During the IDF 2010, Gigabyte showcased one of their upcoming motherboard for the Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors, which will be launched next year. The GA-P67A-UD7 is based on the forthcoming Intel 6 series chipset and supports the new LGA 1155 socket (socket that will be used by Sandy Bridge processors). This board has lots of features, including four PCI Express x16 slots (supporting 3-way SLI and 3-way CrossFireX), two PCI Express x8 slots, one PCI Express x1 slot, four DDR3 sockets, eight SATA-600 ports (six controlled by the chipset and two controlled by a Marvel 88SE9128 chip), two eSATA ports, two Gigabit Ethernet ports (Realtek RTL8111 chips), 10 USB 2.0 ports, four USB 3.0 ports (two NEC μPD720200 chips), two Firewire ports (Texas Instrument TSB43AB23 chip), coaxial and optical SPDIF outputs, and independent eight-channel analog audio jacks (Realtek ALC889 codec; eight channels, 24-bit resolution, up to 192 KHz sampling rate for both the inputs and outputs, 104 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the inputs, and 108 dB signal-to-noise ratio for the outputs). This motherboard also uses a Pericon PI7C9X PCI Express bridge in order to allow it to achieve high performance when all devices are used at the same time.

Its overall look is amazing, with a black PCB. The chipset and voltage regulator circuit are cooled by individual heatsinks connected by a heatpipe. The voltage regulator circuit has 24 phases divided in two groups of 12 phases. Every time you turn on your computer one of these two groups is used. If your system requires more power, phases from the other group will be used.

The GA-P67A-UD7 also has only solid caps, power/reset/clear CMOS buttons onboard, iPod/iPhone charger, POST diagnostics display, and 2 oz. copper PCB power layers. According to Gigabyte the GA-P67A-UD7 will reach the market by the time Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors are released.

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