Intel P67 Shootout - The Top Guns

Top of the Class

First, these are not the B3 boards you're looking for. Indeed, while many manufacturers are starting to ship the revised, bug-free motherboards, they aren't in time to make our high-end enthusiast-oriented P67 shootout. But there should be no cause for worry, since our testing has always used the SATA 6Gbps ports that are not affected by the . Hence, there is no impact on our benchmarks.

Consumers should also be reassured by the fact that besides the chipset revision, there are practically no differences between the five motherboards we are reviewing today, and the B3 versions that will eventually be on retail shelves. The prices (unfortunately, as these boards aren't exactly cheap) and features will remain the same. The changes if any, are likely to be in the BIOS, though expect minor tweaks rather than a complete revamp.

What we have here today are five of the top P67 motherboards from the biggest motherboard brands now - ASRock, ASUS, ECS, Gigabyte and MSI. These are the exact models involved in our shootout:-

• ASRock P67 Extreme6
• ASUS Maximus IV Extreme
• ECS P67H2-A
• Gigabyte P67A-UD7
• MSI Big Bang-Marshal

Boasting quality components and sturdy power delivery designs to enable that last gasp of overclocking, they come with features that enthusiasts will appreciate, from voltage measuring points to chip. How do they actually fare when it comes to the rigors of overclocking? That's something we'll find out in the following pages. Check out (note: huge table that's best viewed with 100% screen view) for those who need a broad view of each motherboard's various features and specs.

ASRock P67 Extreme6

We start with ASRock's P67 Extreme6, which represents the manufacturer's latest attempt at cracking the high-end market. While the design itself breaks no new ground and is derivative of other more established brands, this board does fulfill many of the criteria one expects of a relatively expensive, high-end motherboard. First, the features are there.

Support for newer technologies, like USB 3.0 is amply provided, though ASRock went with EtronTech's controller rather than the more well-known and presumably more costly NEC controller. There are six SATA 6Gbps ports, which are more than some of its competitors (and which means you don't really need to worry about the Cougar Point glitch), two of which are native to the P67 chipset while the rest are from a Marvell controller. You'll get dual Gigabit Ethernet controllers from Realtek, with FireWire and eSATA thrown in too. Finally, all the conveniences of a modern, high-end motherboard - onboard power and reset switches, LED for debugging and a Clear CMOS button are all present. There's even a front USB 3.0 panel for the chassis included.

Multi-GPU configurations (CrossFireX and SLI) are supported, though the last of the three PCIe 2.0 x16 slot onboard is actually running at x4, due to the lack of PCIe lanes. There is sufficient allowance for up to three dual-slot graphics cards if you choose to go down that route.

Despite the ATX form factor, everything fits nicely on this board, with no layout issues evident to us. The onboard components had adequate space from each other for the most part, with the DIMM slots perhaps too close to the CPU socket if one goes for a larger, third-party cooler. Besides that, this is a neat board.

Overall, ASRock has designed a P67 board that appears on paper to fit the high-end price segment that it is targeting. Although the lack of PCIe lanes compared to the competition weakens its case, it all boils down to whether the consumer requires this feature. Besides, ASRock has opted to price it rather attractively at S$329, which should fare well against its intended rivals. Also, ASRock's local distro has informed us that the revised B3 boards will be available after 29 March.

The UEFI BIOS on this ASRock board is also another plus point. It comes with auto-overclocking profiles of up to 4.8GHz for our Core i7-2600K processor (though we didn't manage to hit that with the utility) and the other BIOS options were generally clear and straightforward. Compared to some other BIOS we have seen, the ASRock one is definitely easy to use and we encountered no problems.

ASUS Maximus IV Extreme

ASUS' ROG series should be familiar enough for most users, especially with its eye-catching, handsome black and red color scheme. Its target audience is without doubt the overclocking enthusiast and the series have a number of distinctive enthusiast oriented features that are now standard for any ROG board. Every new generation however has seen a couple of new, additional features and the same can be said of the latest, the Maximus IV Extreme.

What it gets over older ROG boards are two new features which ASUS dubs ROG iDirect and GPU.DIMM Post. The latter is found in the new UEFI BIOS on this board, which shows you the status (whether present and working) of your memory modules and graphics cards. So at a glance (provided you can get into the BIOS in the first place), you can see if a memory module or secondary graphics card have gone MIA.

