ASUS P8P67 blown - any reason to upgrade?

[blacktankofhopelessness]

See my sig for the rig I just built a little over two weeks ago. It died on me all of a sudden and it seems it was the mobo that somehow gave up. I only did a moderate overclock of 4.0 Ghz with CPU voltage at 1.225, CPU PLL at 1.8, memory at 1.5 and everything else on auto. I was stable, no crashes or anything, but my mobo was anything but.

I've been offered another board just like it to replace the piece of junk I got last time, but I'm wondering if I should go for the same one or if there is any point in looking at other similar and/or slightly higher priced products?

Two questions are of primary concern here:

1) If I was to get another GTX460 some day to boost my graphics performance - could the P8P67 handle it? It doesn't support SLI but there is another PCIe slot that only handles x4 mode.

2)Will other boards provide better stability when overclocking?

I mean, since bit-tech managed to get the P8P67 and an i5-2500K to 4.9 Ghz I don't see any obvious reason to go with another board because of OC concerns.

Are there significant advantages (price, performance or both) with going with an additional GTX460 in the not too distant future rather than a better single-card setup?

What do you think?

 

[dma0991]

I'm pretty sure that the motherboard was slightly faulty and it should handle 4GHz without much issue. You can't compare with reviews however because they would only test it for the duration of the review and not for a stable 24/7 overclock. If you're given the option to get a better board then get it if you're interested in a slightly more robust power delivery and x8x8 PCIE.

1. It is not the matter than the motherboard could handle, the x4 lane should not be that big of a problem or performance degradation although it is not as ideal as having a x8x8 motherboard. A better PSU would be more important in this matter and your 650W Corsair should handle the GTX460 SLI just fine.
2. Definitely but not entirely necessary if your aim is only a minor 4GHz overclock on SB.

The GTX700 series would definitely offer better performance/watt than the previous generation if you could wait till next year I suppose.

 

[blacktankofhopelessness]

I'm pretty sure that the motherboard was slightly faulty and it should handle 4GHz without much issue. You can't compare with reviews however because they would only test it for the duration of the review and not for a stable 24/7 overclock. If you're given the option to get a better board then get it if you're interested in a slightly more robust power delivery and x8x8 PCIE.

1. It is not the matter than the motherboard could handle, the x4 lane should not be that big of a problem or performance degradation although it is not as ideal as having a x8x8 motherboard. A better PSU would be more important in this matter and your 650W Corsair should handle the GTX460 SLI just fine.
2. Definitely but not entirely necessary if your aim is only a minor 4GHz overclock on SB.

The GTX700 series would definitely offer better performance/watt than the previous generation if you could wait till next year I suppose.

Thanks for the input. I'm looking at the P8P67 Pro as an upgrade. I've always been very happy with ASUS products. Well, apart from this latest piece of course. The P8P67 Pro is also generally better priced than their competitors' comparative products in the shop where I buy my hardware from: Webhallen

 

[dma0991]

Thanks for the input. I'm looking at the P8P67 Pro as an upgrade. I've always been very happy with ASUS products. Well, apart from this latest piece of course. The P8P67 Pro is also generally better priced than their competitors' comparative products in the shop where I buy my hardware from: Webhallen

I made a build for a friend with the P8P67 Pro when SB first came out. It is quite a solid board but no overclocking was done because he bought the Core i7 2600 instead. A shame really for a board like that to not be overclocked. The Pro is good enough and the Deluxe version is just extra extravagance with the front panel USB 3.0.

If you could find a Z68 board for a similar price then that would be a lot better as you could take advantage of Intel SRT which the P67 chipset does not support. The ability to use the onboard IGP comes in handy too sometimes. The P8P67 Pro is good enough though if you find such features unnecessary.

 

[samboy]

I've had a base level P8P67 board running @4.5GHZ since January; with a B3 swap out in April and never had any issues.

I actually didn't want the "pro" version due to the e-Stata being driven by a lousy JMB36X Sata controller chip that is a 5+ year old design and limited to around 110MB/s shared between the two ports it offers. No idea why Asus didn't use something better than this.......... I stuck a Marvel based e-Stata card into the base P8P67 that can drive 500MB/s to its two ports.

That said, if you can return and purchase another MB I would second the Z68 recommendation. I wouldn't lose too much sleep if you have to RMA the P8P67 (as long as ASUS hasn't had a bad manufacturing run or something!)

 

[samboy]

I should have added that I've been running with a GTX460 1GB since March as well in the base level P8P67 board.

 

[R4in]

The GTX700 series would definitely offer better performance/watt than the previous generation if you could wait till next year I suppose.

Perhaps you mean 2 years for the GTX700 series, unless you mean AMD 7000 series and not nVidia

 

[blacktankofhopelessness]

Ok. Not too bothered about the extra features a Z68 board offers. But if the store offers me a good deal to make up for the faulty mobo (and that they initially messed up my order to boot) I will take it.

Thanks for the feedback!