ASUS P8Z68-V Pro Review
Published by Marc Büchel on 07.06.11Page:
Conclusion
| Allgemein | + | - | |
| At a first glance ASUS leaves a
good impression with its P8Z68-VPro. Unfortunately there still are
some things which could have been done in a better way. Most importantly
there are the cooling blocks which keep the current supply at adequate
temperatures. They're simply too big which has the consequence that
several high end aircoolers are not compatible with this board. On the
other hand the board looks absolutely marvellous. We very much like the
color design and to us it very appealing. At this point we'll also mention some thoughts about Lucids Viru software which comes bundled with this board. Generally the idea behind Virtu is very good. Using the integrated as well as a discrete graphics solution concurrently is a very nice feature. Unfortunately our tests revealed that there is neither a performance gain nor energy savings. Therefore one might doubt the sense this software makes. The story with Intels Smart Response Technology as quite similar. The idea behind this techology is very interesting but in our opinion it is three years too late. Back then it would have made the transition to SSDs easier or smoother, especially for endusers but these days even the big SSDs are becoming affordable. |
- Design |
||
| Layout | + | - | |
| Generally the ASUS P8Z68-VPro's Layout has been very well thought. Once more practical are the angled SATA connectors as well as the power- and reset-buttons. Unfortuntately there is no debug display which would have been very useful in case you should have issues with a component in your system or the board itself. Furthermore the placement of the third PCI-Express slot isn't perfect. We would have love to see it as the second last expansion sloat onboard but in with the P8Z68-VPro it is the last and therefore when a dual slot video card is being installed in the last PCI-Express x16 slot it will cover the connectors at the bottom edge of the board. Unfortunately as we already phrased out in the text above there are some issues if you focus on the CPU socket. The aluminium blocks which keep the current converters cool can cause compatibility problems with high end CPU coolers. Another thing is the DIMM slots. They are also very close to the socket. In this case memory which is equipped with big heatspreaders can also collide with big aircoolers. | - Angled SATA connectors - Power/Reset-Button onboard - Debug display |
- Space
around CPU socket - DIMM slots close to the CPU socket - PCI-Express x16 as last expansion slot |
|
| Performance | + | - | |
| In general this board
is an average performer. It is able to show it's muscles in Super Pi but
on the other hand during our gaming benchmarks it wasn't able to fully
convince. But never the less, from a performance point of view this
board leaves a solid impression. If we look a the performance when Lucid Virtu is activated we see that there is a drop in the single digit percentage range. Therefor the question we've been raising earlier in this review gets some more substance and we don't really understand the point of this software. |
- Super Pi | ||
| Overclocking / BIOS | + | - | |
| Focussing only on the settings, overclocking definitely isn't something unknown for the P68Z-V Pro. Furthermore we also reached the maximum clock speed of our test CPU, which is 5'200 MHz. Looking at the P68Z-V Pros EFI BIOS we find it well structured. You'll quickly find all the different settings and it also resets itself if you should set values that do not work. | - Well structured BIOS
|
||
| Recommendation | + | - | |
| If you want to build a gaming PC or a well performing desktop rig then the ASUS P8Z68-V Pro will be a safe bet. For a very competitive price you'll get a lot of performance. | -
Gaming PC - Performance Desktop |
The P8Z68-V Pro can be bought at Digitec to a price of CHF 199.- (est. EUR 153.-).
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Author: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch Copy edited and translated: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch c.ney@ocaholic.ch
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