discussion ASUS Sabertooth P67 B3 Sandy Bridge Motherboard Review

[Eldonko]

BIOS Rundown p.2

BIOS Rundown

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The first submenu of the Advanced menu is CPU Configuration. The items in this menu show the CPU-related information that the BIOS automatically detects as well as several adjustable items. CPU Ratio allows you to set the ratio between the CPU Core Clock and the BCLK Frequency. Intel Adaptive Thermal Monitor allows an overheated CPU to throttle its clock speed to cool down. This a good setting to keep enabled for safety reasons. Intel Hyper-Threading Technology allows a hyper-threading processor to appear as two logical processors to the operating system, allowing the operating system to schedule two threads or processes simultaneously.

Active Processor Cores allows you to choose the number of CPU cores to activate. In most cases this will be kept to the All setting. Execute Disable Bit enables the No-Execution Page Protection Technology. For a slight boost in memory performance this can be disabled. Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology allows you to enable or disable the Enhanced Intel SpeedStep Technology (EIST). Disable this to stop your multiplier from dropping when the CPU is idle. The Turbo Mode setting appears only when you set the EIST item to Enabled and allows you to enable or disable the Intel Turbo Mode Technology.

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The System Agent Configuration page is where you find graphics modes and the PCH Configuration page is where you enable or disable the High Precision Event Timer. Enabling the High Precision Event Timer is fastest possible way to access a clock source but it may be less precise so users should test FPS with this setting Enabled and Disabled and see if there are any differences.

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The SATA Configuration page allows you to set up SATA devices. SATA Mode allows you to set the SATA configuration and has IDE, AHCI, and RAID modes. S.M.A.R.T. Status Check (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology) is a monitoring system that allows the hard disk to report warning messages during the POST if any read/write errors occur.

Next up we have USB (above right) and Onboard Devices Configuration (not shown) screens. Here you can configure any device on the board. When benchmarking you can disable any unneeded device to utilize fewer resources and improve scores.

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The Monitor section contains the system temperature/power status, and adjustable fan settings. Since we are running a watercooling system without any fans attached to fan headers on the board, fan controls were all set to ignore or disable.

The next tab over is the Boot menu where you can change the system boot options. This is where we disable the full screen logo so we can view POST messages and setup boot option priorities. In the boot menu you can also setup the default UEFI BIOS mode to either EZ or Advanced.

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The Tools menu contains EZ Flash 2, OC Profiles, and SPD Information for your memory. One of the handiest parts of the Sabertooth BIOS is the ASUS OC Profiles page (shown above right). Here you can save various BIOS profiles which save a ton of time when overclocking. The only issue is if you flash your BIOS the profiles get reset.

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The ASUS SPD Information page displays the SPD from your memory modules including JEDEC and XMP profiles.

EZ Flash 2 is a BIOS flashing utility that can be used to flash a BIOS from a USB drive. This is much safer than flashing from Windows and we always recommend using EZ Flash 2 if you are looking to update your board’s BIOS.

 

[Eldonko]

Test Setup and Testing Methodology

Test Setup and Testing Methodology

Test Setup

Our test setup consists of an Intel i7 2600k Sandy Bridge CPU, ASUS Sabertooth P67 motherboard, and a kit of G.Skill memory. Here are a few shots of the setup and hardware:

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First we have the whole test bench up and running. As you can see we used watercooling (Apogee XT) for the CPU along with two heatercores. A second GTX 460 was also added for SLI testing.

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Above you can have a closer look at the CPU and memory. The 2600k used for testing was from batch L040B165.


Overclocking Methodology

At Hardware Canucks, we understand we have a diverse reader base and to represent a variety of user types, we put the Sabertooth P67 through two types overclocking tests.

• Beginner Overclocker - To represent a beginner overclocker or a mainstream user that wants to have a quick and easy way to get some extra performance we used the OC Tuner setting found in the BIOS.
• Experienced Overclocker - To represent an experienced overclocker that is looking for the optimal 24/7 overclock to maximize system performance while keeping voltage and temperatures in check we overclocked the Sabertooth P67 manually and stopped when we started to get concerned with voltage levels.

