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- Date:
- Thursday , March 03, 2011
- Author:
- Daniel Dobrowolski
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
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ASUS P8P67 Deluxe Motherboard Review
ASUS has a ton of P8P67 variants. Some are light on features, some aren’t. The P8P67 Deluxe is certainly anything but light on features but how does it perform? How does it stack up in the sea of recent P67 Express based boards?
Introduction
ASUS is one of the largest motherboards around and unless you are either new to the motherboard world or computers in general, chances are you’ve probably heard of them. ASUS product portfolio would probably take months to review in its entirety if it never changed but ASUS’ product line is as dynamic as the rest of this industry. To that effect ASUS has a number of P67 Express chipset based boards each sporting some variation of the P8P67 name. The board we are looking at this time is the P8P67 Deluxe. Honestly the differences from one P8P67 board to the next is simply its features. The boards are largely the same.
The ASUS P8P67 Deluxe is based on the brand new P67 Express chipset. Now there is the issue of the recent Intel P67 Express recall for SATA performance degradation. Boards shipping now should all be the new revision of the silicon which corrects this problem. In fact we do not know of any instances of any end users having issues actually pertaining to the recall reasons. Intel was very proactive in getting this handled and so was ASUS. If you have a P67 chipset board with rev B2 silicon on it, you can get it RMA'd to ASUS to correct the issue. Any boards you find now in retail should be using B3 silicon and good to go.
Like the earlier P55 Express chipset, the P67 Express is a unified solution. More than that many of the features previously found in the chipset are now integrated into the CPU itself. The memory and PCI-Express controllers are two such examples. Now video is integrated as well, but is only usable on H67 Express based boards.
The P8P67 Deluxe is a feature rich solution. All of the P8P67 boards support DIGI+VRM’s which fully support Intel’s VRD12 specifications and according to ASUS, is a 16+2 phase design. So the boards power is not digitally controlled like enterprise level motherboards have been for some time. Like some of its competitors, the P8P67 Deluxe features low RDS (radiation) components. Like all ASUS’ enthusiast offerings this one has ASUS’ own EPU / TPU chips for voltage management and power savings.
Beyond that ASUS’ P8P67 Deluxe has built in Bluetooth support, UEFI, USB 3.0, SATA 6G, and more. As usual, the high level of integration means you need very few additional components to create a fully functional machine. All that is required is a graphics card, LGA1155 processor, RAM, power supply and drives. Also included is a front panel box which has two USB 3.0 ports on it for a total of 4 ports. (The others are on the rear I/O panel.) SLI and Quad SLI are supported, as are CrossFireX and Quad-GPU CrossFireX using two dual GPU cards. 3-Way, 4-Way, and 3 or 4 card CrossFireX are not supported due to the lack of PCI-Express lanes available in this configuration. There is no integrated nForce 200MCP or anything to deal with. Anyone looking for a solution capable of supporting those technologies might want to look at the P8P67 WS Revolution as that’s probably better suited to your needs.
Main Specifications Overview:
Detailed Specifications Overview:
Packaging
The packaging is on the surface the same as what I’ve seen on the P8P67 WS Revolution and P8P67 Pro motherboards. However this one actually has a flap and a window in it to show off the board. Well sort of, it’s in an anti-static bag and you can’t really see much of anything. The box did a superb job of making sure the board arrived functional and damage free. Included in the box are the following accessories: User’s Guide, I/O Shield, Q-Connectors, driver disk, 2 SATA 3G cables, 4 SATA 6G cables, front panel USB 3.0 box, and 1 SLI bridge.
Board Layout
The P8P67 Deluxe has an excellent layout. I have no complaints in looking at the board. Aesthetically, the board is pleasing to the eyes. Layout and color scheme are all good. It’s not the coolest looking board I’ve seen, but it’s certainly not "Biostar ugly." The PCB’s revision is marked as "1.03."
The CPU socket area is clear of obstructions and I was able to test fit a Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme and its LGA1155 bolt-through kit without difficulty. Memory clearances are tight with such a cooler but it will fit and allow you to use all the memory slots.
The P8P67 Deluxe has the usual color coding for DIMM slots to denote proper dual channel mode operation. Additionally ASUS is using what seems to be their standard DIMM slots with only one sided locking tabs. These take some getting used to at first, but I’m really starting to like these. This board doesn’t need those as there is plenty of room for traditional locking tabs on both sides of the DIMM slots, but logistically, I think ASUS has decided that all boards will get these going forward. I’m not sure if that’s the case or not, but it seems to be given what I’m seeing on all their boards now.
There isn’t a north bridge really as the chipset is unified. The south bridge though is covered by a single flat heat sink which has a lighted ASUS logo in it. Directly in front of that are 8 SATA ports. 50% of those are SATA 3G and the others are SATA 6G. The light blue ones indicate 3G ports while the white / gray and darker blue ports denote SATA 6G ports. These are tied to the P67 and Marvell 9128 controllers respectively.
The expansion slot area is OK. While ASUS has simply configured each of their P8P67 boards to fulfill certain respective markets, I’m not personally thrilled by having two legacy PCI slots and one semi-useful PCI-Express x1 slot. This is a functional setup, but it’s not necessarily what I’d choose. Fortunately there are tons of P8P67 models to fulfill almost anyone’s needs.
The I/O panel contains a single PS/2 port which can be used for either mice or keyboards. There are 8 USB 2.0/1,1 ports, 2 USB 3.0 ports, 2 RJ-45 ports, S/PDIF out, 1 optical out, 2 eSATA ports, (one is a powered port) CMOS reset, and six mini-headphone jacks for audio output. There is also a Bluetooth receiver built in which can be seen here as well.