ASUS' new motherboard comes with its own flame retardant suit! Okay, well, more of a shroud. And it's not really a retardant... just read the damn review!
The big cat ASUS has gone hunting for reputation amongst the P67 fan base, serving up a clawful of tech with its new Sabertooth motherboard. An enthusiast board which doesn't break the bank is a highly sought after beast, particularly when the platform is aimed at the mainstream market. It's part of what ASUS calls the 'TUF' (The Ultimate Force) series, which, and we quote “delivers a 'tough' image”. We guess that with the weight of modern motherboards, you could get away with using it as a breastplate with some success – and it does have an advantage over your average board - heat armour!
I'm sorry, did I just read armour?!| Precisely. Differentiation within the motherboard market is becoming increasingly difficult, so what better way to turn heads than putting a plastic cover over the entire motherboard, sticking a small fan in it, and throwing in a few buzzwords. The main premise is that it shields the motherboard from the intensive heat generated by internal components such as your graphics cards and CPU. It's a black plastic plate with a block pattern, and we admit, we're a fan of the refreshingly clean look.
Initially, we thought it was an awfully elaborate way to add a superfluous noise source, and curiously, the fan doesn't actually come included! There's also the issue of dust being collected under the shielding, which we decided we're going to test using nothing other than fine flour, a sifter, and a case full of unwilling components prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice. Keep a look out for the results!
Performance to tackle the kings We inserted our abused Intel i7 2600K into the motherboard for some good ol' fashioned overclocking. We know from previous attempts that this chip can hit 5GHz stable at 1.45v. This motherboard comes with an EFI version capable of CPU PLL overvoltage, so we launched straight into action and threw the clock rate up to 5GHz. The voltage was set to 1.45v with 'Very High' LLC. Prime95 blend test was happy with that, and CPU-z reported a load voltage of 1.44v, and idle of 1.455v. Not bad. We then tried 'Extreme' LLC and noticed an overly enthusiastic jump from 1.45v to 1.496v under load – ouch! Unfortunately, we couldn't get the board stable at 5.1GHz without heading into permanent damage territory.
We've seen what the mighty Maximus IV Extreme and P67-UD7 can do, so can a lowly midrange board compete in the same space? Our benchmarks say so, with results showing similar results to the significantly more expensive Maximus. We noticed that memory latency took a large hit (about 10ns), but throughput is better overall. It's a tradeoff we're willing to accept given the price of the board.
Play your cards right The Sabertooth is your typical P67 motherboard; it's limited by its PCI-e bandwidth and subsequently, constricted to single and dual card setups. There's no Nvidia NF200 to prop up PCI-e bandwidth and add support for triple/quad card setups unlike some of the premium boards, which explains why only two 16x PCI-e slots are provided (each running at 8x effectively). This isn't really an issue unless you feel the need to run exuberant multi-card set-ups with diminishing returns on investment. That being said, you can still run two dual-core GPUs in either Crossfire or SLI mode.
Our legacy friend the 33.33MHz PCI slot has reared its ugly head once again, for those who still have old Wi-Fi cards and other assorted peripherals. Three PCI-e 1x slots are provided for the modern alternatives.
Connectivity is your standard affair, with two NEC powered USB3.0 ports on the I/O panel (and 2 motherboard headers), eight USB2.0 (and six motherboard headers), IEEE 1394 (FireWire), a red SATA and green eSATA port (each 3Gb/s) and a single Gigabit LAN port. Plus the usual Realtek powered S/PDIF and 8-channel audio output.
Accessories include two SATA3 and two SATA2 cables, SLI bridge, and a Q-connector (a fancy little adapter to make inserting those annoying case switches/lights into the motherboard easier).
ASUS's handy MemOK technology has been implemented, too. If you've been a little too enthusiastic during memory tweaking and your motherboard refuses to boot, a little LED will light up to alert you of a problem. The provided MemOK button will change your memory settings to regain stability, thereby allowing you to re-enter EFI setup to try again. Memory boot issues irritate us greatly, so this feature is most welcome.
We greatly miss the debug display, and onboard on/reset switches. They make benchmarking that little bit easier. We didn't really expect them on a motherboard at this price range, but we can always dream! On a lighter note, the board layout is great, and despite the small ATX form factor, massive air coolers will fit provided you use two of the four available memory slots.
A phase we're going through More phases equates to added efficiency and greater capacity to provide clean power. The Sabertooth P67 has 8+2 phases, which is plenty for a good overclock – and our results don't disagree! It may not match the 16+ phases of the premium boards, however it's not about the number of phases when it comes to real-world performance, it's about the quality of the components that make them up. So, how's the quality? Military grade, we're told. There's even a 'Certificate of Reliability' with a checklist of the tests run on the capacitors, chokes, and MOSFETs. Rest assured that this particular motherboard is a perfectly capable, well priced, piece of kit.
Issue: 137 | June, 2012