We did stability testing a little differently for the Sandy Bridge platform than usual. The main stability test used was Linpack (LinX version 0.6.4) with memory usage set to 2,560MB and 25 loops run. In the enthusiast world, Linpack is a benchmark designed to measure performance on Intel CPUs in GFlops. However, it's also a very useful tool for checking the stability of a CPU and memory. LinX picks up very quickly and if you are able to complete a 25 loop test with the specifications above your system is likely stable or very close to it. Typically we would run LinX much longer than 25 loops and add in Prime95 and OCCT; however there have been reports of degrading Sandy Bridge CPU overclockability with running these types of torture tests for long periods.

To avoid risking damage to the processor, after LinX stability was achieved, 3 runs of 3DMark Vantage and 3 runs of 3DMark 11 were run to test 3D stability. Once an overclock passed these tests, this is the point deemed as “stable” for the purposes of this review.

Windows 7 Service Pack 1 was installed to take advantage of the Advanced Vector Extensions (AVX) with Sandy Bridge processors. Intel AVX is a 256-bit SIMD floating point vector extension of Intel architecture. The BIOS used for overclocking and benchmarking was version 9901, dated 04/21/2011. This is a beta BIOS version however the latest retail version will be very similar in terms of layout and performance.


Benchmarking Methodology

Benchmarks in the System Benchmarks section will be a comparison of the i7 2600k at stock speed, at auto overclock speed as set by OC Tuner, and at maximum 24/7 overclock to give an idea of how much performance a user can gain when overclocking the Sabertooth P67. For SLI tests, the 24/7 overclocked speed was used to test performance between one and two GTX 460 video cards in 3D benchmarks and games.

For stock testing, optimized defaults were loaded putting the CPU at 3511Mhz (35 x 100.03) and memory at 669Mhz and 9-9-9-24 1T timings. Optimized defaults enable Turbo by default hence the 3511Mhz instead of 3400Mhz which is the stock speed of the processor. The auto overclocked speed on the i7 2600k for OC Tuner was 4430Mhz (43 x 103.0) with memory at 961Mhz and 9-9-9-24 2T timings. The overclocked speed on the i7 2600k for 24/7 stability was 5000Mhz (50 x 100.0) with memory at 1067Mhz and 9-9-9-28 1T timings. Nvidia ForceWare 266.58 drivers were used for 3D along with Windows 7 Pro 64 bit SP1.

 

[Eldonko]

Overclocking Results

Overclocking Results

Although ASUS doesn’t have the overclocking focus for this board like many competitors, it does not mean that the Sabertooth doesn’t cater to enthusiasts and overclockers. If you look at the engineering of an ASUS board and the BIOS it looks like overclocker’s needs have been met entirely, whether it be intentional or not.


Automatic Overclocking Results

The OC Tuner utility is found in the UEFI BIOS and all you have to do is click ‘ok’ and the system reboots with an auto overclock applied. To determine the OC Tuner frequency and voltage, ASUS boards use an algorithm based on the CPU it detects and sets an appropriate overclock. For our 2600K, OC Tuner boosted the CPU speed to 4430Mhz (43 x 103.0) and memory to 961Mhz @ 9-9-9 2T. A 1000Mhz overclock with the click of a button is as easy as it gets. Plus memory is overclocked automatic as well - something that is not always included in auto overclocking. We threw every stability test we had at the OC Tuner overclock; 3D testing, gaming, LinX, nothing ever picked up an error.

However, as we saw in the P8Z68-V Pro review, when we tried a 2500K, OC Tuner was not giving quite enough voltage and the system would freeze up under load. That said, OC Tuner worked flawlessly with our 2600K, but may not be perfectly configured in all cases. ASUS can easily resolve this in the future with a BIOS update and we will report any progress on this in upcoming reviews.


