ASUS P8P67 Pro

Zitat: The combination of the new Intel Sandy Bridge and the ASUS P8P67 Pro is a match made in heaven. The technology that comes with the new chipset is definitely a step in the right direction, making the previous P55 a thing of the past. The new micro-architecture blends computing performance and efficiency, but leave it to ASUS to take it to another level. The P8P67 Pro offers several new features that you would be hard press to find in the same price range on a competitor’s motherboard. Many of us feared the end of overclocking when rumors that Intel was locking the Sandy Bridge CPU. Rumors are one thing, reality is another. With the P8P67 Pro we were able to take the Intel Core i5 2500K far beyond that of any P55 processors we have had in the lab. 4842MHz is nothing to sneeze at, especially when all it took to achieve that was a few simple adjustments to the Turbo multiplier and a voltage bump. More tweaking and better cooling definitely would net a better result. An old application, but with new and improvements enhancements, the AI Suite is one of the most complete software applications bundled with a motherboard. From within the application you can enable and disable many of the motherboard features such as EPU and TPU . No longer do you have to rely on multiple different applications to overclock your CPU, monitor sensor readings, or upgrade the BIOS. It is all taken care in the AI Suite. With there being 16 PCIe lanes sporting 5GT/s of bandwidth for graphic cards, the P67 is an ideal solution for those that want to run a higher-end graphics card. Now the P8P67 does support CrossFireX and SLi, but this do mean that the use of dual slots will lower the slots to x8/x8, but this is comparable to x16/x16 on the previous generation P57 chipset since it only had 2.5GT/s bandwidth. Still, it is nice to know the option is there if you want to add more GPU to your gaming rig. The most notable feature to us from the P8P67 Pro was the UEFI BIOS. The new BIOS standard does away with the keyboard only navigated simplistic interface we all are accustomed to. Now you can venture through the BIOS in a much quicker manner using the mouse. The BIOS is far more pleasant to look at as well since the GUI upgrade is ten times better than the previous versions. One of the last features we will talk about in this conclusion is the EPU and TPU features. For those that want more performance the TPU can automatically overclock the system for you in a matter of minutes. On the flip side, if you are one that is worried about the power bill at the end of the month, then the EPU can shut down aspects of the motherboard and processor to for better efficiency. The ASUS P8P67 Pro and all its features will retail for about $190 putting it inside the mid-range price point. {aseadnet|asus p8p67|asus|p8p67 pro}

Zitat: Recommended Pros: + Thoughtful integration of useful features + UEFI BIOS is nice + Overclocks well with K-series chips + Good layout Cons: - £150 is still a lot of money for a midrange P67 board ASUS knows all too well that differentiating its Sandy Bridge motherboards from the competitions´ requires careful thought on features and implementation rather than a myopic focus on straight-line speed. The £150 P8P67 PRO crams in an excellent array of features on to a well-laid-out board. There´s practically everything you could want in a deluxe board, topped off by the one of the better BIOSes we´ve seen thus far. Performance is solid at stock speeds and the PRO´s got enough overclocking wherewithal to push K-series chips over 1GHz past their default speeds. Readers looking for even more would do well to take a peek at the £185 Deluxe variant, which ships with a second Gigabit port, rear-mounted clear CMOS button, debug LED, and a heftier array of heatsinks.