GIGABYTE GA-P67A-UD7 LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Pros: Very stable.
Tons of inputs/outputs.
Pwr, reset, and cmos buttons on board.

Cons: If you're going with two video cards the first two PCI 16 lanes are very close together.

Pros: True dual 16x slots. If only running two cards can build a better system than an X-58 setup. The only difference is dual instead of triple channel. To offset this just buy 2133 RAM and set it at 2133. All X58 boards I have ever had the only way to get faster than 1600 Mhz is to overclock the BCLK.

Running 4.8 right now on air with Zalman Max. Temps are in the high 70's compared to my other 2600K on water. At 4.8 only running in high 50's to low 60's. Will be putting this under water soon.

Cons: No UEFI BIOS. Why they would not go to market without one is beyond me.

Turning Turbo USB3 on steals 8 PCIE lanes.

No clear CMOS switch on back of motherboard.

Intel LAN would have been nice.

Blue SATA cables? C'mon, I they probably have a boatload of blue cables, but don't ship them with a gold and black board.

Sometimes hard to get into BIOS with my B/T keyboard.

Other Thoughts: This is my first Gigabyte board. I just wish a certain competitor would finally release their P67 boards.

Pros: Bios is amazing. (and I know because I've been intimate with about 40 different bios' through the years)
beautiful lit power button on board.
USB 3.0 headers on mobo, HD audio.
udated bios with no problems from website, downloaded utility, downloaded file, saved, flashed.. all in windows!
Feels solid! very nice heft and weight, you feel like you got your moneys worth in copper!
fan headers everywhere!
quiet, what else can I say.. I would do it again in a heartbeat! I was thinking asus sabertooth, but I made a better decision :)

Cons: SATA ports end up behind long graphics cards.
8 prong power a bit far away from PSU if your mounting PSU on bottom of case.

Other Thoughts: No floppy header.
I bought ram that was not on the certified list 8 gig patriot viper extreme DDR 3 2000 (2x 4 gig) and they work fine in board at 1866. -as of yet there isnt a 2000 setting for me to try.

Pros: Very solid, very plush, very polished enthusiast level board for the worlds current flagship processor line. 24 phase cpu power design but let me to you, there are high quality ferrite vrms all over this motherboard well in excess of 24. I wanted a motherboard that could overclock the 2600k to high freqs without the speedstep method everyone else has been doing. This delivered. I get a constant 4.72 ghz on this motherboard, throttling settings disabled. As has happened many times in the past I am hoping bios upgrades will help me to squeeze a few ounces more out of this gear. This is the heaviest board I have ever held. It really feels solid and plush. A look that is as much as a showpiece as well as something that is ready to make you faint with performance.

Cons: Bios is a little glitchy and immature, but rock solid and gets the job done efficiently enough as is where it does not effect any of it's capabilities. I do not use easy tune. I am a manual overclocker. I have heard negative reviews on the software as well. Bios is of the old style which is no con for me but others may be after the new gui based bios interfaces with mouse functionality. They are pretty amusing but I am by no means envious owning such a gorgeous piece such as this one.

Other Thoughts: Rock solid product in a gorgeous layout. Brought it to work with me with the 2600k mounted in it the day I got it and everybody kept stopping in to have a look in the office. It's functional as well as beautiful. Running my bclock at 105 gives me 1680 mhz ddr3 and 4.72 ghz solid and constant. Temps never reach 50c on the pcb. Prime95 it all day long. The speedstep method may be perfect for other users and I have used this function with this board as well. Let me tell you it works fabulous as well. Completely effortless overclock if that's what you are after or you can squeeze more out of it too. Perfect for both. I'm a tweeker and still have most of the sense of perfecting as I did with prior platforms, though still a bit simplified altogether. Great work on this motherboard Gigabyte, thank you. Over the past 8 years this is one of many gigabyte purchases I have made and my 3rd gigabyte motherboard and I am pleased to say I am as pleased as ever.

Pros: Only board out at the time (1-28-10) that allows for x16 x16 SLI or CrossFire (Best part is you can use either one lol). I'm actually quite concerned that other vendors did not adopt x16, x16 configuration when designing the next gen Intel board. Seriously who wants to drop dual 6970's or 580's etc. into x16/x8 or even worse x8/x8. Also this board is reported to over clock beyond anything else out there. I cant think or find a better board to drop a Core i7 2600k into and go full on overclock.

The color scheme is well thought up and will fit into any LED scheme since its black with gold trim and silver accents. This board is BEAST!

If you want to get the most out of your GPU's and want core i7 Sandy Bridge now and not late spring, then buying this board at the premium price is a no brainer!

From what I've read (and yes I've been researching non-stop since a tax return was burning a hole in my bank acct. for3 weeks) this beast of a board is worth every penny for now.

Cons: Price: At 330+ dollars, I'm surprised it doesn't have the ominous Extreme, Black, or (place obligatory actiony adj. here) in the boards name. I would usualy only buy from ASUS but they dropped the ball on there Maximus IV design for the Sandy bridge i7's.

Monopoly: This is the only board in town that has x16/x16 for SLI or Crossfire at this time and you can bet if you putting in over 500-1000 dollars of GPU into a new build you will have no other logical choice but to get this board or wait till some other vendors light bulb turns on to x16/x16 PCIe slots.