Manual Overclocking

For manual overclocking we know our chip is capable of 5Ghz since we have achieved this milestone with both the P67A-UD7 and the P8Z68-V Pro. The Sabertooth power delivery (less phases) and VRM components (military standard) are different than our previous two Sandy Bridge test boards so the question was whether the Sabertooth could match its companions when it came to manual overclocking.

As usual, we started with a CPU overclock without touching the memory we went right for 50x multi and 100.0 BCLK. From experience, we knew that this 2600K needs about 1.42v (load) to maintain 5Ghz so we went with offset set to +0.11v and LLC set to High.

In terms of actual voltage readings offset +0.11v and LLC High gave 1.456V idle and 1.416V load; a droop of 0.04v. Load temperatures hovered around 60C with LinX and 66C with prime95 with our water cooling setup and after completing all stability tests we deemed this the optimal voltage for 5Ghz on this chip.

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The next step was to maximize the memory overclock to go along with the 5Ghz on the CPU. Our G.Skill memory is rated for 1067 @ 9-9-9 so that was a natural first step. With 1:8 memory frequency, 1.65v was all we needed for stability. A bit more VCCIO and 1.75v on the memory allowed us to tighten to 7-9-7; however, 1.75v is above what we want for 24/7 so we kept memory at 1067 and 9-9-9 for our 24/7 overclock.

Now after a few weeks of 24-7 use of the Sabertooth and 2600K at 5Ghz, we can report that the board has no issues whatsoever maintaining this overclock and voltage over time. In our books that is rock solid stability.

 

[Eldonko]

System Benchmarks

SuperPI Benchmark

SuperPi calculates the number of digits of PI in a pure 2D benchmark. For the purposes of this review, calculation to 32 million places will be used. RAM speed, RAM timings, CPU speed, L2 cache, and Operating System tweaks all effect the speed of the calculation, and this has been one of the most popular benchmarks among enthusiasts for several years.

SuperPi was originally written by Yasumasa Kanada in 1995 and was updated later by snq to support millisecond timing, cheat protection and checksum. The version used in these benchmarks, 1.5 is the official version supported by hwbot.

Results: A 23% increase in SuperPI 32M is noted going from stock speed of 3511Mhz (Turbo is on by default) to OC Tuner speed of 4430Mhz on the i7 2600k and ASUS Sabertooth P67. Not bad for five seconds of effort. Jumping up to the manual overclock speed of 5000Mhz a 31% gain is noted. A 31% boost in PI time is a very nice gain and well worth the effort to overclock.


CINEBENCH R11.5

CINEBENCH is a real-world cross platform test suite that evaluates your computer's performance capabilities. CINEBENCH is based on MAXON's award-winning animation software CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation.

In this system benchmark section we will use the x64 Main Processor Performance (CPU) test scenario. The Main Processor Performance (CPU) test scenario uses all of the system's processing power to render a photorealistic 3D scene (from the viral "No Keyframes" animation by AixSponza). This scene makes use of various algorithms to stress all available processor cores. The test scene contains approximately 2,000 objects which in turn contain more than 300,000 polygons in total, and uses sharp and blurred reflections, area lights, shadows, procedural shaders, antialiasing, and much more. The result is displayed in points (pts). The higher the number, the faster your processor.

Results: The CINEBENCH R11.5 results also show an impressive increase in performance in rendering moving from a stock system to two levels of an overclocked system. For CPU rendering, up to a 16% improvement (in points) is noted when moving to the OC Tuner speed of 4430Mhz and up to a 38% improvement is noted when moving to 5000Mhz!


Sandra Processor Arithmetic and Processor Multi-Media Benchmarks

SiSoftware Sandra (the System ANalyser, Diagnostic and Reporting Assistant) is an information & diagnostic utility. The software suite provides most of the information (including undocumented) users like to know about hardware, software, and other devices whether hardware or software. The name “Sandra” is a (girl) name of Greek origin that means "defender", "helper of mankind".

