One of the best parts of this job is getting to watch technology progress from one generation to the next. Although fresh products aren’t always better than the ones they replace, the overall trend is a positive one. The new hotness tends to offer better performance, lower power consumption, and more integrated features than last year’s old and busted.
In the realm of build-your-own PCs, nowhere has the forward march of technology paid bigger dividends than among Mini-ITX systems. The industry’s relatively newfound focus on power-efficient performance is perfectly suited to the shoebox-sized systems built around the form factor. Potent CPUs and graphics cards are now readily available with the sort of tight power envelopes needed for claustrophobic Mini-ITX enclosures. Thanks to core-logic chipsets with expanding peripheral payloads and motherboard makers that are always finding new ways to add connectivity options, the limited expansion capacity of the midget mobo standard isn’t the impediment it once was.
At first glance, Asus’ P8H67-I Deluxe looks to be the most advanced Mini-ITX motherboard to date. Despite a footprint that’s smaller than 7″ x 7″, the Deluxe lives up to its name with a Sandy Bridge socket, a full-sized PCI Express x16 slot, built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, Asus’ slick UEFI replacement for the BIOS, and a whopping four USB 3.0 ports. That’s a lot to squeeze into such diminutive dimensions, but Asus manages to do a neat and tidy job.
The key to fitting everything on the board is Asus’ decision to use notebook-style SO-DIMM slots. These puppies are a little more than half the length of full-sized DIMM slots, saving precious real estate for auxiliary peripherals. Regardless of what Apple’s online store would have you believe, notebook memory is pretty cheap these days. You’ll pay just $70 for a Kingston dual-channel kit loaded with 8GB of DDR3-1333 SO-DIMMs. Desktop DIMMs with the same speed, timings, and capacity will actually cost you a few dollars more.
Obviously, clearances are a big concern when building a Mini-ITX system. Cases often have restrictions when it comes to the height of CPU heatsinks and the length and width of discrete graphics cards.
On the Deluxe, you also need to worry about the socket’s close proximity to the PCI Express x16 slot, which will prevent some CPU coolers from working alongside expansion cards. That’s really the board’s only potential pitfall on the clearance front. All of the surface-mounted components keep a low profile and should stay out of the way.
A generous six-phase power array graces the Deluxe: three are dedicated to the CPU core, plus one each to its uncore component, integrated GPU, and the DRAM slots. Asus covers the power regulation circuitry with a low-slung heatsink that looks like it’s been poured onto the board. This finned piece of metal also covers the H67 Express platform hub, and I’m a little leery about the chipset getting warmed when heavy CPU loads spool up the VRMs. There don’t appear to be heatpipes involved, so you can probably isolate the chipset’s heatsink with a few minutes of Dremel work. Unless you’re running loads of I/O through the PCH or a particularly power-hungry CPU (keep in mind that the H67 doesn’t allow CPU multiplier adjustments for easy overclocking), I doubt such surgery will be required.
To the left of the heatsink’s tallest point sit four Serial ATA ports that are color-coded by speed. The white ones are 6Gbps, while the blues run at half that speed. If you’re thinking of building a small-form-factor storage server, note that Zotac’s comparable H67-ITX takes advantage of all six of the H67’s SATA ports. Asus taps one more, but sends it to an eSATA connector in the rear cluster.
Among other things, the rear cluster plays host to the antenna connectors for the integrated Atheros 802.11n Wi-Fi card. The Mini PCIe slot that hosts the card doesn’t have clearance for anything longer. Just below it sits a front-panel connector for one of the two NEC USB 3.0 controllers that populate the board.
The second controller feeds a pair of SuperSpeed ports in the main cluster. In addition to a trio of video outputs for Sandy Bridge’s integrated graphics, you also get a PS/2 throwback and a sadly unpowered eSATA connector. The purple nurple at the top of the red USB ports is a Bluetooth 3.0 radio, which seems particularly appropriate for a motherboard likely to be paired with wireless peripherals sitting across the room on the couch.
Audio is important for home-theater PCs, and the Deluxe could do better in this regard. Like everyone else, Asus is using a Realtek ALC892 audio codec. Pristine digital audio can be passed to a compatible receiver or speakers via the S/PDIF or HDMI outputs, but that’ll only deliver surround sound with pre-encoded content like movies—not games. If you have a pair of stereo speakers or headphones, the Deluxe at least offers virtualization via DTS Surround Sensation.
