We have told you about Asus’ design choices for the Sabertooth P67 and even gone into some detail about the mindset behind this and other products in the TUF line. However all of the best design choices and components in the world will not make a board perform. To get great performance takes a little more. In this half of our Sabertooth review we are going to look into that side of the product. Asus has always had a reputation for tinkering with their BIOSes (not always a good one though). So let’s start off there and see where it takes us.
Section IV Performance – GamingGaming as a test of motherboard performance is sort of a joke these days. The big player in the gaming arena is the GPU. Everyone but a few hardcore PR teams know this. However, it is important to run at least a few (one from each current DX version) to see if there are any issues with the combination of components on a motherboard. These are items like Audio lag, memory lag and of course problems with the PCIe lanes and signal traces. If there are issues in design, drivers or BIOS then you can have odd gaming performance. So without much more preamble let’s dive into the three games we currently use; Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 for DX9 FarCry 2 for DX10 and Battlefield Bad Company 2 for DX11.Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 DX9 -This is an excellent but short game that put you right into the action from the beginning and does not let up the pressure until the very end. The graphics are a little better; most notably the night and thermal imaging have been improved. The AI is still the typical COD “bar fight” style AI, with maybe a tad more finesse. All in all it is not a bad game to play and a decent one to use for testing. Our testing run starts at the bridge and ends after you clear the school in the first level of the game. Settings are shown below as are the performance numbers.
The Sabertooth P67 is no slouch when it comes to gaming. Our DX9 game shows that it can certain keep up with the best of them coming in with a 96FPS minimum frame rate. If you are running on a 60Hz screen this means that even with V-sync on you will have a VERY fluid game. On the 120 Hz monitors you are still going to get a great gaming experience.FarCry2 DX10 -Although not one of my favorite games this tedious game does have some good graphics. The large sandbox style of the game lends to mission based play. The only problem is that the AI is rather low grade. Still the more CPU power the more the bad guys try to do. Over all the game was a little bit of a disappointment to play, but still not a bad DX10 representation. Our testing run starts right after you get your first mission to clean out the safe-house and ends after the hostage rescue. Settings and performance numbers are shown below.Our DX10 game (FarCry2 ) is also easily run by the Sabertooh. You will not have as much success with V-sync here as your minimum frame rate is only 74. Still, at a minimum of 74 frames scrolling by every second you should not see any stuttering.Battlefield Bad Company2 DX11 –I have liked many of the Battlefield games. They usually tend to be fast paced and fun. With Battlefield Bad Company 2 you do get some of that, but there is something about the graphics and the movement that just does not sit right. The AI is a less sophisticated form of the bar fight AI, but it gets the job done. Still, the game is good for testing as it can put a strain on the components of the board. Out testing run is the entire first level, from beginning to end. Settings are shown below along with the raw numbers.For Bad Company 2 (our DX11 title) the Sabertooth does an excellent job of exceeding our performance expectations. There is little doubt that you can game on this board.Gaming wrap-up -The Sabertooth is marketed as a tuff and long last board. This usually equals workstation, heavy duty usage. It normally does not mean a great gaming board. However, with the Sabertooth you do get one. We saw very smooth game play online and off. The only problem we had was the audio. As an Audiophile I am very picky about my audio and the onboard CODEC just was not as good as it could have been.
