Asus SaberTooth P67 B3 review
6. Final words
The Asus Sabertooth P67 B3 is a great example of what engineers can do when pairing a very good chipset, high-quality components and the new uEFI bios.
First of all, its appearance is quite unique. The idea behind the completely shrouded motherboard is that it will keep heat coming off the components from heating up the rest of the motherboard. Although it seems like it might have some actual value, in reality, it's more about and for looks. In addition, you may find it hard to fit a large heatsink on your CPU since the uncovered nearby area may be limiting.
But besides looks the Sabertooth P67 is also using military-grade components such as alloy chokes, solid capacitors, and MOSFETs, ensuring smooth operation and longevity.
The UEFI. interpretation of on the BIOS is so much easier to use than a BIOS that it's. It's so easy to tune your hardware and profile settings and even to overclock.
The ASUS MemOK! button is another functional feature ASUS adds to the Sabertooth P67, helping to minimize the memory incompatibility boot problems. The DIGI+ VRM made overvolting a charm by eliminating the +/- error factor and thereby increasing component lifespan. Also, the control given to the user within Windows through the AI Suite II software is great.
Overclocking on the Sabertooth was easy . Clicking OC Tuner in the BIOS gave a great overclock and even allowed for a significant memory speed increase as well. For manual overclocking, achieving stability at 4.8GHz was painless and the system was rock solid over many hours of testing.
During our tests, the Asus Sabertooth P67 performed very well the overall feeling was great. When paired with a fast memory and an SSD and you got yourself a great PC platform.
Listing some welcome additions for the Sabertooth P67, we could say that there is not a Bluetooth 2.1 receiver, we would like to see some additional PCI-Express lanes for CrossfireX or SLI modes, since some lanes available on the P67Express chipset are taken up by the USB 3.0 ports and the third-party controllers. In addition, we would like to see Power and reset buttons on the board as well as a 50mm fan for even better cooling as well as a USB 3.0 bracket bundled with the board.
The Sabertooth is priced around €170~190 which makes it a few dollars more than several P67 boards. Considering the many extras, the Sabertooth may have the advantage in power delivery due to the TUF VRM components so it worth's the extra cash.
Positive
- Very good build quality
- Great looking motherboard
- Components stay really cool if you add the fan (not included)
- uEFI bios is great
- Easy overclocking with Intel i5-2500K series
- Tons of options to fine-tune overclocking
- No problems during operation
- Many SATA2/SATA3 ports
- Many USB3.0 ports
- 5 year warranty
- DIGI+ VRM 8+2 Enable digital precision voltage control
- MemOK! Increases memory compatibility for bootup
- Supports ATI CrossFireX dual and triple video card sets
- TUF Thermal Armor, Radar, and Military Grade Components
- CrossfireX OR SLI Configurations supported
- Good retail price
Negative
- Doesn't come with an 50mm fan and USB 3.0 bracket
- No power/reset buttons
- Only 1 PCI slot
- Due to the TUF Thermal Design some very good CPU coolers may not fit
- SATA6G/USB3 borrow from PCI-E link lanes
- No Bluetooth onboard