Firmware and software
At the Computex trade show a few weeks ago, I was told that Asus had about 100 R&D engineers working on its UEFI replacement for the BIOS. Boy does it show. Since debuting with 6-series motherboards for Sandy Bridge CPUs, Asus’ UEFI implementation has consistently outclassed not only competing takes on the new firmware technology, but also attempts to drag old-school BIOSes into the next generation.
The appeal of Asus’ UEFI is twofold. There’s the eye candy, of course. UEFI allows for graphical user interfaces that are much nicer to look at than the two-tone, text-only screens of a typical BIOS. Nowhere is UEFI’s interface potential better illustrated than in the EZ Mode screen, which provides a handful of very high-level performance tweaking options with a side of system monitoring and the ability to drag-and-drop devices to arrange the boot priority.
Serious enthusiasts will want to skip EZ Mode and dip into the UEFI’s advanced display, which looks like a prettied up version of Asus’ old BIOS interface. While it’s tempting to ding the company for not going wild with the GUI intended for enthusiasts, I appreciate having a familiar interface and organization of elements. The advanced look still feels very next-gen thanks to slick skinning, and it’s quick to navigate with the mouse—wheel and all.
Mouse input is another big feature of UEFI implementations, and Asus’ is the best by far. The UEFI is incredibly responsive, and unlike some other UEFI implementations we’ve used, it exhibits no cursor flickering or laggy input.
With the H67 Express chipset denied the ability to fiddle with Sandy Bridge multipliers, there isn’t all that much to do in the UEFI. One can overclock the IGP and base clock, of course, and there’s a mess of voltages to tweak. Don’t forget about the fan speed controls, which are among the best in the business.
I call out motherboards for poor fan speed controls with regularity, so it’s only fair that I give props for doing things right… or at least better. The Deluxe allows users to change the upper and lower temperature limits for the CPU fan and a peak threshold for the system fan. Control over the minimum and maximum speed of both fans is also provided. I’d like to see a little more on this front, especially when it comes to defining how aggressively the fans respond to changes in temperatures. To Asus’ credit, there’s an app for that.
FAN Xpert is included with Asus’ AI Suite of Windows utilities, and it provides additional control over the behavior of fans connected to the motherboard’s headers. Using the app, one can set an intermediate point between each fan’s high and low limits. I’d like a few more points to work with, but this is a good start, and Asus has shown a definite desire to continue improving the fan controls available on its boards. For models like the P8H67-I Deluxe, which seems ripe for the living room, robust fan speed controls are a must.
Overclocking options aren’t as important for this class of motherboard, but they’re offered in AI Suite’s TurboV EVO component. This auto-tuner will take care of boosting clocks on Sandy Bridge’s integrated GPU, but don’t expect much. The Sandy Bridge IGP has issues that can’t be fixed by jacking the clock speed alone. If you want a real graphics upgrade, the Deluxe has a PCI Express x16 slot that will readily accept a proper graphics card.
Although Asus’ Windows software is really rather good, it’s cheapened by an advertisement for Norton Internet Security 2011. This bright yellow screen is the first thing that pops up whenever you load up the menu on the driver CD, and I hope Symantec paid handsomely for the billboard. Don’t get your hopes up for a full version of Norton’s latest software, either; it’s just a 60-day trial. The installer keeps that little detail to itself until Norton has finished installing. Yeah, that’s special.
Digging into the details
If you’re already familiar with our test methods and don’t need a detailed rundown of the P8H67-I Deluxe’s specifications and UEFI options, feel free to skip ahead to the performance results.
Clock speeds | Base: 80-300MHz in 0.1MHz steps IGP: 1100-3000MHz in 50MHz steps DRAM: 800-2400MHz in 266MHz steps |
Multipliers | NA |
Voltages | CPU: -0.315-+0.635V in 0.005V steps IGP: -0.315-+0.635V in 0.005V steps CPU PLL: 1.8, 1.9V DRAM: 1.185-2.135V in 0.005V steps PCH: 0.735-1.685V in 0.005V steps CCIO: 0.735-1.685V in 0.005V steps |
Fan control |
CPU upper temp: 20-75°C in 1°C steps CPU lower temp: 20-75°C in 1°C steps CPU max duty cycle: 20-100% in 1% steps CPU min duty cycle: 0-100% in 1% steps System upper temp: 40-90°C in 1°C steps System max duty cycle: 60-100% in 1% steps System max duty cycle: 60-100% in 1% steps |
That’s a lotta voltage control for a board that really isn’t meant for overclocking. The UEFI does, however, let you undervolt the CPU and IGP to reduce power consumption.
CPU power | 3+1+1+1 |
DIMM slots | 2 DDR3-1333 SO-DIMM |
Expansion slots | 1 PCIe x16 |
Storage I/O | 2 6Gbps SATA RAID 2 3Gbps SATA RAID |
Audio | 8-channel HD via Realtek ALC892 |
Ports |
1 PS/2 keyboard/keyboard 1 VGA 1 DVI 1 HDMI 1 eSATA 2 USB 3.0 w/ 2 headers via NEC 2 x D720200F1 4 USB 2.0 w/ 2 headers 1 RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet via Realtek RTL8111E 1 analog front out 1 optical S/PDIF output |
The spec sheet really isn’t that impressive until you realize that Asus packs everything onto a Mini-ITX board.
Our testing methods
Zotac’s Mini-ITX H67-ITX is the P8H67-I Deluxe’s most comparable rival, and the showdown between them will be the focus of our performance testing. To add a little intrigue, I’ve also included results from our Z68 motherboard round-up. Keeping up with another midget is one thing, but the real test of the Deluxe’s mettle will be whether it can compete with full-sized desktop boards.
Note that we used 4GB of memory in the Deluxe but 8GB in the other systems. Alas, I don’t have a pair of 4GB SO-DIMMs in the Benchmarking Sweatshop. Nothing in our test suite should benefit from having more than 4GB of system memory, though.
With few exceptions, all tests were run at least three times, and we reported the median of the scores produced.
Processor | Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4GHz | ||||||
Motherboard |
Asus P8H67-I Deluxe |
Zotac H67-ITX | Asus P8P67 PRO | Asus Sabertooth P67 | Asus P8Z68-V PRO |
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 |
MSI Z68A-GD80 |
Bios revision | 0502 | 1106 | 1502 | 1502 | 8801 | F2d | E7672IMS V17.0B17 |
Platform hub | Intel H67 Express |
Intel H67 Express |
Intel P67 Express | Intel P67 Express | Intel Z68 Express |
Intel Z68 Express |
Intel Z68 Express |
Chipset drivers | Chipset: 9.2.0.1025 RST: 10.1 |
Chipset: 9.2.0.1025 RST: 10.1 |
Chipset: 9.2.0.1025 RST: 10.1 |
Chipset: 9.2.0.1025 RST: 10.1 |
Chipset: 9.2.0.1025 RST: 10.5 |
Chipset: 9.2.0.1025 RST: 10.5 |
Chipset: 9.2.0.1025 RST: 10.5 |
Memory size | 4GB (2 DIMMs) | 8GB (2 DIMMs) | 8GB (2 DIMMs) | 8GB (2 DIMMs) | 8GB (2 DIMMs) | 8GB (2 DIMMs) | 8GB (2 DIMMs) |
Memory type |
Samsung DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz |
Corsair Vengeance DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz | Corsair Vengeance DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz | Corsair Vengeance DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz | Corsair Vengeance DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz | Corsair Vengeance DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz | Corsair Vengeance DDR3 SDRAM at 1333MHz |
Memory timings | 9-9-9-24-1T |
9-9-9-24-1T |
9-9-9-24-1T |
9-9-9-24-1T | 9-9-9-24-1T | 9-9-9-24-1T | 9-9-9-24-1T |
Audio | Realtek ALC892 with 2.59 drivers | Realtek ALC892 with 2.59 drivers | Realtek ALC892 with 2.59 drivers | Realtek ALC892 with 2.59 drivers | Realtek ALC892 with 2.59 drivers | Realtek ALC892 with 2.59 drivers | Realtek ALC892 with 2.59 drivers |
Graphics | Asus EAH5870 1GB with Catalyst 11.3 drivers | ||||||
Hard drive | Raptor WD1500ADFD 150GB | ||||||
Power Supply | PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750W | ||||||
OS | Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64 |
We’d like to thank Asus, Corsair, and Western Digital for helping to outfit our test rigs with some of the finest hardware available. Thanks to each of the motherboard makers for supplying their boards, too, and to Intel for providing the CPU.
