ASUS Sabertooth P67 Motherboard Review

👤by David Mitchelson Comments 📅12-01-11
Test Setup & Overclocking

CPU Intel Core i5 2500K (3.3GHz)
Motherboards
ASUS Sabertooth P67
ASUS P8P67 (LGA1155)
Foxconn P67A-S
ECS P67H2-A (Black Extreme)
Memory 4GB OCZ Reaper 1600MHz 8-8-8-26
CPU Cooler Noctua NH-C14
Graphics ZOTAC GTX 460
PSU OCZ Fatal1ty 750W

All P67 Sandy Bridge motherboards will be benchmarked against each other using the Intel Core i5 2500K. The maximum overclock will also be included within the proceeding benchmark tests to identify performance gains as a result of tweaking CPU clock speed via the multiplier.

Overclocking

As previously mentioned in our Intel Core i5 Sandy Bridge Roundup - overclocking is achieved by altering the multiplier rather than the BCLK. So the BCLK stays at 100MHz and the multiplier is modified. So if we have 100MHz on the BCLK and 40 for the multiplier this will obviously output 4GHz. We chose to use the Intel Core i5 2500K across each of the motherboard tests and indeed for the overclocking due to its unlocked multiplier.

With overclocking simplified on Sandy Bridge, this means that achieving the best overclock couldn't be easier. CPU voltage and multiplier just need to be modified accordingly. I began slowly nudging up the multiplier from 33 (3.3GHz). Ultimately I managed to overclock the 2500K by 1000MHz giving a clock-speed of 4.3GHz. We have now tested the 2500K on a number of motherboards and it will not move past 4.3GHz, so we are certain that the CPU is limiting the overclock. For the moment, Intel have not responded to this - until then our motherboard reviews will only feature a max overclock of 4.3GHz. At least this will compare all of the boards overclocking performance benchmarks fairly and be interesting to compare scores at the same level etc.


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