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
Board Features
| ASUS P8P67 Pro | |
| Market Segment | Performance |
| CPU Interface | LGA 1155 |
| CPU Support | i3/i5/i7 Sandy Bridge |
| Chipset | P67 |
| Base Clock Frequency | 100 MHz, 80 MHz to 300 MHz in 0.1 MHz intervals |
| DDR3 Memory Speed | 1333 MHz by default, 800-2133 MHz supported |
| Core Voltage | Auto, 0.800V to 1.990V in 0.005V intervals |
| CPU Clock Multiplier | Dependant on CPU |
| DRAM Voltage | Auto, 1.20V to 2.20V in 0.00625V intervals |
| DRAM Command Rate | Auto, 1N to 3N |
| Memory Slots |
Four 240-pin DDR3 DIMM slots in dual-channel Regular unbuffered DD3 memory Up to 32GB total supported |
| Expansion Slots |
3 x PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots (PCIe 1 and 2 operate at x16 in single mode or x8/x8 in dual; PCIe 3 operates in x4 mode) 2 x PCI Express 2.0 x1 slots 2 x PCI slots Supports ATI Crossfire Supports NVIDIA SLI |
| Onboard SATA/RAID |
2 x SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports (gray) supporting RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 4 x SATA 3.0 Gb/s ports (blue) supporting RAID 0, 1, 5 and 10 2 x SATA 6.0 Gb/s ports (navy blue) from Marvell 9120 (No RAID) 2 x eSATA 3.0 Gb/s ports (1 x Power eSATA) from JMicron JMB362 |
| Onboard |
4 x SATA 3 Gb/s w/ RAID 4 x SATA 6 Gb/s (2 w/ RAID) 1 x USB 3.0/2.0 connector supports additional 2 USB ports (19-pin) 3 x USB 2.0/1/1 connectors support additional 6 USB ports 1 x IEEE1394a connector Front panel audio connector 1 x S/PDIF Out Header System Panel(Q-Connector) 1 x MemOK! Button 1 x EPU switch 1 x TPU switch |
| Onboard LAN | Intel® 82579 Gigabit Ethernet |
| Onboard Audio | Realtek® ALC892 8-Channel HD Audio |
| Power Connectors | 24-pin EATX Power connector 8-pin EATX 12V Power connector |
| Fan Headers |
1 x CPU Fan connector (4-pin) 2 x Chassis Fan connectors (1 x 4-pin; 1 x 3-pin) 1 x Power Fan connector (3-pin) |
| I/O Panel |
1 x PS/2 Mouse port (green) 1 x PS/2 Keyboard port (purple) 1 x Coaxial S/PDIF Out port 1 x Optical S/PDIF Out port 1 x Bluetooth module 2 x eSATA ports (1 x Power eSATA) 1 x IEEE1394a port 1 x LAN (RJ45) ports 2 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports (blue) 6 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports 8-channel Audio I/O ports |
| UEFI Revision | 1053 (Release UEFI) |
In the Box
- I/O shield
- USB 3.0 rear bracket
- SLI 2-slot bridge
- 4 x right-angled SATA connectors
The USB 3.0 rear bracket connects in the board to the USB 3.0 header, and stretches across the GPUs and intended for the bracket position between the PCIe slots. The cord is just long enough for this, but this kit will not reach to other bracket positions if you already require that PCI slot between the PCIe slots and both PCIe x16 slots for GPUs.
Software
ASUS Ai Suite II
ASUS have wrapped all their OS features into one overall program, called Ai Suite II. Through this program, you can overclock, auto tune, enable/disable EPU, control the VRMs, control the fans, and update the UEFI. In my experience, it works rather well.
Ai Suite II initially comes up as a toolbar, and selecting one of the buttons creates a popup menu, from which you select the feature you want to use. This is a roundabout way of doing it; I would have preferred a tabbed system personally. The first screen is the TurboV EVO module, the heart of the TPU. On the fly BCLK, voltages, and CPU ratios are applicable here. Increasing various parameters results in them turning yellow, to see that they are all changed, and on clicking apply, all modifications are made. The only downside of this overclocking mode is in the inability to modify the RAM sub-timings on the fly.
The auto-tuning section is a one-button click. The program then restarts the computer, loads into the OS a couple of times, and stability tests the system. I like this feature – the i5-2500K went from 33x multiplier at 100 BCLK to 43x at 103.5 BCLK, giving a total overclock at 4.55 GHz. Every time I used it, it caused at least one blue screen, but as long as I left to its own devices, it provided a suitable overclock. I managed to get a better 24/7 overclock, which I describe in the overclock section, which means the auto-tuning could be considered a little conservative.
The EPU control panel gives the user greater control over the EPU, in terms of power saving. Alongside the fan controller, the user can adjust the level of power saving in terms of VCore, chipset voltages, HDD spin downs, etc. for when the computer isn’t doing anything too strenuous.
This software also allows complete temperature control of two of the fan headers. As shown below, we can describe the fan power curve against temperature in its entirety, or at preset levels provided by ASUS.
The BT GO! software allows Bluetooth connection with your smartphone (Android, Apple, Windows Mobile, Symbian). If you can download the BT Turbo Remote software from the respective marketplace, you can also overclock via your smartphone – despite being able to connect to BT GO! (and having very little options apart from music control), I was unable to download the BT Turbo Remote software from the Android marketplace. I am currently running a HTC Hero smartphone using a custom ROM to enable Android 2.2 functions. At the time of publication, this program was not available to me on the marketplace.
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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!