We used the following versions of our test applications:
- TrueCrypt 7.0a
- x264 4.0
- 7-Zip 4.65
- Metro: 2033
- Stream 5.8 64-bit
- CPU-Z 1.41
- HD Tach 3.01
- HD Tune 4.01
- NTttcp
- RightMark Audio Analyzer 6.2.3
The test systems’ Windows desktop was set at 1280×1024 in 32-bit color at a 60Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.
All the tests and methods we employed are publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.
Memory performance
We’ll kick things off with a look at memory subsystem performance. Will the P8H67-I Deluxe’s SO-DIMM slots slow it down?
Nope. The notebook memory modules we used in the Deluxe run at the same frequency and timings as our desktop DIMMs. With the Core i7-2600K’s memory controller shared between all the motherboards, there are no gaps of note to report.
While all our testing was conducted with a discrete graphics card installed, activating the Sandy Bridge IGP doesn’t have much of an impact on memory subsystem performance.
Application performance
The Radeon HD 5870 in our test systems is quite a bit faster than the Sandy Bridge IGP in games, though. The Mini-ITX boards are right in the thick of things, but you might be wondering why the Z68 models are so much slower. Lucid’s Virtu software, which helps the Z68 Express work its magic, has a couple of modes with different levels of graphics performance. The default configuration we used for testing offers error-free QuickSync support but doesn’t take advantage of game-specific optimizations built into the Radeon’s graphics driver.
Incidentally, Virtu does work with the H67 Express chipset. The software must be licensed by the motherboard maker, though, and neither Asus nor Zotac support it on their Mini-ITX boards. It would be nice if Lucid sold Virtu to end users directly, but the company seems more interested in licensing it to motherboard makers for use on select models.
Another thing I should note is that the Asus P67 and Z68 boards let the Turbo multiplier climb to 38X with four-core loads. The Core i7-2600K’s 38X multiplier is supposed to be reserved for when only one core is active, while 35X is the limit when all four cores are lit up. Oddly, this multiplier boost only happens if you set the memory multiplier manually. Since we did, the Sabertooth P67, P8P67 PRO, and P8Z68-V PRO all have a bit of an advantage in our performance tests.
That edge is apparent through our application tests. Among boards running the CPU at the same speed, the P8H67-I Deluxe is very competitive.
Power consumption
We measured system power consumption, sans monitor and speakers, at the wall outlet using a Watts Up Pro power meter. Readings were taken at idle and under a load consisting of a Cinebench 11.5 render alongside the rthdribl HDR lighting demo. We tested with Windows 7’s High Performance and Balanced power plans.
All the boards ship with power-saving features that can be enabled via the BIOS or Windows software. We tested each with these features enabled and disabled. The results with parentheses (which contain the name of each mobo maker’s power-saving mojo) refer to the configurations optimized for energy efficiency.
Although the P8H67-I Deluxe gobbles up five more watts at idle than its Zotac counterpart, the Asus consumes 13W less under load. Keep in mind that the Deluxe has to power a few more integrated peripherals—a Bluetooth module and a second USB 3.0 controller—than the H67-ITX.
As the results under load attest, it’s absolutely worth flipping the EPU switch in the Deluxe’s UEFI. Doing so will only save about a watt at idle, but it cut our system’s socket draw under load by nearly 7% without throttling the CPU.
Motherboard peripheral performance
Our last stop on the testing front is the wonderful world of onboard peripherals.
HD Tach USB 3.0 performance | ||||
Read burst speed (MB/s) |
Average read speed (MB/s) |
Average write speed (MB/s) |
CPU utilization (%) |
|
Asus P8P67 PRO | 220.9 | 176.6 | 57.9 | 2.0 |
Asus Sabertooth P67 | 221.2 | 177.0 | 58.3 | 2.0 |
Asus P8Z68-V PRO |
198.0 | 173.0 | 61.6 | 2.0 |
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 |
167.3 | 166.1 | 62.9 | 3.0 |
MSI Z68A-GD80 |
174.1 | 161.5 | 55.1 | 2.0 |
Zotac H67-ITX |
195.9 |
156.1 |
53.8 |
2.0 |
Asus P8H67-I Deluxe |
169.6 |
163.1 |
55.5 |
2.0 |
The Deluxe’s USB 3.0 burst speeds aren’t as quick as some of the other boards. However, its sustained transfer rates are competitive with the desktop models and a little quicker than Zotac’s Mini-ITX offering.
