With the P67A-UD4 Gigabyte presents its cheapest P67 motherboard that features the new matte black design. In the past the UD4 used to be a good choice for people who were looking for a Gigabyte board with a reasonable price/performance ratio. 
The P67A-UD4 defines the entry-level product into Gigabytes P67-Chipset Series. We're really curious what they've done from the layout and design perspective.
| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 4 - Connectors and I/O |
| Page 2 - Specifications / Delivery | Page 5 - Conclusion |
| Page 3 - Layout |
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Spezifikationen / Lieferumfang
| CPU | Intel Socket 1155 Core i7, Core i5, Core i3 |
| Chipset | Intel P67 |
| Memory | Dual Channel DDR3, 4 x DIMM, Max. 32 GB DDR3, 2133/1866/1600/1333/1066 Non-ECC,Un-buffered |
| Multi-GPU |
2-/3-way ATI CrossFireX 2-/3-way NVIDIA SLI |
| Slots | 1 x PCI-Express x16 running at x16 1 x PCI-Express x16 running at x8 3 x PCI-Express x1 2 x PCI |
| Sound | Realtek ALC892, 7.1-Channel HD Audio Codec, Dolby Home Theater certified, S/PDIF Out |
| Storage | 2 x SATA 6.0 Gb/s (RAID 0, 1, 5, 10) 4 x SATA 3.0 Gb/s (RAID 0, 1, 5, 10, JBOD) 2 x eSATA 6 Gb/s |
| I/O internal / Connectors | 1 x CPU fan header 2 x System fan headers 1 x power fan header 1 x Front Panel header 1 x Front Panel Audio header 1 x S/PDIF Out header 3 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers 1 x USB 3.0/2.0 headers 1 x Clear-CMOS Jumper |
| I/O external | 1 x PS/2 Keyboard/Mouse 1 x optical S/PDIF Out 1 x coaxial S/PDIF Our 8 x USB 2.0/1.1 2 x USB 3.0/2.0 2 x eSATA/USB combo 1 x RJ-45 6 x Audio Jacks |
| Forfactor | ATX (30.5cm x 24.4cm) |
| BIOS | Bios (2 x 32 Mb flash ROM, Award BIOS) |
- Manual
- 1 x ATX I/O bezel
- 8 x SATA cable
- 1 x External connector bracket
- 1 x SLI Bridge
- 1 x CrossFire Bridge
- 1 x Driver CD, Antivirus software, ASUS Update, ASUS Utilities
- Stickers
Regarding the delivery you'll find everything you need. Next to a CrossFire bridge you can even find a SLI bridge which allows a 3-way SLI setup.
Features
| Dynamic Energy Saver | Utilizing Gigabytes Dynamic Energy Saver the board is able to enhance the systems overall power efficiency. Therefore it is able to regulate power consumption of CPU, memory, chipset, graphics card, hard drive as well as connected fans. Of course all this will happen automatically. |
| On/Off-Charge | With On/Off Charge Gigabyte has a Feature onboard which allows users to recharge for example their iPhon, iPod or iPad via USB without starting it up. Furthermore the devices can draw more power from these special USB ports than from standard ones. |
| 24 Phase Power Design | Gigabyte equips its high-end motherboards with their 24 phase power design. It is made of high quality components which guarantee a long lifespan, hight stability and good overclockability. |
| Cloud OC | Cloud OC should allow easy overclocking via an external device that can access the web. The program lets an overclocker access the different settings via a website. |
| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 4 - Connectors and I/O |
| Page 2 - Specifications / Delivery | Page 5 - Conclusion |
| Page 3 - Layout |
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Layout
With the P67A-UD4 - as well as with its bigger brother the P67A-UD7 - Gigabyte finally got the courage to change the design of their boards completely. Therefore the Taiwanese motherboard manufacturer now uses a black PCB as well as black expansion slots. If you look at the heatpipe you see that the UD4 features anthracite bodies with blue anondized elements. Finally there are also some white spots which aren't distracting at all. We've been very positively surprised of Gigabyte presenting such a beautiful motherboard. Generally the layout leaves a well structured impression. The PCI-Express x16 slots for example have been positioned perfectly. There is plenty of space between the slots but dual or even triple slot graphics cards won't block the connectors at the bottom edge.