The software version used for these tests is SiSoftware Sandra Professional Home XII.SP2c and the two benchmarks used are the Processor Multi-Media and Processor Arithmetic benchmarks. These three benchmarks were chosen as they provide a good indication of three varying types of system performance. The multi-media test shows how the processor handles multi-media instructions and data and the arithmetic test shows how the processor handles arithmetic and floating point instructions. These two tests illustrate two important areas of a computer’s speed and provide a wide scope of results.

Results: Sandra processor arithmetic and multi-media show very impressive improvements on an overclocked system, with 42% gains in performance across the board in arithmetic and multi-media for the manual overclock and 26% gains for the OC Tuner overclock.


MaxxMem Benchmark

Created by MaxxPI², the MaxxMem benchmark tests your computer’s raw memory performance, combining copy, read, write and latency tests into one global score. This memory benchmark is a classic way to measure bandwidth of a memory subsystem.
MaxxMem uses continuous memoryblocks, sized in power of 2 from 16MB up to 512MB, starting either writing to or reading from it. To enable high-precision memory performance measurement, they both internally work with multiple passes and averages calculations per run.

Further, the main goal was to minimize (CPU) cache pollution on memory reads and to eliminate it (almost completely) on memory writes. Additionally, MaxxMem operates with an aggressive data prefetching algorithm. This all will deliver an excellent judge of bandwidth while reading and writing.

Results: Moving from stock speed to OC Tuner speeds of 4430Mhz and 961Mhz on memory we see impressive gains of 25-30% in memory read, write, and copy. When we move memory speed up to 1067Mhz (1T) and CPU speed to 5000Mhz we see even larger gains of 39-42% in memory read, write, and copy!

The results are similar when looking at latency, an 18% gain is noted at OC Tuner settings and a 29% gain is noted at the manual overclock settings. These findings show that it is not only CPU power will give you the best performance, but optimizing your memory goes a long way as well.

 

[Eldonko]

SLI Benchmarks

This section will put the Sabertooth P67 to the test and provide an overview of single card vs. SLI performance. The objective here is to see how much we gain by adding a second GPU to the system. For SLI testing, two GTX 460s were used, both running at a speed of 763/950. All tests were completed using Nvidia ForceWare 266.58 drivers and Windows 7 Pro 64bit. In the following tests, all SLI comparisons were ran at manual overclock settings (5000Mhz/1067Mhz 9-9-9 1T).


3DMark 11 Benchmark:

3DMark 11 is the most recent release by Futuremark, creators of the 3DMark suite. 3DMark 11 is the latest version of the world’s most popular benchmark for measuring the graphics performance of gaming PCs. Designed for testing DirectX 11 hardware running on Windows 7 and Windows Vista the benchmark includes six all new benchmark tests that make extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading.

After running the tests 3DMark gives your system a score with larger numbers indicating better performance. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

For our testing, we will use the Performance setting with all other settings at default. The build version is the latest Advanced version of 3DMark 11.

Results: If you want that extra 3D performance, the Sabertooth P67 is no slouch with SLI with a gain in 3DMarks (performance preset) of 2,895 or an improvement of 82%!


3DMark Vantage Benchmark:

3DMark Vantage is a recent release by Futuremark, creators of the 3DMark suite. This program was the first Futuremark version of 3DMark designed exclusively for Windows Vista. 3DMark Vantage consists of 2 CPU and 2 GPU tests as well as and 6 feature tests all of which are very hardware intensive. Four presets are available to allow for those with older PCs to benchmark just as easily as those with cutting edge hardware. For our testing, we will use the Performance setting with all other settings at default. The build version is the latest patched version of Vantage v1.0.1.

Results: Similar to 3DMark 11, the Sabertooth also shows a improvement in Vantage with a gain of 73% when a second GTX 460 is added.


