Intel P67 Roundup - The Mainstream Invasion

Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD3R

Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD3R

From the UD3R designation, it's obvious to us that this Gigabyte board falls right smack in the center of its P67 motherboard lineup, making it the standard mid-range model. However, the first thing that everyone will notice and talk about, is its matte black PCB. Indeed, Gigabyte has gone all mysterious and dark on us with its new boards and the mainstream UD3R gets the same treatment.

It's something you either love or hate and although it has been done before, we don't believe it has been executed on such a scale. We have to say it does give the PCB a totally different impression with a more premium look and feel. As for the motherboard features, it doesn't seem to have changed much from the previous generation.

The usual Gigabyte technologies, like Dynamic Energy Saver, Ultra Durable 3 and DualBIOS are clearly labeled on the PCB. We didn't see any unfamiliar, new ones so we are assuming that it's the same set as the previous generation. Even the version numbers appear to be unchanged. Besides these proprietary ones, the hardware is also mainstream in nature. 

You'll find six SATA ports, the same four SATA 3Gbps and two SATA 6Gbps from the Intel P67 chipset. No extras like we said. The only addition is a NEC USB 3.0 controller for two USB 3.0 ports, which are found at the rear panel. The UD3R is only certified for ATI CrossFireX judging from the logos and the manual.  You can install up to two graphics cards into the two PCIe 2.0 x16 slot, but the second PCIe x16 slot actually runs at x4 and shares bandwidth with the PCIe x1 slots. So if you happen to install a PCIe x1 card, the second PCIe x16 degrades from x4 to x1. This makes it no different from the ASUS P8P67 and inferior to ECS' implementation for CrossFireX.

Finally, there's just the single Gigabit LAN and the usual Realtek ALC892 HD audio CODEC. No onboard switches of any kind and even clearing the CMOS is done by shorting a pair of pins. As we said, this is a mainstream class board so don't expect the full dose of premium features.

The Gigabyte P67A-UD3R is indeed a mainstream board. We didn't agree with the layout of the SATA ports, but it should have little effect on users in real life given that it's unlikely that users will consider CrossFireX on this board.

Of more concern is Gigabyte's decision not to go with a 'modern' graphical implementation of the EFI BIOS like most of its competitors. On a visual level, you'll find the usual Gigabyte BIOS, identical to the previous generation. So from a user point of view, it seems nothing has been changed other than updating the BIOS to support 3TB hard drives, although Gigabyte says that it is using an EFI BIOS without a new GUI. In fact, Gigabyte has come out openly to explain how exactly their 'Hybrid EFI' technology works. 

Given our familiarity with Gigabyte's BIOS, we had no issues with it, but the lack of a new EFI BIOS interface with all its eye candy possibilities, does give the impression that Gigabyte is not keeping up the times. Hopefully, we'll see something new with Gigabyte later this year, and not just a matte PCB makeover.

The budget enthusiasts however, should have no qualms as they should feel right at home and get to tweaking immediately. When speaking about possible EFI interface enhancements with the Gigabyte product managers, they mentioned those will definitely come to pass, but until they get the right mix of visual elements with speedy response, they will stick to the traditional interface for the time being.