Review Gigabyte P67A-UD4

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Gigabyte P67A-UD4

Today is the turn of the mid-range P67 board from Gigabyte. There is one thing that we directly notice, the PCB color: black.
Gigabyte has been used for the past years to it’s blue PCB, but for this P67 boards some changes have been introduced and all the P67 boards will painted in black. This includes the different models as UD3R, UD3P, UD4, UD5 and UD7. The other models based on P67 or H67 will keep their blue PCB color.

The bundle

In this bundle, Gigabyte provides just the minimum features:

  • Four SATA cables
  • One back plate
  • One SLI bridge
  • The User manual
  • A DVD with all the drivers and tools/apps that could be needed

Spécifications

Processor
  1. Support for Intel® Core™ i7 processors/Intel® Core™ i5 processors/ Intel® Core™ i3 processors/Intel® Pentium® processors/Intel® Celeron® processors in the LGA1155 package (Go to GIGABYTE’s website for the latest CPU support list.)
  2. L3 cache varies with CPU
Chipset
  1. Intel® P67 Express Chipset
Memory
  1. 4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 32 GB of system memory
    * Due to Windows 32-bit operating system limitation, when more than 4 GB of physical memory is installed, the actual memory size displayed will be less than 4 GB.
  2. Dual channel memory architecture
  3. Support for DDR3 2133/1866/1600/1333/1066 MHz memory modules
  4. Support for non-ECC memory modules
  5. Support for Extreme Memory Profile (XMP) memory modules

(Go to GIGABYTE’s website for the latest supported memory speeds and memory modules.)
Audio
  1. Realtek ALC892 codec
  2. High Definition Audio
  3. 2/4/5.1/7.1-channel
  4. Support for Dolby® Home Theater
  5. Support for S/PDIF Out
Network
  1. 1 x Realtek RTL8111E chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)
Extension bridges
  1. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16)
    * For optimum performance, if only one PCI Express graphics card is to be installed, be sure to install it in the PCIEX16 slot.
  2. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8) * The PCIEX8 slot shares bandwidth with the PCIEX16 slot. When the PCIEX8 slot is populated, the PCIEX16 slot will operate at up to x8 mode.
  3. 3 x PCI Express x1 slots
    (All PCI Express slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)
  4. 2 x PCI slots
Multi-GPU technologies
  1. Support for ATI CrossFireX™/NVIDIA SLI technology
    * The PCIEX16 slot operates at up to x8 mode when ATI CrossFireX™ is enabled.
Storage Interface Chipset:

  1. 2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3_0, SATA3_1) supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices
  2. 4 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (SATA2_2, SATA2_3, SATA2_4, SATA2_5) supporting up to 4 SATA 3Gb/s devices
  3. Support for SATA RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 5, and RAID 10
    * When a RAID set is built across the SATA 6Gb/s and SATA 3Gb/s channels, the system performance of the RAID set may vary depending on the devices being connected.

Marvell 88SE9128 chip:

  1. 2 x eSATA 6Gb/s connectors on the back panel supporting up to 2 SATA 6Gb/s devices
  2. Support for SATA RAID 0 and RAID 1
USB Chipset:

  1. Up to 14 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (8 on the back panel, 6 via the USB brackets connected to the internal USB headers)

2 x Renesas D720200 chips:

  1. Up to 4 USB 3.0/2.0 ports (2 on the back panel, 2 via the USB brackets connected to the internal USB headers)
I/O Connectors
  1. 1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector
  2. 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector
  3. 2 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors
  4. 4 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors
  5. 1 x CPU fan header
  6. 2 x system fan headers
  7. 1 x power fan header
  8. 1 x front panel header
  9. 1 x front panel audio header
  10. 1 x S/PDIF Out header
  11. 3 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers
  12. 1 x USB 3.0/2.0 header
  13. 1 x serial port header
  14. 1 x clearing CMOS jumper
Back plate Connectors
  1. 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
  2. 1 x coaxial S/PDIF Out connector
  3. 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector
  4. 8 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
  5. 2 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports
  6. 2 x eSATA 6Gb/s ports
  7. 1 x RJ-45 port
  8. 6 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out/Rear Speaker Out/ Side Speaker Out/Line In/Line Out/Microphone)
I/O Controller
  1. iTE IT8728 chip
Hardware Monitoring
  1. System voltage detection
  2. CPU/System temperature detection
  3. CPU/System/Power fan speed detection
  4. CPU overheating warning
  5. CPU/System/Power fan fail warning
  6. CPU/System fan speed control
    *Whether the CPU/system fan speed control function is supported will depend on the CPU/system cooler you install.
BIOS
  1. 2 x 32 Mbit flash
  2. Use of licensed AWARD BIOS
  3. Support for DualBIOS™
  4. PnP 1.0a, DMI 2.0, SM BIOS 2.4, ACPI 1.0b
Exclusive features
  1. Support for @BIOS
  2. Support for Q-Flash
  3. Support for Xpress BIOS Rescue
  4. Support for Download Center
  5. Support for Xpress Install
  6. Support for Xpress Recovery2
  7. Support for EasyTune
    * Available functions in EasyTune may differ by motherboard model.
  8. Support for Dynamic Energy Saver™ 2
  9. Support for Smart 6™
  10. Support for Auto Green
  11. Support for eXtreme Hard Drive (X.H.D)
  12. Support for ON/OFF Charge
  13. Support for Cloud OC
  14. Support for Q-Share
Bundled Software
  1. Norton Internet Security (OEM version)
Operating systems
  1. Support for Microsoft® Windows® 7/Vista/XP
Dimensions
  1. ATX Form Factor; 30.5cm x 24.4cm
Notes
  1. Due to different Linux support condition provided by chipset vendors, please download Linux driver from chipset vendors’ website or 3rd party website.
  2. Most hardware/software vendors no longer offer support for Win9X/ME/2000/XP SP1/SP2. If drivers are available from the vendors, we will update them on the GIGABYTE website.

The board in details

For the power supply of this P67A-UD4, we have one 8pin 12V plug and the usual ATX 24pins one. et l’habituelle fiche ATX 24pins.

The 1155 socket for the Sandy Bridge core CPUs. The mounting holes are the same as for the 1156, so no need to invest into a new cooling system for your CPU.

The GIGABYTE P67A-UD4 supports till 32Gb of DDR3 at a speed of 1066MHz to 2133MHz.

This P671-UD4 has six SATA ports but only two of them can be used under a speed of 6Gb/s and the four others at the traditional 3Gb/s speed. The two white ones are the SATA3 ports and the black ones SATA2.

This card is equipped with two PCI-E 2.0 16x slots ( single @x16, dual @x8 ), three PCI-E 1x slots and two PCI slots.

The back panel presents the following I/Os:

  • 1 x PS/2 keyboard/mouse port
  • 1 x coaxial S/PDIF Out connector
  • 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector
  • 8 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
  • 2 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports
  • 2 x eSATA 6Gb/s ports
  • 1 x RJ-45 port
  • 6 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out/Rear Speaker Out/ Side Speaker Out/Line In/Line Out/Microphone)

The USB 3.0 is managed by the NEC chip as on the other manufacturers boards. You can recognize these two ports by the their blue line under each port.

The cooling system of this P67A-UD4 is composed of three main radiators. Two are around the CPU and are linked together through heat-pipe, and the third one is dedicated independently to the chipset cooling.

We regret the absence of a LED display and also the absence of ON/OFF button on board. We also would have like to have more than 3 3pins connectors for fans on board. Nowadays, most of the casings and cooling systems require a total of a minimum of 4 fan plugs, 3 is definitely not enough.
Besides of these little details, this motherboard is very nicely finished and offers good stability and hardware quality. You will find-out more on this board in our upcoming cross P67 boards review.
Stay tuned!

Thanks to GIGABYTE France for this sample.

 

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