World in Conflict Benchmark:

The World in Conflict in-game benchmark is a great test to show video card performance in real gaming situations. Under the Graphics menu in options, you can choose a variety of video settings and there is a "Run Benchmark" button. The actual benchmark uses all of the game’s graphic capabilities and is a good indication which settings will be optimal for a user’s system. For the tests below resolution was set to 1920x1080 and graphics was set to “Very High” which gives fullscreen anti-alias at 4x and anisotropic filtering at 4x.

Results: In a gaming benchmark that simulates gaming situations, the performance gained when running SLI vs. a single card is on par with 3DMark improvements. When adding a second GTX 460, average FPS improves 81%!


Street Fighter IV Benchmark:

This benchmark tool from Capcom was originally released for users to test the capabilities of their PC for the release of Street Fighter 4. The benchmark contains several bouts, filled with hadoukens and kicks to the face and provides users with a score and average frames per second. For our tests we are more concerned with FPS as this is a good indication of how SLI will run in a gaming situation. Settings used were C16xQAA and a resolution of 1920x1080.

Results: Yet another gaming benchmark with huge gains in FPS from SLI. A second GTX 460 improves FPS by a whopping 89%!


Far Cry 2 Benchmark:

Far Cry 2 is the popular first-person shooter from Ubisoft's Montreal studio, and the first game to utilize the new visually stunning Dunia Engine. The Benchmarking is excellent and does a great job in giving an accurate measurement of gaming situations. We ran the Long Ranch demo in DX10 mode at 1920x1080 with all settings set to very high and anti aliasing set to 4x.

Results: The Far Cry 2 DX10 Benchmark is very graphics dependant and shows how the Sabertooth gets the best out of a second video card. FPS almost doubles with a second GTX 460 with an improvement in average FPS of 92%!

As you can see from the tests above, the Sabertooth P67 is great for running SLI as we have seen gains in 3D up to 92% simply by adding a second GPU.

 

[Eldonko]

Testing TUF Armor

Testing TUF Armor

We all know that the look of the TUF Thermal Armor is very, very unique and happens to be one of the major features of the Sabertooth. Naturally, users want to know whether this extensive heatsink works and there are of course many skeptics that think it will do more harm than good. We’re about to put this to the test.

Before we get into the results, let’s spend a few minutes on the testing methodology. In addition to TUF Armor, the Sabertooth P67 has something you don’t see on most boards: its Thermal Radar. Thermal Radar is a part of AI Suite that monitors temperatures at 12 different locations around the motherboard. Above you have a screenshot of Thermal Radar with the 12 temperature locations coded by number. We used this program to test temperature differences using five different configurations which are as follows:

1) Thermal Armor off, no additional airflow added
2) Thermal Armor on, no additional airflow added
3) Thermal Armor off, 120mm fan aimed towards the memory
4) Thermal Armor on, 120mm fan aimed towards the memory
5) Thermal Armor on, 50mm fan installed on the Thermal Armor

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To test the Thermal Armor with and without a 50mm fan, we picked one up at our local PC shop. These fans typically cost $6 to $10 and as was already mentioned one isn’t included with the board so keep that in mind when you see the results. The board does come with the screws for a 50mm fan though.

Consistency in the measurement technique is key for this type of analysis so we maintained the same technique for all five tests. The CPU was at our 5Ghz manual overclock and load vCore was at 1.416v. For loading the system, we started with an idle system and ran Prime95 (8 thread, small FFT) for exactly 10 minutes and took a measurement at the 10 minute point. This method was repeated for all five tests.

The above table is color coded based on each of the 12 temperature sensors. For example, for point 2 which is motherboard, the highest temps of the five methods are in red and the lowest are in green.

As you can see from the averages at the bottom of the table, nothing beats a 120mm fan regardless of if Thermal Armor is installed or not. Tests 3 and 4 (with 120mm fan) were over 10C cooler on average than tests 1 and 2 (without 120mm fan). Adding a 50mm fan (test 5) brought temperatures down midway between tests 1 and 2 (without 120mm) and tests 3 and 4 (with 120mm). Temperatures with and without the Thermal Armor were close, with only slight differences in a few areas.

