Experience Raw Performance with the ASUS P8P67 Pro Sandy Bridge Motherboard

In their latest offering, the company has launched its P8P67 PRO and P8P67 Deluxe series motherboards that will support the new Sandy Bridge CPUs from Intel. Today, we are going to bring you a basic review of the Intel P8P67 PRO which, as experts are saying, is likely to be the most sought after product in the P67 series motherboards.

 

To begin with, the ASUS P8P67 PRO is a mid-ranged product from ASUS, the price being somewhere around R2,000. However, it is important to note that in spite of belonging to the mid-end category, its overall performance is by no means any less than that of most of the expansive products floating around the market at present.

 

Now let’s have a quick look at the technical specifications:

 

 

The chipset is from the Intel P67 Express Chipset category. The CPU supports both Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0 and Intel 32 nm. TBT 2.0, however, is not supported by all CPU types. One can find the list of all compatible Intel CPU types from the official ASUS web site.

 

A maximum of 32 GB memory capacity is supported with DIMMs of 8GB or above. ASUS also promises of an updation of the QVL as soon as the DIMMs hit the market. The memory also supports the Extreme Memory Profile from Intel, better known as just Intel XMP.

 

The Audio feature of this motherboard comprises of DTS surround sensation UltraPC, and it supports Jack-Detection, Multi Streaming and Front Panel Jack-Restaking.

 

 

The multi GPU configuration supports the cutting edge technologies such as Nvidia Quad-GPU SLI, and ATI Quad-GPU CrossFireX. Some of the other interesting specs are- its dual intelligent processors, and the EFI Bios that gives you the advantage of having a really easy interface and quite flexible in nature.

 

Another very important feature that this motherboard enjoys is that it it supports both LGA 1155 processor from Intel, as well as the brand-new P67 chipset. The support for both eventually enhances the performance of the P8P67 PRO, thus allowing users to experience a smooth, flawless system which they can use for a variety of system-intensive tasks.

 

 

The design of the P8P67 PRO does not deviate at all from the previous trademark ASUS products. In our opinion, ASUS has done the right thing by choosing to stick with its core design philosophy. In fact there is hardly any feature other than the chipset cooler that makes this motherboard look different from the earlier P7P55D model.

 

The overall layout of the P8P67 PRO is far from being disappointing. Yes, it has definitely lived upto the expectation we usually tend to have from an ASUS product. All the major components are ideally placed towards the edge of the motherboard.

 

ASUS, however could have gone with its USB 3.0 header somewhere near the bottom, but instead, it it placed it just beneath the memory slots. This will undoubtedly cause a bit of problem in accessing the two port expansion bracket. However, this minor problem will be taken care of if ASUS makes the Front Panel USB 3.0 box available on the market in a separate package.

 

 

The fact that ASUS opted to go with the LGA1155 socket in the P8P67, is causing a lot of annoyance amongst the fans. The LGA1155, is truly, almost indistinguishable from the earlier LGA 1156 socket. However, it could also prove be very helpful for the users as it will provide them with the added advantage of being able to re-use their old CPU coolers and mounting brackets for both these sockets have almost the exact same mounting holes in them.

 

The MOSFET heatsinks this motherboard has, are milled aluminium. We actually do think that this feature has proved to play a vital role in keeping the VRM temperature under control. And also because of a pretty simple and basic design, they should not create any major problem at the time of installation. Also, the socket and the capacitors around it are separated by a good distance.

 

ASUS, much to our happiness, has continued with the Q-DIMM memory slot design. This design is indeed very popular amongst the fans for being simple, user friendly and highly efficient. For those, yet to be familiar with this design, it is worth mentioning that this design is quite interestingly clip-less at one end. And needless to say, it makes the removal of the DIMM amazingly easy.

 

 

It is, indeed, quite an advantage to have a removable BIOS chip. With the removable BIOS set up in the P8P67 PRO, you can easily replace the BIOS chip in the event of a BIOS failure, hence saving you the trouble of shipping the entire motherboard back to the manufacturer.

 

Six of the Eight SATA ports in this motherboard come from the Intel P67 chipset. Out of these six, four are light blue in color while the other two are grey. The light blue color symbolises the SATA II 3 GB/s class while the color Grey indicates the ports belonging to the SATA III 6 GB/s category. Then there are two more ports from the Marvel 9120 controller which are navy blue in color. Interestingly, just like the grey ports from the P67 chipset, they also belong to the SATA III 6GB/s class .

 

 

And finally, the tests conducted by various experts around the globe have shown that the P8P67 PRO is not as “power-hungry” as most of its competitors are, thus making it one of the least power consuming motherboard available on the market today.

 

All in all, in our opinion, ASUS can safely claim the P8P67 PRO to be yet another addition to their list of amazing products. Due to its reasonable price and high performance, it gets a score of four and a half rating points on a scale of five. You can get hold of this stellar product at Evetech.co.za which offers the latest gear in high powered gaming and computing experience. Visit us for more mouth-watering PC components for your gaming needs.