The other 'new' feature, ROG iDirect, has been announced for a couple of months now, though not all ROG boards had the support. It consists of an iOS (iPhone/iPad) app that allows you to tweak the motherboard settings via these devices. A wireless connection is needed, either through the bundled Bluetooth module or through Wi-Fi (for the iPad). It's an extension of ASUS' older ROG Connect feature to the mobile, wireless arena. ASUS also maintains that unlike Gigabyte's Cloud OC utility, this implementation is purely hardware based and will not cause a spike in CPU utilization during use.

Another new, minor feature that's probably more useful to reviewers than users is ROG BIOS Print. Like its name suggests, it captures your current BIOS screen to an external, connected USB drive when you press F12 in the BIOS. Great for sharing BIOS settings with others and of course, for reviewers who need to show certain settings. ASUS has told us that this feature will no longer be a ROG exclusive and will be included in the future BIOS of the B3 versions of its motherboards.

As for the board, it's larger than the typical ATX motherboard, with ASUS going for the Extended ATX form factor. This means that it's roughly 2cm wider than ATX boards, so you may need a chassis with the right amount of clearance. Besides its P67 Express chipset, ASUS has augmented it with a number of controllers, bringing USB 3.0 support, more SATA 6Gbps ports and more PCIe lanes for a truly premium experience.

First, this board comes with 3-way CrossFireX/SLI support, something that the P67 chipset, which is mainly meant for the mainstream segment, was not designed for. This is possible through the NVIDIA NF200 controller that ASUS and other vendors have been using on their previous P55 boards. Extra SATA 6Gbps ports are provided by a Marvell 9128 controller while a JMicron controller gives two eSATA ports (3Gbps). What's interesting is that ASUS has embraced USB 3.0 in a big way here on this board, with up to eight USB 3.0 ports at the rear panel thanks to additional NEC controllers and VIA hub controllers and one onboard header providing another two. 

You'll expect such premium boards to come with the highest quality components and ASUS has indeed delivered on this front. Digital phase power delivery systems coupled with alloy chokes for better stability and higher efficiency. All for that extra bit of support when you're overclocking the processor.

Lest you forget that this is a ROG board that typical consumers should probably stay clear of for their wallets' sake, the whole, extensive list of ROG features are present, from voltage measurement points to a switch that explicitly states LN2 mode, which presumably gets past the cold boot bug at POST. Again, we don't see most buyers needing this feature other than extreme overclockers. The many LEDs onboard are other touches that scream 'enthusiast!'.

It's thanks to the Extended ATX form factor that ASUS is able to squeeze all its features onto this board without sacrificing usability. We couldn't find any instances where the layout was at fault, though we did notice that the mounting holes at the socket was perhaps a bit close to the heatsink. It could be a small issue for those with larger thumbs.

The main sticking point for the user is probably the price premium you'll expect to find on the Maximus IV Extreme, which is quoted at S$599 locally. However, if you're seriously considering a board of this class, then we believe you know what you're doing.

ECS P67H2-A

In recent years, ECS has managed to raise its enthusiast profile with its more extreme, Black series, like this and continuing with this trend, it has pulled out another Black motherboard bristling with premium features and components. In fact, looking at the packed PCB, we can pick out touches and details that could be seen as 'inspired' by the competition, from the presence of voltage measuring points to the 'EZ Charger' feature that promises to boost the charging speed for your iPhone/iPod/iPad devices. However, that's all part of the industry as the good ideas eventually make their way to all board vendors though implementation may be a different story.

First, this ECS P67H2-A comes with a Lucid Hydra 200 chip onboard. That's right, Lucid has found its wares becoming more popular since MSI first featured it in its series and ECS has followed suit with this chip that allows for the installation of non-homogeneous graphics cards (meaning you can now mix and match between ATI and NVIDIA graphics cards for multi-GPU performance, provided you're running Windows 7). It's a move that signals ECS' intentions to compete in the highest end of the market and while we aren't big fans of the technology, it has its moments. For this board, you can have up to three such graphics cards, due to its three PCIe 2.0 x16 slots (in a x16/x8/x8 configuration).

