-UD7
http://img6.imageshack.us/img6/673/dsc06005f.jpg
Gigabyte are no strangers to any of us who belong to this forum so lets get on with opening up the box.
There is nothing better than opening new toys. And for sure this motherboard is something totally different from Gigabyte. Gone is the blue of old and in comes the stylish black and gold. I really like the new colour scheme that Gigabyte have gone for with the UD7.
http://img689.imageshack.us/img689/921/p67aud7bs1.jpg
But a motherboard is not just about how it looks. Sure a good looking board is a plus but what the board brings to the table performance and feature wise is far more important to me.
So without further ado let’s get into the technical side of things.
The P67 is a new socket and supports 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ processors in the LGA1155 package as most of you know. What that means is your 1136 CPU will not fit in this motherboard. And just to make sure you get the message a bright yellow warning card spells it out. Very explicit pictures just to make sure we get the message.
http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/8578/cpuwarning.png
Now I do not think I need to say too much about the CPU as there has been quite a bit written about the new SandbyBridge CPU’s and the best read I can recommend is the one over at Anandtech.
Just to put things into some kind of perspective with regards to the new CPU’s. These new CPU’s are not redefining performance CPU’s but they are a very real improvement at a outstanding price point. By that I mean you are basically getting as close as can be to a 980X hex core CPU performance at a third of the price when buying the top of the range K processor.
The full feature list is truly impressive.
These two slide's have the most important points. I have highlighted those that I find most valuable.
http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/7638/features.png
http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/6092/features2.png
10 USB ports of which 6 are USB3
http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/4715/usb3turbosmall.png
8 Sata ports in total
http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/7185/sata.png
The first 4 are SATA3GB/s next to the 2 white ports which are native SATA6GB/s and a further 2 additional Marvell SATA6GB/s on their right.
Memory remains dual channel just like the chipset the P67 is replacing.
The most interesting thing for me is the native support of 2133MHz memory modules. For me that is a very welcome addition to the chipset. I have noticed that one of the most common question posted in the memory forum here at OCUK has most certainly been the plaintive ‘I bought this 1600/2000 MHz ram and it will not work on my motherboard.’ With improved native support now provided for high-speed ram I expect those kinds of questions are to be things of the past. Well we can hope can't we?
Not sure if you want to go AMD or nVidia for your graphics card?
Well the Gigabyte P57A-UD7 is perfect for the serious gamer or someone like me who is an avid bencher. It has the option to have both Crossfire and Sli and is a big plus thanks to the inclusion of a NF200 chip.
http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/5725/3way.png
Dual Ethernet is provided as you would expect from a top of the range board.
http://img690.imageshack.us/img690/2...artduallan.jpg
I am not going to bore you all to death by going down the list of features that can be read at the product page. Rather I want to move on to focus on a couple of really cool innovations that Gigabyte have included.
The first is the most noticeable and obvious. The heat-sinks are very distinctive and add to the aesthetics of the board.
http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/1592/p67aud7.jpg
But as I stated in the beginning looks are just not enough do the bits and pieces do the work they are required to do and do they perform those tasks well. In short yes they do. Steven aka sin0822 did a really nice in-depth look at the performance of the heat-sinks and his conclusion was a whole hearted thumbs up. LINK
The second thing is not so noticeable and most people will not even notice the work that is being done. And that is how it should be. I am talking about the power delivery system on the motherboard to the different components that make up the whole system.
The voltage regulation needed for overclocking is the single most important factor when pushing your system to the max. And that is the reason so many overclocker will modify their graphic cards and other equipment to create as clean a power source to the components. Gigabyte have done this for us.
http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/7318/featuresoc.png
Quoting from Steven again
I would strongly recommend the serious technical aficionado among us to go read his article in full.
I had wanted to post some stuff about how the board performs, basically I ran a couple of benchmarks and wanted to share some of those details and enthuse about outstanding performance :D but I will have to wait until the Intel 2nd Generation Core CPU's are retail before I am allowed to post.
