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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GeorgeH - Thursday, January 20, 2011 - link
On the temperature and power graphs, you might want to differentiate the colors a bit more. Right now it looks like OCCT/Idle are using the exact same shade of purple, and Metro/Video are using the exact same shade of red. Common sense tells me which is which, but it just looks bad.Overall it was a great review; the only thing I'd change would be to put Gigabyte's "BIOS Classic" implementation into the pros column, but I'm weird like that.
Peanutsrevenge - Thursday, January 20, 2011 - link
I have the HTC Hero aswell running Cyanogenmod ROM for 2.2 and the BT Turbo Remote software is showing in my market (version 1.0.9) if you wanna recheck it Ian and update the article.Interesting that you had such trouble with the Gigabyte board, I went off Asus a few years ago due to several glitches, bugs and DOAs and switched to speccing / recommending Gigabyte for friends and customers.
Hope this is a one off for them rather than the end of a faultless era!
sweetspot - Thursday, January 20, 2011 - link
Why do MOBO test sites all fail to add sound quality test to the benchmarks ?? Most folks spending over 150.00 for a mobo and playing games and entertainment, would like nice quality sound as well.Cant spend 190 bucks without asking the sound question, nobody would by a board without the over all picture, not just A wins B in a frames bench test.
Is sound onboard good or not ? do we lose xfire / SLI if we go with add on sound card option . Nobody would buy a mobo without asking that simple question as well, and why does every single review site 99% of the time skip a simple sound quality mention on boards they test ??
No mention of sound quality in a mobo review is just pitifull, cant be that hard to tell someone if it even works or not, alot of boards onboard sound is broken on release, all the review sites always fail to skip that test, so it never gets seen when they give nice review so people go out and buy busted parts.
A simple basic sound paragraph mention as to yes sound in games / videos / chatting were clean and x # of channels responded correctly. Or sound worked but the mic and mic boost options were broken, so dont buy if you online chat which alot of poeple do? How do you skip such a important detail ??
All this was, is a comparison of 190 bucks worth or silence!!
kepstin - Friday, January 21, 2011 - link
If you really care about sound quality, you're probably going to end up using a digital audio output; either co-ax/optical on the motherboard, or via HDMI. At that point it doesn't matter which sound card you have, because you're not using the onboard DAC at all.Rick83 - Friday, January 21, 2011 - link
The quality of the clock generator still matters, though.sweetspot - Friday, January 21, 2011 - link
Not true as the question poised clearly states,Most would think a mobo review would include some sort of sound testing as well as just frames, But no sound quality test or mentions in review of 2 different boards comparison, So review of which is faster but no other quality reasons of the boards are compared aka sound ?? why ??
The cost of extra sound card makes huge difference in product purchases, and not reviewing the key pieces is not helpfull at all in my opinion.
Most readers rely on review sites as they have access to parts a normal user does not get alot of computer parts every day to test with.
This review is a A is faster then B review vs a review like A is better quality / price over all then B review which it seems was intended to be ??
strikeback03 - Friday, January 21, 2011 - link
Both are using the Realtek ALC892, so theoretically should be very similar. I'd agree a "it works" should probably be mentioned, but other than that substantial sound quality testing can be extremely subjective.Hrel - Thursday, January 20, 2011 - link
Are there reviews of the new 15.6" notebooks based on Sandy Bridge with the GT540M and GTX460M coming? You know the ones, from Clevo and Compal with 1080p screens? I've seen them at a couple different places including a very good deal on the GTX460 Clevo from Cyberpower.com. Please please please at least let me know if these reviews are in the pipeline or not.Hrel - Thursday, January 20, 2011 - link
So why is it that as more and more of the load gets put on the CPU, the northbridge, memory controller, GPU, these motherboards are getting more expensive? Seriously? It doesn't make any sense.Is this why Intel is SOOO far behind supporting USB 3.0 and more than 2 measly SATA 6GBPS ports? LGA 775 I had no issue at all getting a very nice board that OC's well and is still running perfectly and while originally supported P4 was updated in the BIOS to support the latest quad core Penryn's on 45nm and it STILL runs like a dream. LGA 1156 I had to just up to the 100-130 range and depending on who I was building for would go up nearing 150.
But now simple things like SLI require a 200 dollar boards? I know that wasn't supported on the other old boards but it's called "progress" for a reason. I consider that a standard feature now not something reserved for rich people. It is unacceptable to pay more than 150 for a motherboard, even if you put bluetooth on it call it the "Royal Excaliber 12000" and have a prince sign it. Seriously, I didn't expect to see prices over 200 at all till X68 came out. WTF guys, WTF!
MeanBruce - Thursday, January 20, 2011 - link
Royal what? I used to have a patient named Royal Ruffles, his real name, so peculiar I thought, oh yeah back to mobos. So interesting some readers think it's stupid to spend $200 for a new mainboard while others have no problem dishing out $430 or $450. I mean we are enthusiasts right? It's tax deductible, so I am all for drooling over new Z-branded chipsets and LightPeak support and 16GB of quad memory and incorporated northbridge and overclocking it all with your iPhone. It's a hobby right? It's supposed to be a blast!