If you’re looking at upgrading to an i7- based system, but find that the average motherboard is too expensive, then the UD4P may be worth considering. Indeed, it is by no means a cheap motherboard, but is definitely more affordable than the UD5P
or the EXTREME, which can cost anything up to R6,000.<\/p>\n
The UD4P is based on the X58 chipset (as the name suggests), and is essentially an EX58-EXTREME – but with a few differences (making the motherboard more affordable without sacrificing too much in terms of features). This is particularly important because in terms of performance, the motherboards are exactly the same. So, if you want performance and not the extra bells and whistles that GIGABYTE includes with its products, then the UD4P makes even more sense.<\/p>\n
It features the same blue-and-white colour scheme as the EXTREME, but not the elaborate (and no doubt costly) cooling system, which will not be missed by many people who are not into extreme overclocking or who don’t particularly like the unusually large cooler on the EXTREME. The UD4P features a cooling system very similar to the one on the EP45-UD3P.<\/p>\n
The UD4P, as stated previously, performs exactly the same as the EXTREME. If you are pushing for overclocking records and HWBOT points, you may want to consider the EXTREME, but the difference between the UD4P and the EXTREME is likely to be irrelevant to most people. The motherboard supports eight SATA 3Gb\/sec drives instead of ten, and has no POST LED. Other than that, however, the board is an exact replica of the EXTREME.<\/p>\n
It supports three-way SLI, CrossFireX and has the same ALC889A audio-controller chip, which supports Dolby Digital surround sound. This means that for much cheaper you are able to reach almost the same levels of performance on the UD4P as you
would on the EX58-EXTREME (in terms of frequency).<\/p>\n
Using an Intel 940 CPU, we were able to run a stable 200MHz BCLK (Bus Clock) for a 4GHz overclock, but anything past 200MHz proved to be unstable. Interestingly enough, the EX58-EXTREME was able to reach a maximum stable speed of 215MHz. This difference could come down to different BIOS revisions and not the actual motherboard quality. When we swapped the 940 for a 920, the UD4P proved to be a better motherboard, as it ran stable at 4GHz (eight threads) – which the EXTREME could not. This, we
suspect, is a BIOS-related issue, but it’s still excellent for the UD4P (given that it is supposed to be the less capable board).<\/p>\n
One aspect of the motherboard that we did not particularly like is the small Southbridge heat sink, which retained massive amounts of heat – it was even worse when running CrossFire and SLI. It was never hot enough to make the system unstable, but we can’t help but think that a better Southbridge may have helped us reach the same 215MHz BCLK that we had managed on the EXTREME.<\/p>\n
Overall, the UD4P is a solid motherboard that cannot really be faulted on anything. Right now, it’s still early days for the LGA1366 platform, and we don’t doubt that overclocking will improve on most X58 boards as the CPU revisions improve as well. As it stands, however, if you are looking for an affordable way to upgrade to the i7 platform without paying a fortune, the UD4P is likely the board for you.<\/p>\n
It is not the cheapest; but then again, it is based on one of the best X58 boards on the market.<\/p>\n
Specs<\/strong><\/p>\n Chipset: Intel X5+ICH10<\/p>\n Memory Bankc: 6xDDR3 184-pin (Max. 6x 2GB)<\/p>\n CPU Support: Intel Core i7, i7 Extreme<\/p>\n Slots: 3x PCI-E 16x, PCI-E 4x, 2 x PCI 2.2<\/p>\n Score<\/strong> 5\/5<\/p>\n Price <\/strong>R4388.00 at Zaps <\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n