Help me choose a P67 motherboard

[billythewiz]

I've decided to get a 3XS Edge OC Bundle and I need to choose a board from these :-

Asus P8P67 Pro - heard lots of bad things

Asus Sabertooth - Reviews seem OK, I like the look but suspect it's gimmicky and worry that it might have similar problems to the Pro

Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD4 - Reviews seem to be OK but lack lustre and it seems to be missing uEFI, which I'd quite like.

Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD5 - What does the extra £60 buy me over the UD4 ? Some extra USB3 and SATA6 ports that I wont use ?

I'm leaning towards the UD4 and hoping the a bios upgrade will UEFIfy it. But I'm wondering whether the Sabertooth would be a better option.

I'm probably going to take the i5 with the Matterhorn cooler and 8GB Ram. I'll use all this to upgrade my existing system (on the left) with a view to maybe getting a second 460 and an SSD later on.

Tell me if I'm being silly.

[ik9000]

interesting - I'd have gone for the Asus. what bad things have you heard about it?

[billythewiz]

The reviews are all pretty good but there are a fair few threads on other forums. Mostly people having issues flashing the BIOS.

Maybe (bleeding edge) UEFI isn't such a great idea.

[DennisMenace]

I'd go for Gigabyte for the 3 year warranty (most are 2 year) and good customer service/RMA. I usually opt for Intel/Gigabyte/WD which are worth the extra outlay IMHO.

As you noted, the main drawback is lack of UEFI, but how often do you change BIOS settings? (And are old BIOSes that hard to navigate with arrow keys?) If you're changing your overclock daily, maybe this is a consideration, otherwise I'd go for a reliable UD4 over fancy features that you never use.

[ik9000]

got to admit I prefer the old style BIOS. UEFI does not excite me one bit.

[billythewiz]

got to admit I prefer the old style BIOS. UEFI does not excite me one bit.

The exciting part of UEFI is the faster boot time e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CigNo06GZSs.

The BIOS we use today is basically 1980s technology !!

[ik9000]

my boot time is just fine in terms of the BIOS part of it. It's the loading of DOS + windows that takes the time. Will UEFI really improve that? I'll watch the clip when I get chance - at work at mo so no youtube access.