Anyway, ECS seems to have picked up on what we call the 'unofficial' first rule of premium boards - good things come in pairs. Hence, the dual Gigabit LAN controllers from Realtek and the dual NEC USB 3.0 controllers on this board. There are only four SATA 3Gbps and two SATA 6Gbps ports from the Intel chipset, but ECS has thrown in a Marvell controller for an extra two eSATA 6Gbps ports at the rear panel. HD audio is handled by a Realtek ALC892 chip while ECS has ditched FireWire like many other vendors in favor of USB 3.0.

Despite a PCB that appeared to be cramped with features and onboard ICs, we found the overall layout to be quite well-done. ECS has managed to fit three PCIe 2.0 x16 slots for dual-slot graphics cards while ensuring that the SATA ports are aligned properly out of way. The power and reset buttons may be a touch close to the tangle of cables from the ATX power connector and SATA ports but it's again placed to avoid any interference. True, there are some onboard USB headers that may be affected by a third, dual-slot graphics card, but there are enough of them that it shouldn't matter.

Meanwhile, the heatsinks look a bit more heavy duty than the ASUS board, which hopefully can translate to lower temperatures. While the hardware looks pretty promising, the BIOS however required a couple of updates before we were satisfied. Previously, it had a bug with the default values displayed for the 1, 2, 3 and 4-core Turbo Boost speeds in the BIOS and we also had issues when overclocking, where it appeared that our overclocked multiplier was not working as intended.

Although the BIOS update fixed these issues, the options themselves could be more transparent and user-friendly. It wasn't obvious how to go about changing the base clock on this board, as it was buried under sub-menus.

At least ECS has managed to keep the price extremely competitive against the other high-end P67 boards in our roundup, with its significantly lower S$329 price.

Gigabyte P67A-UD7

After unleashing the most expensive motherboard on the world with its UD9, which we reviewed , Gigabyte has the UD7 in store for its P67 generation. No bets on whether there will be a P67 based UD9 in the future, but the Gigabyte P67A-UD7 is a sure thing. And it is a heavy board too. A check with our electronic scale showed that the normal-sized ATX Gigabyte board was in fact heavier than the Extended ATX ASUS Maximus IV Extreme by 100g. That's likely due to Gigabyte's well-known Ultra Durable 3 feature, which doubles the amount of copper in the PCB (and increases its weight). For those who care about these things, this Gigabyte has a 8-layer PCB, which is identical to the ASUS. 

Like the other Gigabyte boards this generation, the vendor has gone with a matte black PCB. Coupled with the gray, black and gold highlights on this board, it reminds us of audio cards with their gold plated connectors and such.

Looks aside, its enthusiast billing means that it gets the full spectrum of Gigabyte's proprietary technologies, which are too numerous to list here and should already be familiar to enthusiasts. The board supports a decent number of SATA ports, with both eSATA and FireWire retained despite the entry of USB 3.0. Gigabyte has the same number of USB 3.0 ports in total as the ASUS Maximus IV Extreme with 10. The difference is in the configuration, as the UD7 comes with only six at the rear, while four more are available via onboard headers.

Like many high-end boards, Gigabyte has gone with the NF200 controller for its 2/3-way multi-GPU configuration. Overall, there are four PCIe slots for your graphics cards but only two PCIe 2.0 x16 slots have the full 16 lanes, while the other two have 8 lanes each. These two 'x8' PCIe x16 slots each share bandwidth with one of two proper x16 slots, so installing any card in these slots will reduce the lanes on the corresponding x16 slots to x8. Hence, 3-way would end up being x16/x8/x8 and that is effectively the maximum number of cards you can install.

The impression we get from this board is that there isn't anything new compared to its existing P55 boards. With the exception of having more SATA 6Gbps and USB 3.0 ports, that is. The layout does seem much improved, though that's more from the removal of older interfaces like IDE and floppy freeing up more PCB space. While some boards are clearly designed for the overclocking enthusiast in mind, like the ASUS Maximus IV Extreme, the Gigabyte UD7 comes across as more targeted for power users in general who require the features, stability and hopefully performance. Perhaps Gigabyte is saving its best for a more extreme board.

