[Best Bang for the Bucks]GIGABYTE P67A-UD3R + Intel Core i7-2600K - 5GHz++ inside

[Benny Lodewijk]

After testing GIGABYTE flagship P67 chipset based motherboard here, this time i'm testing the entry level model, GA-P67A-UD3R.



Main features from P67A-UD3R are :

• 8 Phase Analog PWM with driver MOSFET
• 4 DIMMs DDR3 up to 32 GB
• 2* PCI-E slot x16 (x16, x4) only support CrossfireX mode
• 2* SATA 6Gb/s + 4 SATA 3Gb/s supporting RAID 0,1,5,10
• 4* USB 3.0 + 14* USB 2.0
• 8 channel HD Audio and 1* GbE LAN

Testing Platform
Processor Intel Core i7-2600K Retail L041B204
Motherboard GIGABYTE GA-P67A-UD3R F7A and F7B BIOS
Galaxy GeForce GTX 470 1280 MB
Memory GSkill F3-17600CL7D-4GBPIS running @ DDR3-2133
Kingston SSD Now! V Series 64 GB
PSU Antec TPQ 1200W
Noctua NH-D14 + 2x Fan 3000 rpm
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit

Something i must explain before you guys see all the screenshot, CPU-Z can't detect the actual vcore properly (i'm using CPU-Z 1.56.2 and 1.56.1), the only way to see actual vcore is measure directly using DMM or using Easy Tune6.

You can see the screenshot below, notice that i set LLC = ENABLE.

Vcore idle = 1.512



Vcore full load = 1.488






OK, let's see how it will perform in air cooling overclocking


5.0 GHz Result













5.2 GHz Result













5.3 GHz Result

















5.4 GHz Result














5.5 GHz Result













Validation 5.5 GHz : http://valid.canardpc.com/show_oc.php?id=1604822




My conclusion using this P67A-UD3R

• Performing well in OC with cheaper price compare to UD7 and UD4
• Vdroop quite big, hopefully it can be fixed soon
• Easy to run DDR-2133 with high CPU clock
• BIOS corrupted issue using F7A BIOS when OC, has been fixed by F7B BIOS.
• No pin burn or broken after pushing the CPU to the limit :p

[OC Nub]

Great results!

[GAR]

Nice results, but i would run prime95 small fft's in windows 7 64 bit before i would call it stable.

[stasio]

Benny ,nice results.
Can you upload F7b,thanks.

[Benny Lodewijk]

Benny ,nice results.
Can you upload F7b,thanks.

Here you go http://www.mediafire.com/?a9wfq15f5qx51n1

[OC Maximus]

Good stuff!! Nice work!!!

OCM

[stasio]

Here you go http://www.mediafire.com/?a9wfq15f5qx51n1

Thanks a lot,Benny!
Btw,
try latest AIDA64 and HWiNFO32 for CPU voltage.

[Benny Lodewijk]

Thanks a lot,Benny!
Btw,
try latest AIDA64 and HWiNFO32 for CPU voltage.

Thanks! Confirmed vcore now readable via latest aida64 version

[Sam_oslo]

UDR3 seams to be a really good and cheap option for 24/7.

With these unlocked chips, you don't need too push the MB anymore. The 8 Phase PWM seams to holding for a good 24/7 OC too.
With these monster GPUs, you won't need SLI either. I'm wondering why people are paying for 2-3x more expensive MBs.

[Sam_oslo]

[COLOR="Black"]After testing GIGABYTE flagship P67 chipset based motherboard here, this time i'm testing the entry level model, GA-P67A-UD3R.

I see you have tested P67A-UD7 too, so I'm wondering if you have used the same CPU, RAM etc ..?

You seams to be getting the exact same OC on both. In any case, have you seen any big-impact of MB on 24/7 OC, or other important stuff?

[Johnny87au]

I see you have tested P67A-UD7 too, so I'm wondering if you have used the same CPU, RAM etc ..?

You seams to be getting the exact same OC on both. In any case, have you seen any big-impact of MB on 24/7 OC, or other important stuff?

Seems like he is, Dont get me wrong its a nice cheap combo but im afraid its more a luck of a draw on what chip you get then what motherboard.. not like X58 which i dont like, pretty much all the p67 boards can hit 5ghz+

[PolRoger]

Good job with the UD3R! Other than the vdroop issue you mentioned it seems to be quite capable. I've heard that reaching some of the higher multi is actually chip dependent but what ~ vcore was needed to boot with x55?

[1Day]

Nice review Benny as always.

Did you notice anything strange with the voltages to the ram. AIDA64 was reading my ram voltages really high? But with the multimeter they were the same as Easytune6?

[Sam_oslo]

Seems like he is, Dont get me wrong its a nice cheap combo but im afraid its more a luck of a draw on what chip you get then what motherboard.. not like X58 which i dont like, pretty much all the p67 boards can hit 5ghz+

Yeah, the OC-headroom is dependent on CPU-batch#, but that depends on your hunting-skills, not luck, LOL.

MBs doesn't seam to play a big role with these unlocked chips, but they may still have some impact because of different BIOS, power-delivery and cooling. The 8 Phase PWM on UD3 seams to holding for a good 24/7 OC, so I was wondering if he had seen any important differences between UD7 and UD3.

[Charloz24]

I don't have the UD3R but the UD3, and seems like they have all the same problem: Vdroop like mad! (how about 1.45V idle to 1.368V load) And yes LLC is ON, Vcore to normal and Dvid to +0.125V. Hope new bios will fix that because it surely limits my overclocking!

[Biffa]

P67A-UD3 is the worst for vdroop with LLC on. Having same problem here. 1.4v in bios and 1.32v under load



Its stable but thats 1.4v for 4.4Ghz

Using bios F6c

[stasio]

CPUID is outdated,look at post #7

[aussie-revhead]

Benny - I found another cpu from this same batch, what would be the chances of mine clocking as well as yours?

[Drako12]

i have an UD3 too and im having the same problems with vdrop..

i was running 4.7 on 1.42v yesterday but crashed after 20 min blend prime, i think it will be stable around 1.43 or 1.44. But temps are not looking good on full load, first core is almost hitting 70C and other ones are almost at 80..

anyone got any tips for this board? i already have LLC on but i didnt test much (got the chip 2 days ago) but it seemed more stable with LLC off on higher voltages.

[aussie-revhead]

To follow up - no my chip of this same batch was maxed at 53x 1.6v and seemed to score best at 5100 ......

[dnottis]

I'm enjoying the ASROCK P67 Pro3 I got for $123 from Newegg. Does 5.0Ghz easy and I'm still using my Dtek Fuzion 775 with backplate. Not having to buy a new water block makes this board the best bang for my buck!

[dinos22]

i just fired up the P67A-UD3R with F7a bios, 1.28v set in bios and with wprime it goes to 1.272, superpi stays at 1.28

thats really good. What sort of droop are you guys seeing with UD3R???



just bumped the volts in ET6 to 1.4 and i get 1.404 idle and 1.392v load in wprime with 8 threads, im confused what the issue is here

[dinos22]

here's a video i made to show droop is ok on this P67A-UD3R

in testing up to 1.55v with wprime ive seen droop go down by up to 0.024v which is pretty good, lower volts say 1.4 it would only droop 0.01v which is great. I didnt see any crazy droop some others mentioned. Im thinking the droop may not be enabled in some of the setups mentioned they droop more

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9Ziq8ESPfQ&hd=1

the board overclocks pretty nice, its responsive, seems to clock ram nice (havent done much testing with this CPU in terms of ram clocks in the past to compare). I can boot into windows with these settings 1123Mhz ram, not too bad .

[Harshal]

As usual Benny uncle rulzzz