P8P67 Pro and P8P67

[Deafyx]

I have waited some time to find a P8P67 Pro board after hearing all the good things about the board. But newegg has still not suprised me and put the board back up for sale. ATX, not MicroATX btw. So now I am most likely going to just get the regular P8P67 board, from what I can see is that Im just losing the option to SLI in the future. Is that the only major difference between these boards?

[Saithes]

It's not newegg... It's kind of hard to sell something that the manufacturer(ASUS) can't provide.

Here's a rundown on the differences.
http://www.overclock.net/intel-mothe...therboard.html

[Deafyx]

It's not newegg... It's kind of hard to sell something that the manufacturer(ASUS) can't provide.

Here's a rundown on the differences.
http://www.overclock.net/intel-mothe...therboard.html

Are you saying they do not make those boards anymore?

[Saithes]

Are you saying they do not make those boards anymore?

No, I'm saying the demand for P67's is quite high and the supply is quite low. They just got re-released and no manufacturer is expected to become fully operational and widespread until May or so.

Right now boards are trickling in rather than mass shipments.

[Deafyx]

I read the link you posted. I am not that computer literate, but I can see I am losing some PCI slots. So that answers my question.

[Plasmon]

That's not the only difference.

Pro has these features over regular from what I can remember:
1. Intel LAN, which is much more efficient than the Marvell LAN and uses less CPU. Something like 1% of CPU compared to 4% for Marvell. People also say that the intel LAN is more stable, but that's a bit subjective information.
2. Pro can do SLI/Crossfire at x8/x8 for the top two PCI-E slots. I don't think the second PCI-E slot on the regular board can run at x8.
3. Comes with a USB3.0 backplate to connect to the 19-pin USB adaptor on the board. Basically, it's effectively 2 extra USB 2.0 slots on the back.
4. Coaxial audio out, eSATA, and Power eSATA on the I/O backplate. Regular doesn't have those.

If those things aren't that important to you, which for most people the only thing interesting would be the Intel, and if you can get the regular version significantly cheaper than Pro, then stick with regular.

[Zanno]

SLI is overrated. You are spending twice the amount of money for minimal gain. To me that's a bit ridiculous. Grab yourself a fantastic card and don't worry about SLI. You aren't missing much. If SLI were to offer twice the FPS for twice the money, it might be worth it if you play extremely heavy load games like Crysis or something that has extreme graphics. Imagine getting 130fps with one card, and then you slap that SLI together and BAM, 145fps. get my point? The only thing you need to worry about in modern games is keeping your frame rates above or at 60. Sometimes SLI can help with this, but again, not worth it.

I would go for the regular board if I were you. Save yourself some cash. Sorry you had to read all that crap just to get to the good stuff

[Saithes]

SLI is overrated. You are spending twice the amount of money for minimal gain. To me that's a bit ridiculous. Grab yourself a fantastic card and don't worry about SLI. You aren't missing much. If SLI were to offer twice the FPS for twice the money, it might be worth it if you play extremely heavy load games like Crysis or something that has extreme graphics. Imagine getting 130fps with one card, and then you slap that SLI together and BAM, 145fps. get my point? The only thing you need to worry about in modern games is keeping your frame rates above or at 60. Sometimes SLI can help with this, but again, not worth it.

I would go for the regular board if I were you. Save yourself some cash. Sorry you had to read all that crap just to get to the good stuff

Minimal gain huh? How's a 90%+ performance increase minimal...? Because that's what I received from my second GTX 460.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/313?vs=314

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/308?vs=305

You must not have looked into SLi much lately... The GTX 400/500 series scale like madmen.

[Jurwi]

Minimal gain huh? How's a 90%+ performance increase minimal...? Because that's what I received from my second GTX 460.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/313?vs=314

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/308?vs=305

You must not have looked into SLi much lately... The GTX 400/500 series scale like madmen.

SLI has some nice raw power, but with a price.

1. It doesn't give you the "sick" extra performance in every game. Nowadays in most games yea, but still not all.
2. You're gonna have to wait for driver update to get full benefit for a lot of new games. That sucks donkeyballs if you're the kind of guy who wants to play everything when they come out brand new.
3. The minimum fps drops are often much worse with SLI compared to a single powerful card. FPS is more jumpy than steady.
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_stuttering

[Saithes]

SLI has some nice raw power, but with a price.
4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_stuttering

Micro stuttering is a thing of past since the nForce 200 chips aren't used as much. There's like 3 P67's so far that have used it out of the 30 or so released. I'd stay away from any board using an nForce 200

[Jurwi]

There was some testing done about it on a finnish computer enthusiast site about Radeon 5970 & 6990, there was still some microstuttering to be found. Not as bad as back in the day, but it does still exist.

[Saithes]

There was some testing done about it on a finnish computer enthusiast site about Radeon 5970 & 6990, there was still some microstuttering to be found. Not as bad as back in the day, but it does still exist.

Yeah the dual gpu cards still have a bit of microstuttering, but with normal SLi/Crossfire there isn't any. Dual GPU cards still use the bridge chips between the GPU's, which still causes latency but with normal SLi or Crossfire there is no bridge chip so the cards are essentially directly interlinked.

So ontop of the normal latency from the PCI-E Controller on either the NB or CPU, you're receiving excess latency from the PCI-E slots then the nForce 200 chip on the PCB or the AMD Crossfire PCI-E Bridge chip on their cards. With only having to go through the PCI-E Controller on the CPU/NB and the PCI-E slots, there's no noticeable latency unless of course you have an old chipset lol.

Moral of the story... nForce 200 or Crossfire Bridge Chip = Bad lol.. Lucid Hydra also has some microstuttering to it because its a bridge chip. It's why in a benchmark test done by HardOCP, the nForce 200 chip actually slows down GTX 480's when in dual SLi compared to running it on a P67 without an nForce 200 chip and you get major microstuttering.

[coldfiredragon]

I have waited some time to find a P8P67 Pro board after hearing all the good things about the board. But newegg has still not suprised me and put the board back up for sale. ATX, not MicroATX btw. So now I am most likely going to just get the regular P8P67 board, from what I can see is that Im just losing the option to SLI in the future. Is that the only major difference between these boards?

As some one else pointed out the demand for the P67 is very high and supply low (because of the recall). If you wait a few weeks it should show back up in the retail channels. So unless you need it right this second I would say wait and get the board you reall want.

[Asera]

Considering everyone is gung ho about Asus boards because of their rep, you could opt for a Gigabyte, MSI, or ASRock board. I've never had an issue with a Gigabyte board myself (I've had 2), can't say much for ASRock or MSI.