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Counting Down to 2011 - Sandy Bridge Motherboards Preview

By Vincent Chang - 15 Nov 2010

Gigabyte P67A-UD3R

Gigabyte P67A-UD3R

While the ASUS and ECS P67 boards we received for this preview appear to be targeting the higher end market segment, Gigabyte has sent us a more mainstream version. By virtue of its UD3R designation, you should know that it comes with less of the extras. Yet, the first thing you'll notice about it is its matte black PCB. Gigabyte has gone all mysterious and dark on us with its new boards and even 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.

Finally, there's just the single Gigabit LAN and the usual Realtek ALC892 HD 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.

Black and matte. Opinions will vary over Gigabyte's new-look PCB but in the end, performance is all that matters, right?

A big missing feature at the rear panel is the absence of a Clear CMOS switch. Optical and coaxial S/PDIF are included however, along with eight USB 2.0 ports and two USB 3.0 (blue). However, there's no eSATA feature.

Of these six SATA ports, the two on the left run a risk of interfering with a long graphics card on the secondary slot. However, given the mainstream nature (and the x4 bandwidth in CrossFireX mode), we doubt that users would be getting this board for multi GPU reasons.

Even the DIMM slots are all in black - nice for aesthetics, but not great practically since you can't make out which slot corresponds to which channel at a quick glance.

The front panel connectors and the clear CMOS pins which you need to short when you want to reset your BIOS to its default state. Notice the empty solder points and silk-screening which dictate the same board layout is shared with its higher-end counterparts.

Plenty of PCIe x1 slots but since they share bandwidth with the second PCIe x16, CrossFireX is not really recommended.

There aren't that many onboard controllers as more premium boards. Here you can notice there's the usual audio CODEC chip, Ethernet and USB 3.0 controllers.

The heatsink is relatively small and basic, without heat-pipes, as befitting its mainstream nature.

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 to us is the seemingly lack of new or updated Gigabyte technologies on the UD3R. Is that a sign of things to come for its high-end enthusiast models too? We'll find out in due time.

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