HD Tach USB 2.0 performance | ||||
Read burst speed (MB/s) |
Average read speed (MB/s) |
Average write speed (MB/s) |
CPU utilization (%) |
|
Asus P8P67 PRO | 35.1 | 35.0 | 25.2 | 2.0 |
Asus Sabertooth P67 | 35.1 | 35.0 | 25.2 | 2.0 |
Asus P8Z68-V PRO |
36.4 | 34.2 | 24.1 | 2.0 |
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 |
37.5 | 34.8 | 24.8 | 2.0 |
MSI Z68A-GD80 |
36.3 | 34.9 | 23.3 | 1.0 |
Zotac H67-ITX |
36.2 |
35.2 |
22.9 |
3.0 |
Asus P8H67-I Deluxe |
36.4 |
34.0 |
24.2 |
1.0 |
Measuring USB 2.0 performance is sort of like lining up a bunch of minivans for a drag race. One may emerge the winner, but they all lose.
HD Tune Serial ATA performance – VelociRaptor | ||||||
Read | Write | |||||
Burst (MB/s) | Average (MB/s) | Random 4KB (ms) | Burst (MB/s) | Average (MB/s) | Random 4KB (ms) | |
Asus P8P67 PRO | 292.1 | 129.9 | 7.0 | 292.3 | 125.9 | 2.7 |
Asus P8P67 PRO (Marvell) | 235.6 | 129.9 | 7.2 | 238.9 | 114.8 | 2.6 |
Asus Sabertooth P67 | 294.2 | 129.9 | 7.0 | 294.1 | 125.8 | 2.7 |
Asus Sabertooth P67 (Marvell) | 235.4 | 129.9 | 7.2 |
234.4 | 127.2 | 2.7 |
Asus P8Z68-V PRO |
288.3 | 129.6 | 7.2 | 280.1 | 122.9 | 2.7 |
Asus P8Z68-V PRO (Marvell) |
203.3 | 129.7 | 7.2 | 203.9 | 123.3 | 2.6 |
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 |
276.0 | 129.6 | 7.2 | 284.0 | 123.8 | 2.7 |
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 (GSATA) |
177.4 | 129.8 | 7.2 | 178.8 | 121.7 | 2.5 |
MSI Z68A-GD80 |
234.7 | 129.8 | 7.2 | 264.3 | 123.6 | 2.6 |
MSI Z68A-GD80 (Marvell) |
195.0 | 129.0 | 7.2 | 197.5 | 85.5 | 2.6 |
Zotac H67-ITX |
225.8 |
129.4 |
7.2 |
233.4 |
123.7 |
2.6 |
Asus P8H67-I Deluxe |
264.3 |
129.5 |
7.2 |
262.0 |
124.0 |
2.6 |
While it isn’t quite as fast as the quickest desktop boards in our first round of SATA performance tests, the P8H67-I Deluxe is barely off the pace and still a step ahead of the H67-ITX. Of course, if you’re really interested in disk performance, you’ll want to know what happens when we plug in an SSD.
HD Tune Serial ATA performance – Vertex 3 | ||||||
Read | Write | |||||
Burst (MB/s) | Average (MB/s) | Random 4KB (ms) | Burst (MB/s) | Average (MB/s) | Random 4KB (ms) | |
Asus P8P67 PRO | 387.8 | 383.1 | 0.05 | 348.1 | 279.6 | 0.06 |
Asus P8P67 PRO (Marvell) | 263.0 | 261.3 | 0.07 | 241.8 | 130.6 | 0.09 |
Asus Sabertooth P67 | 388.7 | 383.7 | 0.07 | 346.4 | 278.5 | 0.07 |
Asus Sabertooth P67 (Marvell) | 261.3 | 258.8 | 0.08 | 238.1 | 167.9 | 0.10 |
Asus P8Z68-V PRO |
381.3 | 375.0 | 0.06 | 340.3 | 252.0 | 0.06 |
Asus P8Z68-V PRO (Marvell) |
232.2 | 243.5 | 0.09 | 210.5 | 152.5 | 0.11 |
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 |
383.9 | 378.5 | 0.06 | 325.5 | 210.3 | 0.06 |
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 (GSATA) |
193.9 | 194.5 | 0.06 | 175.2 | 136.5 | 0.08 |
MSI Z68A-GD80 |
367.2 | 362.1 | 0.06 | 321.9 | 234.1 | 0.07 |
MSI Z68A-GD80 (Marvell) |
208.4 | 213.5 | 0.11 | 200.8 | 97.9 | 0.14 |
Zotac H67-ITX |
378.7 |
371.5 |
0.06 |
334.5 |
236.9 |
0.07 |
Asus P8H67-I Deluxe |
381.0 |
376.3 |
0.07 |
324.2 |
246.3 |
0.07 |
The Deluxe turns in another strong showing. Once more, it offers a few more MB/s than Zotac’s Mini-ITX spin on the H67 Express.