Superficially, it would seem that Gigabyte has not implemented any UEFI BIOS on this board, which contributes to the impression that Gigabyte is merely replicating its technologies from the previous generation and updating to the new chipset. However, as we have , Gigabyte has decided to go with the tried and tested 'old-school' interface familiar to its users, but it's a Hybrid EFI (that supports 3TB disks) underneath all that. It just lacks some of the spiffy new interface enhancements that are possible with the new breed of UEFI BIOS.

Features-wise, there is plenty to chew on, but there doesn't seem anything particularly new this time round. Perhaps Gigabyte already debuted most of its utilities and features in the previous generation and has little more to add this time round. For all we know, the less fancy approach by Gigabyte could also mean it has concentrated on delivering what matters most, which may mean a more competitive performance. With a retail price of $509, this Gigabyte board will need to show something substantial to justify its price tag. We'll find out soon in the benchmarks.

MSI Big Bang-Marshal

Last but definitely not the least, we come to the MSI Big Bang-Marshal. Now, we have seen MSI's Big Bang series of enthusiast boards. They are high-end products that feature some of the latest technologies. The Marshal however is arguably the most ambitious Big Bang board yet. For one, it's big, XL-ATX size in fact, making it one of the largest motherboards we have seen (for a single CPU socket).

All that PCB (it's a 6-layer PCB) is used fully, with hardly any free space due to the presence of eight PCIe x16 slots. Yes, there are eight such expansion slots, though only four of them are electrically x16, with the remainder being x8. That's still a lot of PCIe slots. At the heart of these PCIe lanes is a Lucid Hydra 200 chip which not only provides some of the PCIe lanes, but also enables this board to support both AMD and NVIDIA graphics cards in a mixed, multi-GPU configuration. 

There are quite a few ways to assign the lanes among the four x16 slots, depending on how many graphics cards you intend to install. The maximum is of course four, with each having 8 lanes. The slots are spaced such that if you do install four graphics cards, even dual-slot ones will fit. To make up for the power draw for such a configuration, a 6-pin power connector is found near the PCIe slots.

Besides the staggering number of expansion slots, the XL-ATX form factor also allowed MSI to fit an extra couple of SATA 6Gbps ports, aligned outwards like we preferred. The edges of the board are occupied by headers for things like FireWire, USB (both 2.0 and 3.0) and of course, various enthusiast oriented features, from the OC Genie button to voltage measuring points.

In fact, there are a number of interesting features here, like Multi BIOS, which is apparently a tertiary (third level) BIOS in case the primary and secondary BIOS fail due to improper settings. By pressing the onboard Multi BIOS button, users can choose to either load the tertiary BIOS or flash the primary and secondary BIOS with the tertiary backup BIOS. Then there's PCIe CeaseFire, a new feature for power users to disable/enable the PCIe graphics slots with the flick of a finger. It's similar to what we have seen on the ASUS Maximus IV Extreme, but we haven't seen this before from MSI.

There's no doubt here that MSI has loaded this extra large motherboard with everything it's got. From the sheer number of features, dual Gigabit Ethernet, USB 3.0 ports, SATA 6Gbps ports and the expansion slots, to the many 'elite' MSI technologies present, from Military Class II to OC Genie, the Big Bang-Marshal is overflowing with all the stuff you'll find on a top class board. For the majority of users, many of these features will be unnecessary, but if you're one of those who want everything, this board checks all the right tick boxes.

It remains to be seen if its performance is equally top class, but the quality and the features are there. And thanks to the extra PCB space, there aren't any issues with layout; in fact we rather liked the low-profile heatsinks on this board. Even MSI's new UEFI BIOS, known as Click BIOS, which we felt was sluggish on the MSI P67A-GD65, felt slightly more responsive on the Marshal. We are still not fans of that BIOS, but it seems improved from our last experience.

All this doesn't come cheap however. MSI quoted a local price of S$609 for the Marshal, making it the most costly P67 board in this shootout of high-end P67 boards. We have seen more expensive boards like the Gigabyte X58A-UD9 or the EVGA X58 SLI Classified, so to some consumers, the MSI's price tag may even be a bargain. We'll reserve our opinion till after the performance benchmarks.