To take the analysis a step deeper, we created a chart which clearly displays the differences between each of the 12 sensors using all five configurations. The blue line in the middle of the chart (50mm fan test) is one of the most interesting. The 50mm and the TUF Armor ducting cools VCCIO, PCI-E 1, both USB3.0 points, VCCSA, and SATA6G quite well but the other points remain close to the tests where there was no air flow. This shows that the ducting is working to an extent but perhaps the 50mm doesn’t have the power to reach some points such as DRAM, Motherboard, and PCI-E 2.

So what can we conclude from all this? Well first, the TUF Armor is effective to some extent. However, you should have a decent amount of downward air flow around the CPU socket to make efficient use of the ducting. A 50mm does help, but if you can get a downward-pushing CPU cooler or a 120mm fan pointing towards the socket you will get ideal cooling on the Sabertooth. This holds true with or without the TUF Armor but since it does not trap heat even with very little airflow, it does seem to be working…while adding some great looks to the board.

 

[Eldonko]

Conclusion

Conclusion

ASUS has found a niche market for the Sabertooth TUF series and the P67 version fits in to it like a well honed glove. The board is designed for those that want ROG quality components but don’t necessarily need the extra features and associated cost. In all reality, when you look through our results, there isn’t one area in which the Sabertooth is lacking against the competition or even some much higher priced boards.

Meanwhile the TUF Armor gives it a one of a kind look but users will either think it is really cool or really silly. Our tests do tell us however that the ducting is effective to some extent and proper airflow can lead to lower system temperatures.

Getting past the looks, the Sabertooth has some great features like hardware monitoring, an excellent software suite and abundant connectivity options. The five year warranty will not only attract people that may have a longer upgrade lifecycle ad want peace of mind. A long warranty means a manufacturer is confident in their product’s staying power and these days anything longer than three years of coverage is hard to come by.

Overclocking on the Sabertooth was close to flawless. Clicking OC Tuner in the BIOS gave a 1000Mhz overclock and even allowed for a significant memory speed increase as well - a novice overclocker’s dream. For manual overclocking, achieving stability at 5Ghz was painless and the system was rock solid over several weeks of extensive use. We did have a minor instability issue with OC Tuner and a 2500K but solving that was as simple as manually adjusting the offset.

Our multi GPU results were right up there with NF200-equipped Sandy Bridge boards and there is plenty of space between slots for even the largest of GPUs. We saw gains of up to 92% in most situations which really shows that P67 can stand against X58 in most dual GPU environments.

At the time of this review the Sabertooth is priced around $220 which makes it a few dollars more than several P67 boards that fall in the $190 to $200 range. To see what you get for that extra $30, let’s quickly compare the Sabertooth to another ASUS board, the P8P67 Pro. One major difference between the two boards is 8+2 phase power on the Sabertooth vs. 12+2 phase power on the Pro. After testing both boards, the extra phases are a non-issue and in the end the Sabertooth may even have the advantage in power delivery due to the TUF VRM components. However, overclocking was nearly identical.

Other differences in features between the two boards all go to the Sabertooth. The Sabertooth has Thermal Radar for extensive temperature monitoring, TUF Armor for a rugged look and heat ducting plus two extra years of warranty. If these items are worth the extra $30 to you then the Sabertooth is definitely the way to go.

Pros

- Attractive board, excellent layout
- Auto overclocking takes a click of a button and provides a 1000Mhz boost
- Manual overclocking was very easy
- High quality TUF components
- 5 year warranty
- Top of the line NIC with Intel Gigabit LAN controller
- 4 USB 3.0 ports and 4 SATA6G ports
- Ai Tuner II is a very handy tool
- Thermal Radar keeps you aware of every temperature imaginable
- Attractive and user-friendly UEFI BIOS


Cons

- Voltage read points and power / reset buttons would be a nice addition
- 50mm fan and USB 3.0 bracket could be included in the accessory bundle
- Had some stability issues with OC Tuner and a 2500K

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