NTttcp Ethernet performance | ||
Throughput (Mbps) | CPU utilization (%) | |
Asus P8P67 PRO | 934.6 | 1.8 |
Asus Sabertooth P67 | 938.3 | 1.8 |
Asus P8Z68-V PRO |
940.6 | 1.9 |
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 |
944.5 | 3.9 |
MSI Z68A-GD80 (1) |
943.9 | 3.7 |
MSI Z68A-GD80 (2) |
937.1 | 3.4 |
Zotac H67-ITX |
934.0 |
4.1 |
Asus P8H67-I Deluxe |
946.1 |
3.4 |
On a number of its ATX boards, Asus has been using an Intel PHY chip to tap the Gigabit Ethernet controller buried within 6-series chipsets. A standalone Realtek controller is cheaper to implement, and that’s what you’ll find on the Deluxe. The Realtek chip offers the highest throughput of the bunch without sacrificing more than a couple of percentage points of CPU utilization.
RightMark Audio Analyzer audio quality | |||||||||
Frequency response | Noise level | Dynamic range | THD | THD + Noise | IMD + Noise | Stereo Crosstalk | IMD at 10kHz | Overall score | |
Asus P8P67 PRO | 5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 |
Asus Sabertooth P67 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 |
Asus P8Z68-V PRO |
5 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 |
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 |
5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
MSI Z68A-GD80 |
5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 |
Zotac H67-ITX |
5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 |
Asus P8H67-I Deluxe |
5 |
4 |
4 |
4 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
4 |
4 |
Although Asus says it’s using more capacitors than its competitors to improve audio output quality, RMAA’s “loopback” test of 24-bit, 192kHz audio piped from the analog front speaker output to the line input doesn’t reveal any tangible benefits. Anyone seeking the best possible audio quality should skip the analog outs and use the S/PDIF or HDMI ports—or forgo a discrete graphics card and pop a sound card into the board’s x16 slot.
Conclusions
The P8H67-I Deluxe manages to squeeze more features into a Mini-ITX form factor than an awful lot of full-sized ATX mobos spread across a much larger surface area. As far as I can tell, the only sacrifices Asus has made are dropping a couple of internal SATA ports and swapping traditional DIMM slots for notebook-style SO-DIMMs. Neither decision really taints the board; SO-DIMMs are even cheaper than desktop equivalents, and four SATA ports should be plenty for the sort of Mini-ITX system one might want to pair with a Sandy Bridge CPU.
Otherwise, the Deluxe gets just about everything right. The integrated Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are perfectly suited to Mini-ITX systems, and having rear and front-panel USB 3.0 connectivity is a treat. Then there’s Asus’ phenomenal UEFI, which offers a responsive interface and good fan speed controls for obsessive types (like me) looking to optimize their systems for silent operation. Over time, let’s hope the additional fan controls Asus provides via Windows software migrate into the UEFI.
June 2011
On the performance front, this tiny mobo has no trouble keeping up with full-sized desktop models based on Intel’s finest Sandy Bridge chipsets. If I could make just one change, I’d swap out the H67 for a Z68 platform hub just to get QuickSync transcoding acceleration alongside CPU multiplier control. Unless you’re going to overclock, though, the H67 is really quite capable.
At the moment, Newegg is selling the P8H67-I Deluxe for $160—$15 more than the H67-ITX. I wouldn’t hesitate to pay the premium. The integrated extras and superior UEFI easily justify the extra scratch, making the Deluxe the most compelling Mini-ITX platform we’ve tested for Sandy Bridge CPUs.