ASUS Sabertooth P67 TUF review -
Introduction
Is it TUF enough ? ... (The Ultimate Force)
One of the most talked about topics of technology this year will be Sandy Bridge from Intel and very likely Bulldozer processors from AMD. Intel however started the year fresh, and launched a handful of these little Sandy bridge gems already. If you have not done so, please read our Core i5 2500K and Core i7 2600K review to get an update on the new processor architecture and the grand performance they deliver.
Of course with new processors also come new motherboard chipsets. For the consumer desktop side of the market you will basically see two Sandy Bridge based chipsets, H68 for the more generic, mainstream and HTPC usage, and then the P67 chipset as a performance part for the new motherboards series. Now each and every motherboard ODM jumped on P67 as well, it's just a heck of a lot of fun. And the ODMs had time to prep their P67 alright, most of the designs were already finished by late Summer 2010, everybody just needed to wait for Intel to release the processor that goes along with these motherboards.
That extra time was however not a bad thing, it gave more time to R&D departments to refine their designs and perhaps be a little more creative.
Today's tested product is by all means that, creative. A P67 motherboard from ASUS which comes with that new uEFI BIOS which has been discussed so much. It's the TUF Sabertooth P67 from ASUS, designed with a plastic shroud based on aerodynamics. The shield is part of what is called 'Thermal Armor' and it will be the primary trademark for this motherboard from here onwards, as whatever you might think of it, it's the signature of the motherboard.
Have a peek, and sure we know it, you either love or hate the design ... but give it a chance as the motherboard is just loaded with interesting options.
We review, test and benchmark the ASUS Sabertooth Z87 TUF series motherboard. The Z87 enthusiast themed mainboard is intended for Intel's 22nm Haswell processors on Socket LGA1150.
ASUS Sabertooth Z77 review
We review the ASUS Sabertooth Z77. Z77 is of course the Intel chipset predominantly released for Ivy Bridge based processors. This article is a full review of what you may expect from the TUF series Sabertooth Z77, have peek after which we'll dive right into the photo shoot.
ASUS Sabertooth Z77 preview
We preview the ASUS Sabertooth Z77 TUF. Z77 is of course the Intel chipset for the upcoming Ivy bridge based processors. These motherboards will have a slightly altered feature set and thus support them new upcoming apples from Intel. Good to know however is that Z77 also supports Sandy Bridge Socket 1155 based processors, that's right your favorite Core i5 2500K and Core i7 2600K will be perfect for these motherboards as well. The changes for Z77 primarily can be found in native USB 3.0 support as well as an upgrade towards PCie gen 3 PCIe x16 slots.
ASUS Sabertooth 990FX review
The TUF series (The Ultimate Force) Sabertooth 990FX is what we'll be placing under our microscope today, styled in the very same color as the earlier models with the ceramic design we see a lot of resemblances. But hey no tactical jacket anymore though. This AM3+ motherboard will be powered by a 10-phase Digi+ VRM. Socket AM3+ will support the Bulldozer based Zambezi FX Series Processors which launch later. The Sabertooth 990FX will come with four DDR3 DIMM slots supporting dual-channel memory up-to DDR3-1866 MHz straight from the EFI BIOS. What you'll also notice is that the TUF (The Ultimate Series) has four PCI-Express 2.0 x16 PCIe graphics card slots based on what you use the slots for of course. Interesting fact is that this motherboard series now is SLI compatible.