Other Thoughts: You want a new enthusiast build? Well your search ends here.

2011 PC Build:
CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz
CPU Cooler: XSPC Rasa 750 RS240 Universal CPU Water Cooling Kit
RAM: 8gb (4x2gb Sticks) Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) w/ Blue LEDs
Video Card: 2x Asus 6970 Cards (890MHz Clock and 2x 2gb's of V. Ram) Crossfired
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-P67A-UD7
PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-950TX 950W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC
Computer Case: Cooler Master Storm Sniper BE
Hard Drives:
OS Drive: OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD3-2VTX120G 3.5" 120GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Games Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black WD6402AAEX 640GB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
Media Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black WD1501FASS 1.5TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional 70SB088600002 7.1 Channels

Pros: Only board out at the time (1-28-10) that allows for x16 x16 SLI or CrossFire (Best part is you can use either one lol). I'm actually quite concerned that other vendors did not adopt x16, x16 configuration when designing the next gen Intel board. Seriously who wants to drop dual 6970's or 580's etc. into x16/x8 or even worse x8/x8. Also this board is reported to over clock beyond anything else out there. I cant think or find a better board to drop a Core i7 2600k into and go full on overclock.

The color scheme is well thought up and will fit into any LED scheme since its black with gold trim and silver accents. This board is BEAST!

If you want to get the most out of your GPU's and want core i7 Sandy Bridge now and not late spring, then buying this board at the premium price is a no brainer!

From what I've read (and yes I've been researching non-stop since a tax return was burning a hole in my bank acct. for3 weeks) this beast of a board is worth every penny for now.

Cons: Price: At 330+ dollars, I'm surprised it doesn't have the ominous Extreme, Black, or (place obligatory actiony adj. here) in the boards name. I would usualy only buy from ASUS but they dropped the ball on there Maximus IV design for the Sandy bridge i7's.

Monopoly: This is the only board in town that has x16/x16 for SLI or Crossfire at this time and you can bet if you putting in over 500-1000 dollars of GPU into a new build you will have no other logical choice but to get this board or wait till some other vendors light bulb turns on to x16/x16 PCIe slots.

Other Thoughts: You want a new enthusiast build? Well your search ends here.

2011 PC Build:
CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz
CPU Cooler: XSPC Rasa 750 RS240 Universal CPU Water Cooling Kit
RAM: 8gb (4x2gb Sticks) Crucial Ballistix Tracer DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) w/ Blue LEDs
Video Card: 2x Asus 6970 Cards (890MHz Clock and 2x 2gb's of V. Ram) Crossfired
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-P67A-UD7
PSU: CORSAIR CMPSU-950TX 950W ATX12V 2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC
Computer Case: Cooler Master Storm Sniper BE
Hard Drives:
OS Drive: OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD3-2VTX120G 3.5" 120GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
Games Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black WD6402AAEX 640GB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
Media Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black WD1501FASS 1.5TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional 70SB088600002 7.1 Channels

Pros: 2 PCI-e card slots, Color of the motherboard, Quality build. Put it together (RAID for performance), and it works beautifully--no issues at all. Great build quality.

Cons: None. The PCI-e x16 slots are offset from one another, but it may be a tight fit with two cards though I think it would work. My system employs one card (ASUS 5850). Then again, it is the only board that I've seen with two x16 slots.

Other Thoughts: System (used for photography and video):
Windows Professional 64 bit (Adobe Flash has not yet released a "true" version of flash for this. Can use browser that runs at 32 bit for video or risk the "trial" download)
Sandy Bridge 2600K CPU (supplied heatsink and fan is a joke)
Corsair 750tx Power Supply
CoolerMaster Heatsink and Fan
NZXT Phantom case (wonderfully quiet)
16gb Kingston Ram
ASUS 5850 graphics card (wonderfully quiet)
Two WD Caviar drives (RAID perf.setup)

Pros: Rock Solid Board. Good USB 3.0 Connections, Low Heat and excellent USB 6.0 connections. Thank You New egg for a smooth transaction and fast shipment.

Cons: None.

Other Thoughts: I love this cpu Sandy Bridge. It is way better than the I7 950 Runs cooler.

Pros: Nice MB, no issues so far, build quality is great some of the best I have seen and that comes from all brands including Gigabytes cheaper boards.... No issues at all, so far! Plugged all parts in and booted first time.

Cons: Price, but get what you pay for....

Pros: * Great color & design. Nice work Gigabyte!
* Lots of USB 3.0 ports.
* SATA3 (6 GB/s).
* Natively supports 3TB drives.
* Nice layout. Everything is thoughtfully located.
* Overclocks easily through BIOS.

Cons: * For some reason, I can't get the eSATA ports to register as AHCI. My eSATA drives show up as IDE, and I've checked to make sure that all of the settings are correct in BIOS. Not a big deal; I'm hoping that the next release of the drivers will correct this.
* It comes with Realtek LAN, but it's not a big deal. I wish that it had the Intel LAN like the ASUS boards.

Other Thoughts: * Runs perfectly with the Intel i7-2600K CPU.