BIOS Settings

By now, you should know that the ideal (and Intel sanctioned) way of overclocking a Sandy Bridge processor is firstly to get the right processor, which means one of the two 'K' SKU processors in the market now. While you can try to push the base clock on a non-K processor, the limited allowance will likely lead to more frustration than success.

The five high-end P67 boards here all allow users to tweak the voltages, with some having more detailed options than others. Generally however, unless you know what you're doing, the basic ones listed here are sufficient to get a decent overclock.

Test Setup

We used the same test configuration as our , which we have listed below: 

• Intel Core i7-2600K @3.4GHz
• 2 x 1GB Kingston HyperX DDR3-1333 (CAS 7-7-7-20)
• NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GTX (ForceWare 260.99)
• WD Caviar Black 1TB, SATA 6G (Intel 6G)
• Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit)
• Intel INF 9.2.0.1015

The following benchmarks were used:

• BAPco SYSmark 2007 (version 1.05)
• Futuremark PCMark Vantage (1.0.3.1)
• Futuremark 3DMark Vantage (1.0.3.1)
• SPECviewperf 9.0
• Far Cry 2 

Results - SYSmark 2007 Preview

The ASUS Maximus IV Extreme and the MSI Big Bang-Marshal justified their relatively high price tags by taking the top spots for SYSmark 2007. Both scored 284, roughly 3% higher than the lowest of the five, the ASRock P67 Extreme6. Based on our previous experience with mainstream P67 boards, these numbers were all above average despite the slight variances among them.

Results - Futuremark PCMark Vantage

While most of the boards posted quite similar overall scores, the Gigabyte UD7 was slightly off the pace. Looking at the breakdown, the Productivity section was where the Gigabyte stumbled. Again, the ASUS and MSI were the better performers, but unlike SYSmark, they were so marginally ahead that it could be arguably negligible. Interestingly, while these two boards did well overall, they had the lowest scores for the HDD portion.

Results - SPECviewperf 9.0

We saw some significant variance in the results for 3dsmax performance in SPECviewperf 9.0. The ASRock was surprisingly good here, leading the ASUS and MSI, with the Gigabyte falling behind. Compare this to the PRO/ENGINEER workload where all the scores were rather close. It would seem that the 3D performance of these three boards are a notch better than their competitors.

Results - Futuremark 3DMark Vantage & Far Cry 2

While the five boards were closely matched in 3DMark Vantage (the ECS was the slowest of the lot and even then it was just a difference of 1.6%), Far Cry 2 threw up some interesting results. The ASRock and ASUS boards were a couple of frames faster than the rest; for the ASUS, it was a significant boost of up to five frames. Since we rarely find such discrepancies in this benchmark, we tested all the boards multiple times to confirm the results. 

Since all the boards were tested with the same HDD and drivers and with the built-in benchmarking tool in Far Cry 2, we'll have to chalk it to the merits of the two standout boards. Perhaps these boards were more responsive in triggering Turbo Boost on the Sandy Bridge processor or allowed the CPU to stay at the highest speed bin (3.8GHz for the Core i7-2600K) for a longer period of time.

Temperature

Every motherboard had its own cooling system, though they were of the conventional variety - a passive heatsink for the chipset and a couple of heatsinks near the CPU socket, linked by heat pipes. Some, like MSI, boasted of its thicker heat pipes, while others like ASUS had its 'lego-like' heatsink design but generally, the idea was similar. The end result too was similar, with the chipset heatsinks on all five boards in the 50 degrees Celsius range.

There was more variance in temperatures for the rear heatsink closest to the rear panel, with the ASRock coming in coolest, but even the warmest ones, from ASUS and Gigabyte were not more than 50 degrees. With proper chassis ventilation, these boards should be relatively cool despite their extensive features.

Power Consumption

At idle, the larger boards like the MSI and ASUS recorded the higher power draws, with the ASRock and ECS having the lowest. This situation evened out somewhat at peak, though the ASUS was drawing significantly more power than the others. The ASRock meanwhile continued to have the lowest power consumption. 

