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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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.