Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD7 Final Design Candidate Pictured

[btarunr]

Gigabyte's top of the line socket LGA-1156 motherboard, GA-P55A-UD7 just got a face-lift before release to the market. The GA-P55A-UD7 was pictured in its production form as early as in November, 2009. The retail model has notable changes from the production version. To begin with, GA-P55A series motherboard are characterized with SATA 6 Gb/s and USB 3.0 support. The new GA-P55A-UD7 has four PCI-Express 2.0 x16 slots instead of three on the production one. The four slots are connected to an NVIDIA nForce 200 PCI-E bridge chip, which is connected to the processor. The two x16 links from this chip can be split into four x8 links for each slot. A PLX-made bridge chip provides additional PCI-Express 2.0 lanes (probably connected to the P55 PCH), to drive the USB 3.0 and SATA 6 Gb/s controllers.

The area south of the CPU socket (typically where you expect a northbridge to be located in older generation motherboards), has the nForce 200 and PLX bridge chips. This is cooled by a fusion heatsink which can be connected to a water-cooling loop. It can also offload heat from the CPU VRM and PCH heatsinks. Of the ten internal SATA ports, six are 3 Gb/s ports provided by the P55 PCH, two 3 Gb/s ports from a Gigabyte GSATA2 controller (which also gives out an IDE connector), and two 6 Gb/s ports from a Marvell-made controller. Other features include two color-coded blue USB 3.0 ports, several USB 2.0 ports, Firewire, two gigabit Ethernet interfaces, and 8-channel HD Audio with optical and coaxial SPDIF outputs.

[SK-1]

two x16 links ...its a nice

[kylzer]

Why.....would you go for this board.

[[I.R.A]_FBi]

id rather go 1366 i7 ....

[Kitkat]

THE FANTASTIC 7 lol (the logo looks silly)

[Paulieg]

If this board is even nearly as good as my UD6, it will be awesome. Clocks well and is incredibly stable.

[PP Mguire]

Originally Posted by kylzer

Why.....would you go for this board.

Why not? Its currently the top in features right now even over the Classy p55 because of 4 pci-e slots, dual 16x Crossfire or SLI, SATA3/USB3, more SATA ports you can shake a stick at, fusion water block (NF200 gets hot), and it dosent look as ugly as most other Giga boards.

Most people, like me for example, already shelled out for an i5 cpu and dont want to, nor could be bothered by, an i7 920. Or simply, like me, got an i5 in a nice combo deal. Unless eVGA counters this with a better Classy i bet this will remain the top board for a while.

On the flip side im sad to see this board dosent have 6 ram slots like its smaller brother the UD6.

Any idea on price and availability?

[sneekypeet]

Any ideas on a release date for this?
*EDIT* sorry PP didnt see it at the bottom of your post

To all those who doubt why to get this, I will gladly give my GF the UD6 and set this UD7 in my rig 16 X 16 with 280's versus my 8 X 8. Upgrades to the SATA and USB, and I may even add that NB into the loop I had planned for my CPU on the UD6

My question is why not? Especially if you are already committed to the P55 boards.


@PP I wonder if I would be able to run my 2400mhz with the loss of the "highspeed" white slots of my UD6. Im sure we will see a review or two soon enough.

[PP Mguire]

Reviews are already being done so id say this board isnt to far from release.

Those white slots are high speed? I thought they where there just to run moar ramz

[arnoo1]

id rather go 1366 i7 ....

why??

i5 has an tdp of 95 watt that's batter dan 120+ from i7 your temps would be lower and your system will be quiet, and it does have good performans, also overclocking is really good

i would go for core I5 with 3way sli fermi

[SK-1]

Originally Posted by Kitkat

THE FANTASTIC 7 lol (the logo looks silly)

If thats silly, this is ....fugly

[Hunt3r]

Really liked the number seven .. was well highlighted in the motherboard

[sneekypeet]

Originally Posted by PP Mguire

Reviews are already being done so id say this board isnt to far from release.

Those white slots are high speed? I thought they where there just to run moar ramz

the white slots can only be used with 2 stix in dual channel, if you use 4 they went in the blue, all 6 can't be used at once

@ SK1 lmmfao Im replacing an Asus with a similarly fugly heatsink on meh LE, but mine is even more plain than that

[Hunt3r]

slot or use the blue and whites to have dual channel

[sneekypeet]

Originally Posted by Hunt3r

slot or use the blue and whites to have dual channel

It isnt so much where to put them to function, the UD6 holds one of the highest ram clocks on a P55. I'm just wondering if I will be able to get to 2400Mhz on the UD7 with its lack of "high speed" slots

[Hunt3r]

Originally Posted by sneekypeet

It isnt so much where to put them to function, the UD6 holds one of the highest ram clocks on a P55. I'm just wondering if I will be able to get to 2400Mhz on the UD7 with its lack of "high speed" slots

Surely you will reach the 2400Mhz .. This card has a face to be very strong overclocking

[PP Mguire]

Originally Posted by sneekypeet

the white slots can only be used with 2 stix in dual channel, if you use 4 they went in the blue, all 6 can't be used at once

@ SK1 lmmfao Im replacing an Asus with a similarly fugly heatsink on meh LE, but mine is even more plain than that

Well im glad i know that. I almost bought that board for the 6 slots going for more ram.

[sneekypeet]

I figured it might run six, but after I got it, I found it wont even run dual channel in the blues.

I amazed at what this UD6 can do with a set of Tridents, I really hope there isnt a loss for some new options. I dropped a line in another forum to ask their GB guys if they knew anything that we should know

[Cold Storm]

Originally Posted by sneekypeet

I figured it might run six, but after I got it, I found it wont even run dual channel in the blues.

I amazed at what this UD6 can do with a set of Tridents, I really hope there isnt a loss for some new options. I dropped a line in another forum to ask their GB guys if they knew anything that we should know

You just got lucky with the tridents


It does look to be a great board, hell, with the set up like that.. I might be a GB boy!

[theonedub]

I think they could've done a little better job placing those x16 slots.

[sneekypeet]

I agree they are a bit close, but Im only gonna need 2 of em I just hope its slot 1 and 3 or even 2 and 4 that run 16X. Gotta wait till I see answers to that and the ram, and I'll be sold I'm thinking.

[PP Mguire]

Judging by the way the clips look id say 2 and 4 which isnt bad at all.

[Kitkat]

Originally Posted by SK-1

If thats silly, this is ....fugly
http://img.techpowerup.org/100125/Capture141.jpg

DEAL! lol the rest of the board looks ok just the 7 is overkill doesn't match

[kylzer]

Originally Posted by PP Mguire

Why not? Its currently the top in features right now even over the Classy p55 because of 4 pci-e slots, dual 16x Crossfire or SLI, SATA3/USB3, more SATA ports you can shake a stick at, fusion water block (NF200 gets hot), and it dosent look as ugly as most other Giga boards.

Most people, like me for example, already shelled out for an i5 cpu and dont want to, nor could be bothered by, an i7 920. Or simply, like me, got an i5 in a nice combo deal. Unless eVGA counters this with a better Classy i bet this will remain the top board for a while.

On the flip side im sad to see this board dosent have 6 ram slots like its smaller brother the UD6.

Any idea on price and availability?

good points

Rather get a UD7 X58 though and i can imagine around the same price.

[PP Mguire]

Except the 920 will cost you more new. In my case i dont need HT, wanted a cooler cpu, and i already had DDR3 dual channel that was 1.65v rated. Buy mobo and cpu and done deal

Not only that but triple channel cost your more when you get around the 2000mhz range.