Asrock Z68 Extreme4 or Asus P8P67 PRO

Pete.Dakota · 14 Jun 2011 at 14:57

I'm a bit stuck between either choosing the Asrock Z68 or the Asus P67. I don't really need the extra benefit of Z68 if it's only offering over P67 is onboard graphics. But it's a bit cheaper and seems like a great board! Thoughts?

Aricin · 14 Jun 2011 at 15:35

go with the Asrock, lots of features and excellent reviews.

example: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/asrock-z68-extreme4-asus-p8z68-v-pro-gigabyte-z68x-ud3h-b3,review-32188.html

stulid · 14 Jun 2011 at 15:37

Go with the Asrock, thats what I would do..

oh wait, I did!!!

BubbySoup · 14 Jun 2011 at 15:44

Yep, definitely the Asrock. Great board and a steal at its current price.

chippy08 · 14 Jun 2011 at 15:53

Go with the Asrock like a lot of us already have.

jax_5 · 14 Jun 2011 at 23:42

Wouldn't you rather go with the Asus Z68 board over the P67 if you want Asus?

I went for the Asrock as well

Pete.Dakota · 15 Jun 2011 at 01:02

jax_5 said:
Wouldn't you rather go with the Asus Z68 board over the P67 if you want Asus?

I went for the Asrock as well

I don't know, would I?

noobybooby · 15 Jun 2011 at 01:20

chippy08 said:
Go with the Asrock like a lot of us already have.

jbloggs · 15 Jun 2011 at 10:59

You will be pleased with either board, as already mentioned the Asrock is very good value, but I went for the Asus P8P67 Pro, because at the time I bought it was on OcUK special offer @ £139 and so cheaper than the Asrock, and neither did I require the extra features of Z68...so I would just go for the cheaper.

Crezzlin · 15 Jun 2011 at 20:45

I have both boards, the ASrock is much better, and very eay to overclock.. couldnt get the Asus to overclock my Ram but the Asrock had no problem very stable

also have it setup with trifire no problems..

Geekazoid · 20 Jun 2011 at 22:20

Does this asrock board have dedicate 2 16x pci lanes for CF OR SLI???

Surveyor · 20 Jun 2011 at 22:27

Geekazoid said:
Does this asrock board have dedicate 2 16x pci lanes for CF OR SLI???

The board has something called "Integrated PLX PEX8608 chip onboard to offer sufficient PCI-E lanes".

"ASRock Z68 motherboard break the limitation and offer sufficient PCI-E lanes solution by embedding PLX PEX8608 chip onboard. Users can simply enjoy all PCI-E devices".

Z68 Extreme4

Edit

Just had a look at the manual.

1 card is x16
2 cards are x8 and x8
3 cards are x8, x8 and x4

Not that you'd notice any difference between x8 and x16.

The only boards offering more PCI-E lanes are those with NF200 chips and they cost ~£300.

ToxicTBag · 20 Jun 2011 at 23:10

Must admit i was in 2 minds between the asrock and asus finally decided on the asrock extreme

Geekazoid · 21 Jun 2011 at 00:24

The board has something called "Integrated PLX PEX8608 chip onboard to offer sufficient PCI-E lanes".

"ASRock Z68 motherboard break the limitation and offer sufficient PCI-E lanes solution by embedding PLX PEX8608 chip onboard. Users can simply enjoy all PCI-E devices".

That's just jargon to me so basically an 8x 8x with CF and SLI

Surveyor · 21 Jun 2011 at 00:42

Geekazoid said:
That's just jargon to me so basically an 8x 8x with CF and SLI

Yes.

Or x8, x8 and x4 with 3 cards.

But as I say there's no noticeable difference between x8 and x16.

Even x4 seems to run OK:

GTX 480 SLI PCIe Bandwidth Perf. - x16/x16 vs. x4/x4

Crezzlin · 21 Jun 2011 at 03:25

I found a problem running at 8x8x4x @ 5760x1200 the system will benchmark good but in game play you get a lag from mouse to screen and you can see it a lot.. but as soon as you disable the 4x card back to crossfire the lag has gone allso my g15 keyboard shows that card 1 & 2 run between say 60/90% usage where as the 3rd card always hits 100% so i guess this is what slows it down also drops the fps in some games.. i could be wrong and this is a driver problem but doesnt look like it.. also with this board you may need to disable legacy usb support in bios if your system is freezing on boot up screen with error 92.. the mouse is to blame for some reason but a lot of people have this problem.. anyway running crossfire @ 4.8ghz on a eyefinity setup the board is doing a good job

NathWraith · 21 Jun 2011 at 09:13

Go for the Asrock, proving to be a very popular Z68 board.

And we all now Z68>P67

kevpuk · 21 Jun 2011 at 10:47

The PLX chip is not really about SLI/Xfire....its purpose is to offer more PCIe lanes to the board overall, overcoming 'chipset limitation', meaning that if lots of slots are populated with cards (gfx, tv tuner, whatever..) the onboard controllers do not all start shutting off !
Some of the other Z68 boards (e.g. the Asus V-Pro) disable onboard controllers as slots fill up, as they take over the PCIe lanes that said controllers would be using.

chippy08 · 21 Jun 2011 at 12:00

The good thing with asus is they use intel nic.

Activ8 · 21 Jun 2011 at 12:13

I bought the Asus P8P67 Pro. When it arrived I opened it to inspect the board and noticed that the PCB was warped and that the build quality was not up to scratch. I sent the board back and ordered the Asrock P67 Extreme 6 Mobo which is everything the ASUS wishes it could be.

From the packaging to the build of the board I could not fault it, plus the reviews are pretty good too.

I'm pleased I swapped the ASUS for the Asrock.