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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IanCutress - Thursday, January 20, 2011 - link
Edited; simple copy/paste error. Glad you liked the review, we should have some H67 on the way next.Ian
Shadowmaster625 - Thursday, January 20, 2011 - link
May as well go down to detroit and buy a big fat rock. I would like to see you guys put together two $600 systems. One based on these outrageous $200 motherboards and a $200 cpu, and $200 for everything else. And put that up against a $70 motherboard and $200 cpu and put the extra $130 into a video card. Who in their right mind would choose this new crap? Dont even talk about encoding because encoding is something you start and then walk away. You dont need to be there to watch it encode so it dont matter how long it takes. (For 95% of users. Dont play these 5 percent mindgames.)vol7ron - Thursday, January 20, 2011 - link
I never walk away from my boxmarc1000 - Friday, January 21, 2011 - link
this is off-topic, but i think you should walk away from your box a little more. =DHrel - Thursday, January 20, 2011 - link
I agree anything over 150 for a motherboard is stupid. But these new Sandy Bridge CPU's are great! It's called progress, and when you do a lot of encoding speed does matter even if you do walk away and/or use another computer in the mean time. Not to mention how intensive encoding full 1080p content is, what about 3D and in the future 4K HD and 8K HD. It's called progress and it's a good thing!Shadowmaster625 - Monday, January 24, 2011 - link
If you do a LOT of encoding, then you will have 2, 3, or 4 machines stacked up next to each other. And those machines would have Athlon X4's and cost $200 apiece to build. Only a fool spends $200, $300, or more, on a cpu just to encode something a little bit faster. You can get much better overall throughput using cheap AMD processors from the last generation. That fact holds true whether you encode one hour a week of video, or 1000. Intel is simply hoping that people are dumber than they may or may not really be.Fatchap - Friday, January 21, 2011 - link
I used to type the command to load up a game or an application, press play on the tape player and walk away. I guess you still do the same as you would not want any of this new crap.Shadowmaster625 - Monday, January 24, 2011 - link
You are quite delusional and propagandized if you think comparing a 2600K to something like a Q6600 or X2-250 is like going from "tape players" whatever you might use now. If you want a proper comparison, try VHS vs SuperVHS. Remember that? Oh yes, you must go out and spend $300 on that shiny new super-vhs player. All your old tapes will still look the same. But that's ok because anything new you record will look pretty good. (Of course if you ever stopped and thought about it, back in the day things always looked pretty good when you first recorded them. It's not until you tried playing it back in a different vcr that it started looking bad.)When someone can build a $500 gaming system that runs faster than something with a previous generation cpu and motherboard for less money then I might begin to be interested. But when you have to go with half the stream processors just to pay for a bunch of new crap that doesnt even get you anything, it makes no sense. These chips are supposed to result in cheaper motherboards. More integration, lesss complexity, bla bla bla. Well I dont see it. I just see a money grab.
seamusmc - Friday, January 21, 2011 - link
Shadow, some of us are still a generation or two behind. We'll definitely see more then a 5 percent boost. Personally I've been waiting for this 'perfect storm' of price and performance for quite some time, though I may wait for the 22nm refresh.Sure if you have an X58 platform with a 950 it probably doesn't make sense to upgrade, certainly not for gaming. Though many of the folks that frequent this site are enthusiasts and just want to play with the new hardware regardless of cost.
seamusmc - Friday, January 21, 2011 - link
Shadow, just realized the 5 percent gain you were talking about may have been between a $70 P67 board and $200 P67 board.I'd agree on that front. Though the more expensive boards do come with more features, USB hubs, and some better quality components.