P67 Roundup Part Two

tacohunter52 - September 8, 2011
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Testing:

Testing this group of P67-based motherboards will include running them through the OCC test suite of benchmarks that include both synthetic benchmarks and real world applications to see how each of these boards perform. The gaming tests will also include a couple of synthetic benchmarks and actual gameplay to see if similarly prepared setups offer any performance advantages. Each board received a fully updated fresh install of Windows 7 Professional 64-bit edition and used the latest drivers for each board and the latest AMD Catayst drivers for the HD 5870. In light of the recent announcement from Intel, each board has been re-tested using the SATA 6Gb/s ports.

Testing Setup: Intel Core i5/i7 Socket 1155

Processors: Core i7 2600K
Cooling: Noctua NH-U12P SE 1366
Motherboard: Various
Memory: Mushkin 996805 Redline PC312800 6-8-6-24 1600MHz 4GB
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD5870
Power Supply: Mushkin 1000W Joule Modular power supply
Hard Drive: 1 x Seagate 1TB SATA
Optical Drive: Lite-On Blu-Ray
Case: Cooler Master HAF 932
OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

Comparison Boards:

ASUS P8P67 WS Revolution
ASUS P8P67 Pro
ASUS Maximus IV Extreme
ECS P67H2-A
Intel DP67BG
MSI Z68A-GD80

Overclocking:

Overclocked Settings:

Processor: Intel Core i7 2600K at 102.8 x 46 = 4728MHz
Motherboard: Sapphire P67 Pure Black

Overclocking the Sapphire P67 Pure Black Hydra was slightly different than what we've gotten used to, do to the fact that it is still using AMI BIOS. Getting higher clock speeds was a little bit trickier with this board, but in the end we were able to see a decent overclock of 4728MHz. The Sapphire TriXX utility doesn't have as many features as you'd find in the BIOS, but it still allows for some nice on-the-fly tweaks.

Processor: Intel Core i7 2600K at 105 x 46 = 4830MHz
Motherboard: ASUS SABERTOOTH

Overclocking the second generation i7 processors is nothing like overclocking the original i7s. Instead of pushing the BCLK to insanely high frequencies, you rely primarily on the multiplier. This in itself has allowed many people to hit ridiculous speeds on air cooling, which is always a fun thing to see! We've recently seen quite a few overclocks on ASUS boards and each of them was upwards of 4900MHz, so we should be able to expect that the SABERTOOTH will overclock just as well. In the end, the board was able to give us a core clock of 4830MHz, which isn't as good as what we've been seeing from ASUS boards. However, it's still a tasty increase.

Processor: Intel Core i7 2600K at 103.2 x 47 = 4849MHz
Motherboard: ASUS P8P67 DELUXE

Overclocking the ASUS P8P67 Deluxe was a lot like overclocking the ASUS SABERTOOTH, as it should be considering they use the same uEFI BIOS. The TurboV worked beautifully, easily scaling the chip up to 4.4GHz because the internal PLL voltage override is not an adjustment that is made in the overclocking algorithm. After a plethora of tweaks and stability testing, we were able to see a nice stable overclock at 4849MHz, just slightly faster than what we saw from the ASUS SABERTOOTH.