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.
137 Comments
View All Comments
kmmatney - Monday, January 24, 2011 - link
Agreed. The last 3 motherboards I bought all came free (or close to it) in a Microcenter deal. 2 AMD system, and one Intel (socket 775). They all have decent overclocking, and have been plenty stable. Your better off spending the money you save on more RAM, or an SSD.MobiusStrip - Sunday, January 23, 2011 - link
"I'ma get that"You left out the wrong word. The "a" is the beginning of "a-gonna"; the phrase is "I'm a-gonna" do something. If you're going to remove something, it's the "a": I'm gonna get that.
softdrinkviking - Monday, January 24, 2011 - link
For all you know, "I'ma get that" could be widely used in this person's area, how would you know?Don't correct slang, it completely defeats the purpose, and it's kind of insane.
Sufo - Tuesday, January 25, 2011 - link
The "a" is the last a of gonna. The part that is omitted is the "gonn". If you're going to be such a useless pedant, at least get your facts straight.Not the best source, but http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Imma
"nope"
maxnix - Thursday, April 28, 2011 - link
Unfortunately for you, spell checking isn't one of them!Spazweasel - Thursday, January 20, 2011 - link
EVGA seems late to the game. They've announced their first 1155 board (130-SB-E675-KR) on their website, but has anyone actually seen it in the wild (much less reviewed)?seamusmc - Friday, January 21, 2011 - link
Spaz, (chuckle)I thought I read somewhere in their forums that EVGA's first P67 board will be available in February.
Spazweasel - Monday, January 31, 2011 - link
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4142/intel-discovers...Okay, now we know why!
It will be interesting to see if EVGA was among the first to be saying "Hey, something's not right here" and this was the reason.
DanNeely - Thursday, January 20, 2011 - link
The obvious feature gigabytes $260/320 board shas is PCIe bridge chips that allow a huge number of USB3 ports and more x16 slots, although you're only getting higher burst performance per device since they're all still sharing the same 16 lanes from the CPU.The other traditional feature is better mofsets/mofset coolers to allow higher voltages for overclocks if you have the cooling to handle the heat.
Pjmcnally - Thursday, January 20, 2011 - link
This is a great review that I was very happy to read. I picked up the ASRock board at release but I wasn’t sure I had made a good decision.I believe there is one small error in the review, the headers for both lists of board features read “ASRock P67 Extreme4” not “Asus P8P676 Pro” or “Gigabyte P67A-UD4”.