Futurelooks is on the ground in San Francisco for this year’s Intel Developers Forums (IDF). We’ve quickly started snooping and have gotten a sneak peek at GIGABYTE’s next generation P67A motherboard supporting Intel’s fast approaching “Sandy Bridge” processor. Like the previous generation P55A motherboards, the P67A offers a few new features and enhancements that are set to beat the competition right off the starting line. They are dubbed the GA-P67A-UD5 and GA-P67A-UD7 motherboards.
GIGABYTE’s very own Technical Marketing Manager, Mr. Colin Brix takes us through an overview of the new hotness…
As you can see, GIGABYTE is quite excited about what these new boards bring to the table. It’s definitely a big change for GIGABYTE as they begin moving away from their signature “Baby Blue Crew” color scheme. It’s like the neon LEGO colored motherboard era never happened.
GIGABYTE GA-P67A-UD7
The GA-P67A-UD7 motherboard which we call “Black Gold” is the first to offer a much improved jet black gold accented heat pipe cooling solution. These are secured by tension screws to increase contact pressure as pressure is important for maintaining proper contact. This sexy yet functional cooling solution keeps the dual powered 24-Phase PWM and chipset in thermal check. This semi-removable solution could offer enthusiasts more aftermarket DangerDen and Koolance water cooling possibilities in the future.
The UD7 also offers four SATA 3.0 ports utilizing dual NEC controllers and receives some additional trace circuit power enhancements. Users also get full nVidia SLI and Crossfire support right out of the box thanks to the addition of nVidia’s NF200 controller!
GIGABYTE GA-P67A-UD5
Offering a more budget minded solution with still impressive performance, the GA-P67A-UD5 which we’ve nicknamed “Black Wind” is also dressed in jet black PCB and a solid back heat pipe cooling. This platform still offers aggressive Phase PWM support needed for overclocking and stability. The Intel P67A chipset offers built in SATA 3 connectivity this time so no aftermarket solution is required. The model shown here is still undergoing some changes such as an upgrade to the polished black LOTES LGA1155 socket to better match the color scheme.
The platform also supports nVidia SLI and CrossFire graphics but seems to be without the NF200 chip so you won’t be able to do more than dual SLI. Still a great looking board for mainstream gamers and overclockers. We’ll definitely keep an eye on this one for a review in the near future as this should be the bang for the buck board of choice in GIGABYTE’s line up.
Both platforms are expected to offer enthusiasts better performance and aggressive overclocking abilities especially as you move up to the UD7 level. However, we’ve seen GIGABYTE’s more budget minded platforms impress overclockers and enthusiasts alike due to their overclocking experience pedigree. Either way, the “Black Gold” and “Black Wind” will be ready on schedule to herald the launch of Intel’s new LGA1155 “Sandy Bridge” processors arriving very soon.
Check back later for more coverage from IDF 2010. We’ve got some impressive video of the new processor in action against the original Core i7 (Nehalem) generation that reveals a little bit of what we can expect in the very near future from INTEL. High resolution glory of these exciting new GIGABYTE boards are in the gallery on the next page.
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