Overclocking

Since we're talking about some of the top, enthusiast boards using the Intel P67 chipset, it would be criminal not to test their overclocking capabilities. Our Core i7-2600K was used for this purpose. To streamline the process, we only focused on getting the highest possible stable CPU frequency by increasing the CPU multiplier, with the base clock untouched at 100MHz. As for the voltage used, we pushed it up when necessary, with a maximum of 1.5V attempted for all the boards. However, not every board could produce a higher clock speed even with higher CPU voltage, so our best overclock results included the corresponding voltage used.

We also tried the auto-overclocking tools that some manufacturers have included in their BIOS. Generally, these tools are a quick way to gauge the amount of overclocking possible, but our best attempt with such utilities resulted in a 4.6GHz overclock, which is some way from the 5.1GHz maximum achievable from manual tweaking.

In the end, all the boards managed at least 4.6GHz, which is a decent bump from the 3.4GHz default on the Core i7-2600K. The best overclocking results were produced by the ASUS and MSI, which both topped out at 5.1GHz. These results were achieved at a very high voltage of 1.48V, which is a risky voltage to sustain in the long term. To be on the safe side, we recommend keeping things at around 1.35V.  We have listed the overclocking results below:

Conclusion

With the Cougar Point glitch more or less resolved, you can bet that Intel is starting to focus on its next chipset, the Z68 Express, which according to some, is the 'true' enthusiast chipset for the LGA1155 processors. Reports have indicated that production for such Z68 motherboards are underway and they should be shipping sometime in May. The Z68 chipset does have some advantages over the P67 like having display outputs, allowing integrated and discrete GPUs to co-exist via Switchable Graphics, and allowing both CPU and graphics (integrated) overclocking. Although advantageous, not everyone will find it worth the wait, especially if one really needs a new system now.

Besides, it's not as if motherboard makers have not been trying their best to enhance the Intel P67 Express. The five boards here have included numerous third-party controllers for more USB 3.0, SATA 6Gbps, Gigabit Ethernet and PCIe lanes. They support multiple graphics cards from both AMD and NVIDIA. Then, there are the various proprietary technologies and features that make each board 'unique', even if many of these features provide similar functionality.

Before we summarize our opinions for these five boards, here is the scoring breakdown. Just for this shootout, we are factoring in the overclocking friendly features and capabilities in a separate 'Overclocking' category.  

The ASRock P67 Extreme6 came across as a solid, competent P67 board. It has sufficient features to appeal to the hardcore enthusiast crowd, with its multi-GPU support probably its weakest link. The polished UEFI BIOS, which includes overclocking profiles and decent tweaking options is another reason to get this board. Finally, the S$329 price tag is the lowest among the five boards and convinced us to give it our Best Value Award, all things considered.

ASUS' Maximus IV Extreme was probably one of the favorites at the start, thanks to the enthusiast cred that the company has built up with its ROG brand. While many of the ROG features are not new, the performance of this board stood out. Overclocking was a hassle-free process, with profiles and saves, not to mention the various hardware touches for the really hardcore crowd. The BIOS was also one of the best of this generation, with extensive options that are clear and accessible. It may be one of the most expensive P67 boards you can find, but it's definitely worth its price if you can make full use of all its features.

ECS' P67H2-A is the other attractively priced P67 board, with a similar price as the ASRock. It also packs a full range of features, including Lucid's Hydra chip, that puts it a notch better than the ASRock. This board adopts the enthusiast features found on the more established brands, but while the hardware was impeccable, the software side, the BIOS was not up to the mark. Patching it will help reduce the bugs, but the options are still not user friendly enough.

The Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD7 exudes quality, from the 8-layer PCB to the company's use of high-quality components. It is however a tad formulaic and the old-school style of its BIOS strengthens that impression. No doubt, it's not lacking in features, but the overclocking aspect is perhaps not the main focus of this board. With a lower price tag than the ASUS and MSI, it can be a decent choice if stability and features are what you require.

Lastly, the biggest and most expensive of the five boards here, the MSI Big Bang-Marshal, is a bold move that showcases what the manufacturer is capable of. We aren't too sure how many users will actually pay for it, but well, they will get everything but the kitchen sink with the Marshal. MSI has also upped its game when it comes to catering to the overclockers and this board comes close to beating the ASUS at its game. In the end, we preferred the BIOS on the ASUS, but in terms of the overclocking tools available, it's a tie between the two.

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