The P67A-UD4 comes with a 12 phase power design which guarantees stable current supply and good overclockability. Furthermore the 12 phase VRM design is equipped with high quality polymer capacitors which have a life expectancy of 50'000 hours on average, low RDS(on) MOSFETs for lower temperatures and high quality inductors made of ferrite.
Totally you'll find four DIMM-slots on the P67A-UD4. Officially supported are DDR3-2133/1866/1600/1333/1066 with up to 32 GByte capacity. The DIMM-slots are quite close to the CPU socket which might cause some compatibility problems with big coolers especially when you choose to install RAM with big heatspreaders.
The Southbridge has been equipped with a passive cooling block and the the current converters are being held at adequate temperatures via a passive heatpipe cooling solution. The fact that the cooling blocks around the CPU socket aren't too big makes it comfortable to install a big aircooler. We also noticed the very high manufacturing quality of the cooling blocks.
| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 4 - Connectors and I/O |
| Page 2 - Specifications / Delivery | Page 5 - Conclusion |
| Page 3 - Layout |
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Anschlüsse und I/O
Totally Gigabyte provided the P67A-UD4 with six angled SATA ports which should be enough for any office PC or gaming system. On this board you won't find practical onboard power- and reset-buttons. Gigabyte also didn't provide the P67A-UD4 with a debug display which would come in very handy if you should once have issues with one of the components in your system. It is quite common that the last PCI-Express x16 slot is also the expansion slot the closest to the bottom edge of the board. That has the consequence that the connectors at this place aren't accessible anymore. With the UD4 Gigabyte took this into account and placed the last PCI-Express x16 slot as the third last expnsion slot and therefore there wont be any complications. One could even install a triple-slot graphics card.
Totally you'll find four fan headers on the Gigabyte P67A-UD4 which is enough to provide a well equipped midrange or even a high-end-system with fresh air. The fanheaders are located around the CPU and their also spread over the whole board which makes them easily accessible from any position in an enclosure.
Looking at the external connectors directly at the back-panel Gigabyte provided the P67A-UD4 with a PS2 mouse/keyboard connector, eight USB 2.0 ports, two eSATA ports, one gigabit ethernet port, a SPDIF and coaxial optical out as well as an analogue audio panel.
| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 4 - Connectors and I/O |
| Page 2 - Specifications / Delivery | Page 5 - Conclusion |
| Page 3 - Layout |
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Fazit
| General | + | - | |
| In our opinion the P67A-UD4 is a very good looking board. The design as well as the layout are definitely good. One thing we very much like is, that when you put a graphics card into the second PCI-Express x16 slot the connectors at the bottom edge of the board won't be covered. Unfortunately there are no practical power and reset buttons on this board. There is also no clear-CMOS button, all you can find is an old-school clear-CMOS jumper. | - Design - Layout |
- No onboard Power/Reset/CLR-CMOS buttons | |
| Layout | + | - | |
|
Generally the Gigabyte P67A-UD4s layout is very well thought. Once more very practical are the angled SATA connectors. Furthermore the placement of the PCI-Express x16 slots is well thought too and therefore nothing needs to be criticized at this point. We already mentioned that we'd like to see power and reset buttons on this board. Looking at the boards price and the market segment it's aiming for it is understandable why there is no debug led but this would also have been a nice addition. |
- Angled SATA connectors - Connectors a the bottom edge accessible in any case |
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| Page 1 - Introduction | Page 4 - Connectors and I/O |
| Page 2 - Specifications / Delivery | Page 5 - Conclusion |
| Page 3 - Layout |
Discuss this article in the forums
Author: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch