ASUS P8P67 Deluxe Preview
Category : P67
Published by Marc Büchel on 30.12.10
The P8P67 Deluxe will be ASUS' flagship model regarding the standard desktop models which supports Intels upcoming CPUs. Therefore it's able to score with a long featurelist and there are even some very interesting things like an overclocking feature which automatically overclocks you CPU using an integrated stability test to make sure that the clock speed reached is also stable.





The P8P67 Deluxe belongs to the high end motherboards regarding ASUS lineup for the upcoming Intel CPUs. Therefore we're really curious what they've done from the layout and design perspective.

Page 1 - Introduction Page 4 - Connectors and I/O
Page 2 - Specifications / Delivery Page 5 - Conclusion
Page 3 - Layout  



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Spezifikationen / Lieferumfang

CPU Intel Socket 1155 Core i7, Core i5, Core i3
Chipset Intel P67
Memory Triple Channel DDR3, 4 x DIMM, Max. 32 GB DDR3, 2200+/2133/1866/1600/1333/1066/800 Non-ECC,Un-buffered
Multi-GPU ATI CrossFireX
NVIDIA SLI
Slots 2 x PCI-Express x16 (dual at x8/x8 mode)
1 x PCI-Express x16 (at x4 mode, compatible with PCIe x1 and x4 devices)
2 x PCI-Express 2.0 x1
2x PCI
Sound Realtek ALC888 8-Channel HD Audio Codec
Storage 4 x SATA 6.0 Gb/s (RAID 0, 1, 5, 0+1)
4 x SATA 3.0 Gb/s  (RAID 0, 1, 5, 0+1, JBOD)
LAN 2 x Gigabit LAN
Firewire 2 x 1394a ports (1 via backpanel, 1 via motherboard header)
USB 4 x USB 3.0/2.0 (2 via back panel, 2 via front panel)
12 x USB 2.0/1.1 Connectors (8 via back panel, 4 via motherboard header)
Fan connectors 5 Connectors
Forfactor ATX (30.5cm x 24.4cm)
BIOS Bios (2 x 32 Mb flash ROM, EFI AMI BIOS)




Regarding the delivery you'll find everything you need. Under certain circumstances you might wish there was an additional SLI or CrossFire bridge in the delivery but the fact that this is an aggressively priced product makes it understandable why they didn't do that.


Features

EPU If you activate the EPU this chip monitors all possible voltages and clock speeds and automatically sets them to guarantee an energy efficient operation of you system.
   
TPU As soon as one activates the TPU this chips monitors all possible voltages and clock speeds using the according software. The difference to the EPU is that TPU will provide as much performance as possible. Therefore it can increase clock speeds and voltages.
   
Digital Power Design Meanwhile ASUS also provides its boards with digital power designs. Using the the right software, in this case ASUS DIGI+ VRM Utility it is not only possible to adjust voltages whilst being in Windows on can now also control impedances.
   
BT GO! BT GO! can be classified as a very typical gadget using which it is possbile to for example remote control your PC via your mobile phone. There is also some functionality to synchronize folders in fact one can do quite a lot using BT GO!


Page 1 - Introduction Page 4 - Connectors and I/O
Page 2 - Specifications / Delivery Page 5 - Conclusion
Page 3 - Layout  



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Layout

Already at a first glance the ASUS P8P67 Deluxe looks very good with it harmonic design. The colors look suite nicely and the different blue tones on a black PCB are calming. The layout itself is well thought and there is for example plenty of space around the CPU socket to install even todays largest CPU coolers.


ASUS provided the P8P67 Deluxe with a 16+2 phase current supply whereas the CPU can rely on 16 phases and the memory gets its own two phases. Furthermore ASUS implemented a digital power design which should emit less electromagnetic radiation than its analogue counterpart. Therefore ASUS claims that the system stability can be enhanced even further, especially during extreme overclocking.


Totally you'll find four DIMM-slots on the P8P67 Deluxe. Officially supported are DDR3-2200+/2133/1866/1600/1333/1066 with up to 32 GByte capacity. The DIMM-slots are quite close to the CPU socket which might cause some compatibility problems with big coolers especially when you choose to install RAM with big heatspreaders.


Northbridge, Southbridge as well as the current converters are being held at adequate temperatures via a passive heatpipe cooling solution. The aluminium blocks around the CPU socket are quite big. In fact they are that big that installing big CPU coolers might not be possible in some cases depending on the coolers clamping mechanism.

  


Page 1 - Introduction Page 4 - Connectors and I/O
Page 2 - Specifications / Delivery Page 5 - Conclusion
Page 3 - Layout  



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Anschlüsse und I/O

Totally ASUS provided the P8P67 Deluxe with eight angled SATA ports which should be enough for any office PC or gaming system. You'll also find practical onboard power- and reset-buttons. ASUS even thought of a debug display which is very useful if you should once have issues with one of the components in your system. 

  

Totally you'll find five fan header on the P8P67 Deluxe which is more than enough, to provide a well equipped midrange or high-end-system with fresh air. The fanheaders are located around the CPU socket as well as at the bottom edge of the mainboard.

  

Looking at the external connectors directly at the back-panel ASUS provided the P8P67 Deluxe with a PS2 mouse/keyboard connector, eight USB 2.0/1.1 ports, a firewire port, tow eSATA ports, a bluetooth transmitter/receiver, two gigabit ethernet port, a SPDIF and coaxial optical out as well as an analogue audio panel.



Page 1 - Introduction Page 4 - Connectors and I/O
Page 2 - Specifications / Delivery Page 5 - Conclusion
Page 3 - Layout  



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Fazit

Allgemein   + -
At a first glance ASUS leaves a good impression with its P8P67 Deluxe. 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.   - Design
 
 
       
Layout   + -

Generally the ASUS P8P67 Deluxe's Layout is well thought. Once more very practical are the angled SATA connectors as well as the power- and reset-buttons. Also the debug display is very useful in case you should have issues with a component in your system or the board itself. Furthermore the placement of the PCI-Express x16 slots is also well thought an therefore nothing needs to be criticized at this point. 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
       


Page 1 - Introduction Page 4 - Connectors and I/O
Page 2 - Specifications / Delivery Page 5 - Conclusion
Page 3 - Layout  


Discuss this article in the forums

Author: m.buechel@ocaholic.ch