Gigabyte P67A-UD7 Motherboard Review

Test Setup and Overclocking
Test Setup
[HR][/HR]Our test system very rarely changes, and there is reasoning behind this. The reason that our test system rarely changes is so that we can keep the continuity flowing which leads to our results being part of a fair test, especially when comparing to other components.

Our test machine comprises of:

Gigabyte P67A-UD7
Intel i5 2500k
4GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1600MHz
Cooler Master Hyper TX3
AMD Radeon HD 6850
Thermaltake ToughPower Cable Management 1200W
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Overclocking
[HR][/HR]This was one of our first times of really pushing the new Intel 1155 socket to the extreme, and from the results we gathered, it seems that this board can really push this processor to the limits.

The first thing we noticed was how easy the P67 platform is to overclock compared to the X58, 1156 and AM3 platforms, and with some very simple tweaks of the multiplier and a slight increase in voltage, we were able to get 5GHz with ease as seen below:

We did perform some comparisons of chucking the CPU in another couple of boards to see how it faired. Whilst we were able to get the same clock speed, the voltages varied a bit and we found a few more increases of the Vcore were needed to get it stable whilst the UD7 performed at a lower voltage range.

With the UD7, we could have pumped some more volts through, and with some consumers throwing 1.7V at these chips, we weren’t keen on keeping it like that for a 24/7 system.

The board carries on using the M.I.T BIOS system that Gigabyte have implemented and it was a real pleasure being able to get so much extra performance from using so little effort.