Gigabyte's GA-P67A-UD4-B3 motherboard uses a 12-phase
power VRM design built around 'Driver MOSFETs' which combine the functions of a
driver, high MOSFET and low MOSFET into one small power-efficient board mounted
component. This integrated circuit improves power efficiency, reduces heat and
has a smaller footprint than previous circuit designs.
Final Thoughts: Intel P67 vs Z68 Battle Royal
Gigabyte's
GA-P67A-UD4-B3 motherboard holds up well in the benchmarks and achieves results
on par with other Intel P67 and Intel Z68 boards. Feature wise, the Gigabyte
GA-P67A-UD4-B3 is well equipped for a mainstream PC system and competitively
priced.
Frankly speaking, the Intel P67 offers the same core features as the newer Intel Z68 chipset, minus a
few things of debatable usefulness to enthusiasts (ie. onboard graphics, Intel
SRT and Intel QuickSync). A board like the Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD4-B3 would be a
fantastic deal... particularly if you're never going to use any of those things
we just rattled off... if only it were just a few
dollars less expensive than an equally outfitted Intel Z68 motherboard such as this. It's not. At $155CDN (Canada Computers) it's a bit tricky
deciding between this platform or an almost identical Z68 board - so
PCSTATS is going to have to sit on the fence on this one.
As it
stands the Gigabyte's GA-P67A-UD4-B3 is a good motherboard for a dual-videocard
gaming system because it offers two-way SLI/Crossfire support, plenty of USB
3.0/2.0 and enough SATA II/III to satisfy most users. If you're never going
to use the IGP-CPU in your Sandybridge processor, an Intel P67 board will get
you in the game for less money without any performance hit relative to Z68
platforms.
If you're hell bent on sticking with mechanical SATA
hard drives, the Intel Z68 platform and a little thing called Intel Smart
Response Technology tips the scales heavily in its favour.
Bottom line, let the benchmark results serve as a
reminder that newer model numbers don't always mean better performance figures.
Features are easy to add, but raw performance is what a computer draws on every
day of the week. While the Intel P67 chipset has been recalled, re-issued in a
b3-stepping and out-modeled by the Intel Z68, it offers exactly the same
benchmark performance to SSD-installed operating
systems. In short, if you can find it cheap, snap it up and lock a couple
graphics cards into the Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD4-B3 motherboard!
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