GIGABYTE SHOWED OFF a couple of P67 boards back at IDF in September . Now the company has released details of three more LGA-1155 boards, although this time it’s more mid-range boards, despite the feature set being better than your average mid-range motherboard. Many of the details remain unannounced – perhaps due to Intel NDA’s we presume – but most of the good bits are there to keep us excited until Intel decides it’s time to deliver.
The pictures and details are courtesy of TeamAU which is an Australian overclocking site. All in all, we’re looking at three unannounced models, the P67A-UD3R, the P67A-UD3 and the H67MA-UD2H. As the model names suggests, two of the boards are based on the P67 chipset, or should be, but more on that later, and one is based on the H67 chipset. In other words, we’re looking at two boards without an integrated graphics support and one with.
Let’s start with the H67MA-UD2H, which is a mATX board. Gigabyte stuck with its traditional blue and white color scheme on this model, but the board is equipped with the new heat sinks seen on the previous two P67 boards. The board has one x16 PCI Express slot, one x4 PCI Express slot – although it’s a full length slot so you can use two graphics cards, two x1 PCI Express slots, three SATA 3Gbps, two SATA 6Gbps ports, pin headers for 10 additional USB 2.0 ports – of which two are Gigabyte’s special On/Off Charge ports, and a header for a serial port and front audio. It appears to have a 10 phase PWM design, and it supports Gigabyte’s DES technology.
Around the back things are crowded to say the least. Here you’ll find four USB 2.0 ports, a PS/2 port, an eSATA port, two USB 3.0 ports, Gigabit Ethernet, 7.1-channel audio with optical S/PDIF out, and of course, a full set of display connectivity options including DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI and D-sub.
Next, we have the P67A-UD3 which is another blue PCB board with the same new heat sink design. We were a bit perplexed about the specifications here, as the board has a single x16 PCI Express slot and a single x4 PCI Express slot according to the specifications, but the second slot looks like an x8 slot electrically unless some of the lanes aren’t connected. This is confusing as we expected the P67 chipset to support dual x8 implementations. The board also has three PCI Express x1 slots, and two PCI slots, which are courtesy of an ITE PCI Express to PCI bridge.
Around the back there are no less than eight USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, PS/2 connectors, a Gigabit Ethernet port, 7.1-channel analogue audio jacks, as well as both optical and coaxial S/PDIF out. There are two headers for an additional four USB 2.0 ports of which two supports On/Off Charge. The board also has four SATA 3Gbps and two SATA 6Gbps ports, as well as a header for a serial port. The PWM design on this board appears to be of a six phase design.
Finally, we have the P67A-UD3R which is using the new black PCB as seen on the boards from IDF. Again, the spec states that this board has a single x16 PCI Express slot, and an x4 PCI Express slot. In this case, it really appears to be an x4 slot as there aren’t enough connectors inside the slot for it to offer more than four lanes of connectivity. The board has three x1 PCI Express slots, and a pair of PCI slots courtesy of an ITE bridge chip.
The rear port layout is identical to the P67A-UD3 and we’re looking at the exact same amount of SATA ports as well. The P67A-UD3R does have an additional USB 2.0 header though there’s a space on the PCB for a second USB 3.0 host controller. That’s meant to work via a connector for front USB 3.0 ports, but neither the chip nor the connector is present. The PWM design has been upgraded to a 10 phase design.
We’re really perplexed about the second x4 slot PCI Express slot, although hopefully it’ll all become clear closer to launch. All three boards are CrossFireX certified, but we wouldn’t expect the best possible performance here if the final boards will in fact only have a 16+4 setup when you run two cards. This also suggests that the secondary slot is connected to the chipset, rather than to the CPU. In that case, it will further reduce the performance by a degree when two graphics cards are being used. However, for those that intend to use the board with only one graphics card and an x4 PCI Express card, this should offer a performance advantage over having to run the board in a dual x8 configuration. S|A
Lars-Göran Nilsson
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