Final Thoughts

There really is just some raw power being offered for gamers when it comes to the new P67 platform, especially when you look at the i7 2600K with its default 3.4GHz clock which is a whole 100MHz higher than the stock 980X that carries with it a much larger price tag.

What we're really seeing here today, though, is that if you're a gamer, you don't need to pair that $500 US video card up with a CPU that costs twice as much, especially when you look at stock speeds. And while we haven't looked at overclocking in this instance on the new P67 platform, initial testing has shown some very strong promise and we'll be offering you all these results soon with both the 2500K and 2600K overclocked as high as possible on our Noctua coolers.

In the end, though, you can see why Intel reign supreme in the CPU / Chipset department. The Sandy Bridge platform on a whole is looking to be something quite special when you consider the P67 motherboard which offers some nice features, but more importantly the new CPU line-up that's coming which carries with it some unreal performance.

From a gaming perspective, if you're on an X58 platform the chances are you're probably better off waiting to see what Intel offer as its replacement, as moving to a P67 would probably be a bit more of a sideways step. With that said, though, if you're running something older like an i7 920 which carries a stock 2.66GHz clock, the 2600K Sandy Bridge setup while only being dual channel would yield some nice performance increases, especially if you don't overclock.

Intel has got a real weapon on their hands when it comes to the new Sandy Bridge platform and the good news is that you're able to as well. What we're again seeing is that with a budget, your system can be blistering fast. There's a good chance that with the money you save by going down the P67 route instead of the X58 one, you've got the extra money to buy a faster video card and in the end that will make your P67 based system faster than an X58 one when it comes to gaming.