Power Consumption and Conclusions
Editor’s Note: There are obviously some concerns about reviews on the 2nd Gen Intel Core processor platform, in particular motherboards based on the Cougar Point chipset, aka P67/H67. On January 31st, Intel announced that it had found a bug in its chipset that could cause issues with SATA channels disconnecting and has issued a recall on all or most parts. As a result, the majority of the Sandy Bridge based processors and P67/H67 motherboards have been pulled from online and retail sales.
You might wonder then why we are posting a review of such a product. In short, though we are disappointed that the products are not currently on the market for sale, the fact is that we have never seen these failure issues and the performance and features of the products still properly represents the capabilities it will offer when they return to the channel in March or April. We have several platform reviews finished or in the pipeline and we plan on publishing all of them for informational purposes to our readers – that is always our goal anyway.
But, expect to see this note of warning on every one of them.
During power consumption testing, the P8P67 Pro was the least power hungry board in the group thanks to ASUS’s DIGI+ VRG design that upgrades the motherboard’s power delivery to a digital standard. The 12+2 digital architecture delivers twice the precision power, intelligently adjusting PWM voltage and frequency modulation with minimal power loss through BIOS tuning.
Performance
The P8P670 was very consistent in the performance category with the other P67 motherboards we tested against our benchmarks, but it really stood out when we overclocked our i5-2500K past 4.6GHz. I was also impressed the performance of their Turbo EVO software because I haven’t had a lot of success with software-based overclocking utilities in the past. While we didn’t see superior results from the P8P67 Pro in 3DMark and PCMark Vantage, we did see solid results in Sandra and Cinebench 11.5 testing.
Features
ASUS threw everything including the kitchen sink into the P8P67 Pro to make it a viable solution for anyone ranging from new PC builders to extreme enthusiasts who need a stable board that can handle advanced overclocking with increased voltage requirements. The extra USB 3.0 and SATA 3 ports will really go a long way to users who need extra flexibility to handle multiple storage devices. I was also highly impressed with ASUS’s ability to put three PCIe slots that support SLI and CrossfireX configurations.
Pricing and Availability
As of Jan. 30, the ASUS P8P67 Pro was available at Newegg.com for $189.99 before shipping. This board is also available at Tiger Direct for $189.99.
Final Thoughts
We’d like to thank our friends at ASUS for providing the P8P67 Pro for our review today. This motherboard is the first I’ve tested with the P67 chipset, and I couldn’t have been more pleased with the overall features and overclocking prowess of the P8P67 Pro. ASUS seamlessly integrated their own unique modifications and third-party software with Intel’s Sandy Bridge architecture as well as their P67 chipset. ASUS even went a step further and added extra controllers for more USB 3.0 and SATA 6GB/s support. Overall, the P8P67 Pro earns PC Perspective’s Silver Award for its ingenuity, strong software, and overclockability.
Strengths
- Great overclocker
- Awesome EFI BIOS
- Three PCIe slots with SLI/CrossfireX support
- Excellent power management architecture
- Good price point
Weaknesses
- Lower benchmark scores for general PC tasks
- Slightly subpar gaming benchmark scores
This motherboard has very
This motherboard has very good results at your testings. I think that I will buy it.
Best regards,
Alex from Proreview.net