The reason is that initial testing was done with ES (engineering samples) processors but I have been asked not to post that data by the friend who lent me the ES CPU due to possible differences in the ES sample and full retail versions performance data. And I fully agree. I personally find that it is better to have information about new products with full retail components which are not cheery picked but rather exactly like those anybody can purchase in any store.
In closing. I want to say one thing, this is not a review. This is my personal take on the board as a end user. For want of a better term I call it an unpacking. After all it was meant to be a Christmas present.
So to close this part of the unpacking of my new board I just want to say that having spent six very pleasant days with the motherboard I can tell you that the motherboard has performed flawlessly and has a rather remarkable mature BIOS for a new chip-set. The results I have obtained while testing I will of course have to confirm and retest with the retail CPU that I have bought from OCUK, just as many of you have, and it should be here with me tomorrow as I was just to late for my order to be shipped yesterday. But barring any strange hiccups I suspect the results will be very similar. And the combination of this top of the range motherboard and the 2600-K outstanding.
Since I am not allowed to share my own results here are some from a friend who has a retail CPU and this board too.
http://valid.canardpc.com/cache/screenshot/1571989.png
I am so impressed with both the CPU and the motherboard. Especially the motherboard, overclocking was a dream. The build quality is better than anything I have had and it is obvious that a lot of thought and money went into component selection. This is a board that will replace my current rig as both my 24/7 system and more importantly as my benching rig. I shall not mention the vendor whose product I was using before but you can safely assume that it will be Gigabyte with this chipset, and this board.
If you want the latest BIOS you can go to the download section of the offical Gigabyte web sight or you can have a look here.
Here is one last result from a good mate from Romania. Monstru
http://img255.imageshack.us/img255/9564/cpuzb.png
CPU-Z 1.56.2 Beta for SandyBridge CPU's
Over the weekend I put aside some time to run a few benchmarks with my new board.
Last weekend I got to unpack it and play for the first time with SB. LINK
CPU 2600-K
Motherboard Gigabyte P67A-UD7
Ram Geil 2 x 2GB 2133MHz
CPU Cooling - Water
Swiftec XT CPU Block
120.2 Rad
655 Laing Var Pump
Graphics Cards all stock cooling.
BIOS F7a
vCore 1.520
Vtt - 1.08
Pll 1.76
All the rest on auto.
3DMarkVantage - Physix Disabled.
30573
http://img835.imageshack.us/img835/7...ntage30573.png
3DMark06 run with 2133MHz on the ram.
36491
http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/6340/36491.png
3DMark05
47865
http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/9306/3dmark0547865.png
3DMark03
115290
http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/9...rk03115290.png
3DMark2001
Serious Old School Benching, but still my favorite benchmark to do. The amount of tweaking you can do is never ending.:D
AMD HD5870
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/8...id510377th.png
GeForce 285GTX
http://img829.imageshack.us/img829/8...id510742th.png
Will be benching the 580GTX and this benchmark in the next week or so. Hoping to improve on my personal best.
WPrime 1024 ver1.55
http://hwbot.org/signature.img?iid=5...se&iehack=.jpg
Super PI 32mil
http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/9...id511133th.png
Wrap up - this motherboard and CPU combination is a real winner for me. Ram has been a issue for some folks with their board but touch wood I have no had a single issue. And I have used three different kinds of ram, during the weekend I ran a few benchmarks at 2133 MHz with the Geil sticks. Booted into 5.288 with the Gskill 2 x 4GH sticks at 1866 Cas 8 and of course with the ever reliable Corsairs I can pretty much boot into 2000MHz with cas 7 if I wanted. Each and every time the board just booted into OS without any stress at all.
I just wish that my CPU would allow me to go further than 53x or 5.288GHz but it will not.... yet. :D The fact that the CPU is Vantage stable, 32Mil Pi rock solid and Wprime1024 solid must indicate that there is more headroom for higher frequencies with this CPU.
Thanks for looking. :)
