The Battle of the P67 Boards - ASUS vs. Gigabyte at $190
by Ian Cutress on January 20, 2011 4:15 PM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Gigabyte
- Asus
- P67
Final Words
Both the ASUS P8P67 Pro and Gigabyte P67A-UD4 motherboards offer a lot to consumers. For $190, we want a product that hits all the basic functionality of Sandy Bridge, and squeezes out as features and as much performance as possible at this price point.
For the ASUS board, we have a nice looking product with significant strengths in the implementation of their UEFI, and the auto overclockable functions available. The UEFI EZ mode/basic starting screen is something many manufacturers will copy over the upcoming months and UEFI visions. The auto-tuner section of Ai Suite will see use in all markets, aiding various retailers in offering ready-overclocked Sandy Bridge bundles with the P8P67 Pro. Intel gigabit Ethernet is nothing to be sniffed at, and the fan controls can only help improve the user experience. Also, bundle in that three-year warranty. On the downside, the BT GO! and Turbo Remote overclocking features via Bluetooth did not work for me.
The Gigabyte board performs on par with the ASUS board in terms of benchmarking – in most situations, there is almost nothing in it (except USB, where Gigabyte have the advantage there). The board is UEFI GUI absent (for now, supposedly), but thanks to BIOS updates, now supports 2.2TB+ hard drives. Overclocking via the BIOS is straightforward if you have ever overclocked before, and the myriad of software available in the OS will keep you hunting for options, trying to remember which setting is in which piece of software. The warranty, like the ASUS, is also three years. However, the BIOS updating issues I had are certainly worthy of note.
After playing with both boards, I can only come to one conclusion – if it were my money, I would take the ASUS P8P67 Pro over the Gigabyte P67A-UD4. With the ASUS board, you are getting a detailed UEFI, an awesome auto-overclocking tool, better energy saving features, a USB 3.0 bracket , more SATA 6 Gb/s ports, Intel gigabit Ethernet, and in my case, scope for a better overclock. The Gigabyte board is essentially expensive for what is on offer, in terms of usability, features, and extras.
However, the second question is: ‘what about the comparison to the ASRock P67 Extreme4’? The ASRock board has power/reset buttons on the board, a Debug LED, that USB 3.0 bracket which will hold an SSD (worth in my option about $15), and is almost $40 cheaper. The ASUS board is the slightly better performing, overclocking is easier on the ASUS, the ASUS has a longer warranty, the UEFI is slightly better on the ASUS, the ASUS uses Intel Ethernet rather than Realtek, but the ASRock will take socket 775 coolers. It is up to you to judge, but in my opinion, I would take the Extreme4, pocket the $40 difference, and invest it in something else for a PC build.
This then leads into the following question – ‘if I’d rather take a $150 board rather than a $190 board, why are there $300 boards available?’ That question is to be tackled over the coming months!
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Hogan773 - Friday, January 21, 2011 - link
No - its 42 dollars more for the Extreme 6 vs Extreme 4.If it were 10 bucks like you said, I'd get the 6. But not for 40 bucks.
cjs150 - Friday, January 21, 2011 - link
to full fat ATX boards anymore?With all the features being crammed in surely 99% of all users were find their needs met with a decent micro-atx board - heck probably 60%+ would be fine with a mini-ITX board.
Seriously do we really need 3 graphics card slots, 2 way SLI/Crossfire is overkill for the vast majority of people.
As on board sound gets better and better most people have given up on a sound card.
The most slots I have populated over the last 5 years is 5 (2 graphics cards, sound card, TV tuner and RAID card) and that was truly the exception. These days all I need is 3 cards for 2 way SLI and a TV tuner
strikeback03 - Friday, January 21, 2011 - link
Would also help if PCI disappeared so there was no question over what slots were included/available with certain cards. For example, the uATX board in my HTPC has 1 PCIe X1, 1 PCIe X16, and 2 PCI, which meant I had to get a PCI wireless card and if I wanted to add any additional tuners would have to get PCI for that as well, would have preferred more/all PCIe.Also, the spot in my desk for a tower isn't getting any smaller, no reason to not use a full-size ATX board with that much space.
7Enigma - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
Yup. I have the space for a mid/full tower below my desk. It does no good for me to have a m-atx (actually it'd make it worse since it would be lower for the optical drive!). I also hate playing the cram game when trying to build and work on systems that are in such tight confines.Sure for people with very limited space or HT setups it's nice to have a smaller form factor, but a LOT (the majority?) of desktop users have a similar setup where space is rarely a real issue and the extra real-estate for cable management, component selection/replacement, and airflow/noise is a much greater factor.
seamusmc - Friday, January 21, 2011 - link
Gigabyte's and ASUS' offerings at the $150 price point. The main difference between ASUS' Pro and Non-Pro are SLI support and the Intel Nic.Personally I'd love to see a review of cheaper boards. Would it significantly reduce price if they didn't include on-board audio?
The main reason I'm considering the Pro is the Intel Nic, though I'm not sure if its really a big deal.
Another reason I am considering ASUS is that Gary Key and his staff are on the Xtreme and HardOCP forums addressing issues folks are encountering, providing OC guides and updated BIOS not available from the official site.
Not saying that there are no issues with the ASUS line, there are, but it seems many problems with the ASUS line are corrected by a) Using 1.5v memory; b) Fresh install of Win7; c) Over-clocking correctly, some folks are trying things that don't apply to SandyBridge.
Arbie - Friday, January 21, 2011 - link
We are six pages into the discussion with no signs of an idiotic flame war! This must be a recent record for Anandtech. Whatever the reason, it's certainly refreshing.7Enigma - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
Trolls are still sleeping. And since it's not the normal FW companies (Intel vs. AMD, Nvidia vs. ATI).jfelano - Friday, January 21, 2011 - link
I don't understand the point of testing just TWO boards at a $190 price point. Makes no sense.DanNeely - Friday, January 21, 2011 - link
Maybe only Asus and Gigabyte gave $190 boards to review...LoneWolf15 - Friday, January 21, 2011 - link
While this may not be worth it to many, note that the ASUS board has an Intel gig NIC, and the Asrock has a Realtek.This also means (for what it's worth) that the ASUS board supports Intel VPro, while the Asrock does not. For many people, that isn't a factor --but it is worth knowing.
Just looked at that Asrock board --I think it's the first I've seen by them that I found really impressive on paper. I might have to read some reviews on it.