Drive and Audio Performance Results

Our drive and audio testing differs a bit from the rest of our testing, for several reasons. First of all, when it comes to drive performance comparison, differences between the P55 and P67 chipsets do leave the P55 platform with a distinct disadvantage, such that we have excluded those results from our reporting. And finally, with audio, we do not list any numbers except for those reported by the product we are testing in order to provide the most information possible, as each audio CODEC will behave quite differently, and each board does not employ the same CODEC. As such, there is no standard we can use other than the numbers themselves. You can always check our other motherboard reviews in order to make direct comparisons to audio performance.

We've tested each drive interface separately, in order to provide the most complete numbers possible. Employing HDTune Pro for all of the testing, we tested each drive outside of the OS environment, using a separate OS on a separate drive, although we do use drives with a fair amount of data on them to simulate performance in real-world situations.

HDTune Pro (SATA2)

We noticed a divergence from the rest of the numbers when testing drive performance, with our reference ECS P67 board coming out top here using our SATA2 test drive. Perhaps this is an effect of it being a B2 revision chipset, instead of the B3 revision we find on store shelves today.

HDTune Pro (SATA 6Gb/s)

SATA 6 Gb/s, on the other hand, proved to show the ASUS P8P67 PRO on top, as expected. ASUS really has done a good job with the P8P67 PRO, with it managing to pull a slightly higher result.

HDTune Pro (USB3.0)

USB 3.0 drive performance again put the P8P67 PRO on top, but because of the exact same controllers used between our P67-based boards, this performance was something wholly expected. We would have been concerned if this specific test provided different numbers, but the ASUS P8P67 PRO proved its worth yet again.

RightMark Audio Analyzer

ASUS really showed up to the RightMark Audio challenge, pulling no punches, and landing a hit every time. I'm a really impressed with the on-board audio, and the numbers above should tell you why. I'm really glad manufacturers are making HD-Audio possibilities basically a standard feature, as this really shows during just normal usage of the onboard audio. The ASUS P8P67 PRO's Realtek ALC892 proves itself as a worthy contender.